PCB Design With Altium Designer: Arduino Nano Project

Start your adventure into the realm of microcontrollers with this beginner's course. First, you will learn about the Altium Designer software and its various functionalities. Then, we explore the methods of creating the component symbol and adding pins based on the Atmega datasheet. After that, we explain how to make footprints and PCB layouts and link the footprint with the schematic library. Adding a new library file to your design and renaming the pins are also addressed.

Next, we investigate adding components and placing them on the schematic according to the Arduino Nano manual. You'll learn about the Atmega schematic connection and USB connector circuit diagram. The wiring of PCB header pins for the Nano board, resistors, LED indicators, and voltage regulator are then explained. Subsequently, you'll discover how to remove the question mark from each item and compile your project.

Eventually, the course discusses how to begin designing the PCB and walks through the process of sketching the board's shape. After that, we study how to place the headers and the PCB items, such as ICSP, switch, resistor array, crystal, micro USB, and FTDI regulator capacitors, under the Atmega datasheet. Manual and auto-routing, as well as a few tips for making it work better for you and optimising trial-and-error, are also covered. This course educates you on Altium Designer and prepares you to become a professional PCB designer.