We are thrilled to announce Sierrathon 2024, a unique hackathon aimed at inspiring the next generation of engineers. This is your chance to dive into the world of PCB design, tackle real-world challenges, and showcase your creativity and technical skills.
Team up!
Form a team of up to five members and start designing your board. Remember, creativity, innovation, and technical proficiency are key to winning!
Important dates: Registrations: Sep 4 - Oct 31, 2024
Project submission: Nov 22, 2024
Judging panel: Dec 7, 2024, at SJSU
Prizes:
Winning teams will be awarded thousands of dollars off PCB fab and assembly, sponsorships for school projects, free seminar seats…
Ready to take on the challenge? Register now and start innovating!
Can you post the link and perhaps a suggestion to a good way to layer a project with hollow spaces and a strong protective layer around it?
I’m not sure which design portal I’m supposed to use or how I can create a 500-turn copper coil.
The question about “Hollow Spaces” is not clear. I think we can do several ways included routing layers prior to lamination or milling the pcb post-lamination, I figure we do fairly often on special boards…
Now I’m unclear on just where you want to place this “500 turn copper coil” and the geometry and materials related to it. Clearly you’re not going to be able to place 500 turns in a planar fashion. I’m guessing you want to wrap 500 turns around the hollowed out part, effectively using the PCB structure for a transformer core. Alternatively you may simply wanting to cram this coil into the cavity, maybe for shielding.
You also mentions “a strong protective layer” but nothing about it. I’m taking it you mean around the hollowed out portion of the PCB. This part I’m unsure of and since you use the word “layer” then if you mean in the same fashion as the rest of the board (cores, prepreg, etc.) then sure, we offer metal clad boards where the top or bottom layer is aluminum, primarily for heatsinking.
Let me know if you can supply any more details or even a crude sketch. Even today a pictures worth a thousand words.
You’re right about creating cavities by routing layers prior to lamination, milling post-lamination or even laser skiving but need to know what “strong protective layers” means. The cavities can be all dielectric, metal on the bottom but not the sides and full plate/edge plated. What’s above and below the cavity, material type/thickness and dimensional tolerances come into play as well. Guess we need more information.
Hello, I was told to post here to schedule a design review.
I would prefer an appointment on October 24th or 25th, at late afternoon on the 24th or any time by 11AM or after 2PM on the 25th if possible. If that doesn’t work please let me know what availability you have and I am happy to schedule around that.
I was told to provide some info on my project details. It is a 4 layer UAV flight controller with magnetometer+6-axis IMU, 2.4GHz Transceiver, several digital data lines(I2C, SPI, UART), USB, very little analog. I’d say a medium density design as I’m attempting to comply with typical low cost manufacturing standards, no buried or stacked vias, no BGA package but it does have some QFN packages and is generally a fairly tightly packed design in my opinion.
Most of my questions will likely be regarding some finer points of design for the RF IC, power distribution(parallel traces on part of the PDN), SI concerns, clean-up for manufacturing, etc.
Let me know what availability you have, and I thank you in advance for your time.
EDIT: Last bit of info, its an STM32F4 MCU and the project was done in Altium Designer.
We’re asked to submit a video of the design process, worth up to five bonus points. I just wanted to know if there is a length that is expected. I wouldn’t want to make a 10 minute video if you’re expecting a 2 minute video.
Oh, the design video. You can make it as long/short as you want as long as you give interesting details about your design process and the choices you make.
I would say that 5mins is a good length but entirely up to you.
Hello, I would like to schedule a design review for next week, if possible. The design we are working on is a rigid/flex PCB for physiological sensing. The main board will have an amplifier and microcontroller. The questions I will have will be in regard to design advice for rigid/flex boards (or if we should split the design into a rigid element and a flex element with a connector). Additionally, it would be helpful to discuss expected bending angles and analog signal integrity in flex PCBs. We are working in Altium. Thank you so much!
Important dates:
Prizes:
