MEP EP#222: Turning It On - New Design Checklists with James Lewis

James Lewis

• His passion for teaching non-engineers has led him to create the Baldengineer Blog and the AddOhms video tutorial series
• With 20 years of experience in electronics, marketing, sales, and teaching, James boils seemingly difficult concepts down to the core, so that anyone can learn what they need to finish that next great project
• James was on the previous MEP EP#141: It Depends – An In Depth Look at MLCCs with James Lewis

How to test and validate if your new PCB Assembly is working properly

• What do you do before power on?
  • Component checks?
  • Current limiting?
  • Voltage limiting?
• The Smoke Test
  • What do you do if it all goes up in smoke?
• Validating power systems or supplies
• Equipment for testing
• IR cameras for looking for hot spots
• Minimal viable electronic lab equipment
  • Digital Multimeter
    • auto ranging
    • true RMS
    • measure/verify caps (but gotta take it out of circuit)
    • Consider bench style
  • Power Supply
    • Power output, watch the power ratings
    • Current limiting (critical)
    • Output control
    • Avoid the cheap ATX route
  • Oscilloscope bandwidth vs sample rate
    • channel count
    • built-in AWG
    • serial decodes
    • Probes
  • Function Generator
    • Great for filters and to replace a clock, but how useful are they?
  • All-In One devices
    • Analog Discovery 2
    • Great for turning-on boards from home
    • Compromised specs, but could be "good enough."
  • Soldering Station
    • Think about rework
    • Can you remove SMT?
    • Hot air, etc.
    • Will you need to add debug headers?