Bringing up the power section of the board
A full day on the power portion of the PCB. Fuse and diodes for protection, a solid ground plane with short loops, LDOs for clean rails, and a power plane split by voltage.
Today was all about bringing up the power portion of the PCB.
Fuse and diodes went in, so the board has current protection and voltage protection. Nothing fancy. It just needs to be there.
Ground plane is solid. I kept all the ground loops short and small.
The rails come off LDOs, which is what lets me have clean voltage throughout the power plane on the board. Not the most efficient way to drop a voltage, but clean is the point here.
The power plane itself is split into the voltages. Each split is its own polygon, and those polygons connect through vias to the traces that need that specific voltage. Every part picks up its rail through a via instead of me dragging a trace across the board for each supply.
Fuse and diodes, solid ground, LDOs, split plane. That’s the power section.
If you want to do this yourself
- Power Rail Routing Mastery: Multiple Voltage Planes in Altium Designer by Altium Academy, 21:36
- LDO Regulator Hardware Design - Phil’s Lab #105 by Phil’s Lab, 26:17
- 7 Protection Circuits You Should NEVER Ship a Product Without by Predictable Designs with John Teel, 12:25