DFM Changes for the Blinky PCB

[williamg42]

Design looks solid, the biggest issue is little design for manufacturing things that should be fixed just because it’s good to do.

First is you have a lot of acute angles. These are called acid traps and should be avoided when designing PCBs. It’s one of those things that was a problem in the 80s and 90s (and today if you want to home etch PCBs) but is less of an issue with modern manufacturing tolerances and techniques. However unless you specifically want to have acute angles in the design, it’s one of those rules of thumb to follow. https://gesrepair.com/pcb-acid-trap-causes/ https://resources.pcb.cadence.com/blog/are-acid-traps-still-a-problem-for-pcbs-in-2019-2

I circled a few but not all in the design.

Second, you have large and un-tented vias. Typically you want the vias to have solder resist cover them, as it prevent accident shorts. https://www.pcbgogo.com/current-events/What_Is_Tenting_Via_And_Why_It_Is_Important_In_PCB_Fabrication_.html Your solder mask is so large in some cases it is exposing other traces. So that needs to get looked.

Finally there are just some spot I would check your clearances. I circled them below. Like the LED seems way too close to you pads, you typically don’t want another components copper under your LED. That trace also seems really close to the via and should be checked. Most board houses do 6 mil spacing and 6 mil traces, but bigger is always better.

Having the ground plane on the top layer is an interesting choice, I would have had it on the bottom and punched vias down to it, but I know you were trying to make this guy single sided and do some at home etching. If it is on the top, I would make it fill the entire PCB to the board edges. I would then make sure the polygon pour does not leave any orphaned copper, like under the IC or inside one on the resistors. It’s somewhat of a trade, you do normally want a ground pour under your IC to reduce ground bounce (https://www.protoexpress.com/blog/how-to-reduce-ground-bounce-pcba/) , but on here it’s pretty thin and may act more an antenna than a ground.

Sorry if the photos are hard to see, I could not get Altium designer to read the gerber files as gerbers, but OSHpark could render them fine.