Good Engineering Practices

[Tony Clark]

   Well this might be an area I am fairly familiar with since this is 
probably my biggest "primary" job function!  Circuit board design, that 
is.
   Here are some goals that I try to achieve when I go about designing a 
new circuit board.

   1)  Never group pin holes between different components tightly 
       together unless they are meant to be soldered together.

   2)  Set component holes to a width that will prevent component 
       meniscus from entering the hole. 

   3)  Trace redundancy.

   4)  Trace redundancy.

   5)  Make sure all traces are equally spaced and adequately spaced to 
       prevent trace bridges

   6)  Never make a circuit board in which you have to solder wires for 
       off board components directly to it.  Amp connectors are THE way 
       to go.

   That's a few of my suggestions.  Of course, if you are doing homemade 
circuit boards from etching solution or what not, I doubt that you'll be 
too terribly hampered if you don't follow the suggestions above.  However 
if you have your boards made by a manufacturer, you should probably pay 
close attention to your design.
   My company has had trouble with a certain circuit board manufacturer 
who couldn't seem to get consistent results.  If traces were too close 
together, there would sometimes be trace bridges (Not to mention broken 
thru-holes.  That's where trace redundancy is very important).  So 
adequate spacing is a major key in my designs.  If components are too 
close together and you aren't watching carefully, you can accidentally  
make a solder bridge.

   Tony

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I can't drive (my Moog) 55!
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Tony Clark -- clark at andrews.edu 
http://www.andrews.edu/~clark
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> What are some of the other practices that one should follow when designing
> PC boards?