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:: Double Sided PCB - Never Made 1 Before ::

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suby786

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Ive always made single sided PCB boards and for my final yr project, i want to utilise a doube sided board, with a ground plane on the 1 side.

In the past ive had a couple of links on my board which doesnt look or shows poor design (even though its the best layout on a single sided board, but i have no idea how you would go about constructing a board like this...

my 1st query is can you have DIP components on a double sided board? is it a case of wiring the GND pin to the bottom plane and on the top plane, it looks as if its not connected?

what iff i wanted to traverse a signal across the top plane, and then to the bottom, how would i do that?

is double sided board MOSTLY good for SMT components?

Any help or website that explain it, as i cant find any good sites on it..
 
Double sided is much better for circuits with high speed logic or low noise requirements. It is easy to use a double sided pcb. If you are making your own boards and will use leaded components (ie. DIP etc) then etch your single sided pattern on one side as you normally would, but cover the entire other side with something to resist the etchant, like for example I use masking tape and make sure its stuck down really good.

Once you have etched your board and cleaned it up, you remove the tape from your "ground plane side". I hope you understand that the ground plane side is also your component side for leaded components.

Next, you drill your holes as you normally would for the components. Now the only problem you have is that component leads will short to the ground plane on the top side. We fix that by taking a large drill bit, like a 3/8 or similar standard twist bit, or a countersinking bit if you have one. Any bit with a broad shallow tip angle. Then you carefully countersink the component side of each hole that you don't want shorted to the ground plane. What you should end up with is a tiny ring of bare fibreglass board cleared of all its copper around where the lead goes through the hole. This ring only needs to be tiny, like .01 or .02 inches, just enough to insure that ground plane copper doesn't touch the lead. And you don't cut it very deep, that's the purpose of choosing a drill bit with a shallow bit angle at the tip, so that it cuts a ring of copper without actually drilling through the board. You don't want to drill through the board and enlarge the hole that appears on the solder side.

This would be easier with a photo, anybody got one?

Once you have finished countersinking all the holes that are not for grounded leads, you solder your components down on the solder side as usual, and any leads that are grounded get soldered on both sides of the board so that the ground plane is connected to your solder-side circuit ground.

its easy really.
 
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Double sided boards are also good for making a circuit more compact as you can populate both sides of the board and have tracks on either side.
 
yeh thats the main reason i want double sided. I dont make mine personally, i provide my university with the gerber file and they make it so the construction of the actual board is no problem

its my understanding of HOW the components are laid and ideally a picture of what it looks like... im using eagel and EASY PC for my pcb creation...

with easy pc you can decide what tracks are top or bottom copper...but about the ground plane... i have no idea... any pics?
 
Leaded components, DIP etc. are often used with doubled sided pcb designs.
It gives a compact,neat and easy design for more complex circuits.

Don't worry about the ground plane too much, just design the pcb track layout as normal and then the design program usually allows you to make an automatic copper fill/pour around all of the tracks/pads (leaving a gap size that you decide).

This can be done on both sides and you can usually choose which signal the copper plane is connected to.

There is a very good tutorial at :
https://www.electro-tech-online.com/custompdfs/2006/11/PCBDesignTutorialRevA.pdf
 
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