How to Build Your Own Electronic Circuit

printed circuit board

Designing your own electronic circuit can be a huge learning experience and a lot of fun. There are a lot of ways to get this done. You can make printed circuit boards on a laser jet printer or you can use kits or circuit design software. Either way, you'll have learned a ton once your done. The steps below will focus on making simple circuit boards.

Things You'll Need

• circuit board
• bread board
• solder
• soldering iron
• components

Instructions

1. First, obtain a commercial circuit design software program. I can speak for Eagle, but their are tons of them, depending on whether you use a Mac or PC. There is a learning curve but once you get the idea, it's pretty simple.

2. 

   Design your electronic circuit on your computer, checking voltage and amperage throughout. Making a PCB from a schematic is easiest, especially for beginners.

3. Measure the holes for whatever circuit board you are using. Use this for spacing on your design. Try to have one side for ground and one for plus. If you have one central integrated circuit, use that as the nucleus to build around.

4. If you are going to be just using breadboard, you can print the design out onto a piece of paper and fill in the holes with your capacitors, resistors, jumper wires, ICs and such. This is an easy way for beginning circuit design and also for prototyping.

5. 

   Measure the holes for whatever circuit board you are using. Use this for spacing on your design

6. use your circuit design and solder your components onto the board. Check for shorts with a multimeter and also check for conductivity in all your joints. Soldering takes practice and thats the only way to really learn well.