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Altium Designer Projects

Browse and learn about pcb design projects built using Altium's software

48V to 3.3V Regulator Design Project Recently, I have been working on a 300W LED panel project. I’ve already written an article about building a 65W LED driver, and another about simulating it on PDN analyzer. However, there are some features I still want to implement, one of which is wireless dimming capability on the panels. Wireless dimming is important because getting the perfect balance of light is difficult when you have to keep pulling a light down from the top of a tall pole Read Article

PDN Analyzer Simulation of 65W Single IC LED Driver In my last article, I designed a 65W LED driver for powering a 36V LED string at 1.8A. The small MSOP-8 IC on it is going to get quite warm, which makes me believe the power distribution network is worth simulating with PDN Analyzer. This will allow me to see if there are any spots that need optimization on the board. Anywhere I can reduce the current density in high-current areas to ensure a lower copper temperature will be worth the time Read Article

Creating High Pin Count Schematic Symbols Quickly My open-source Altium component library contains hundreds of schematic symbols, supplying over 100,000 components for use. People are often surprised when I tell them it only takes a few minutes to make a schematic symbol using Altium, even if the part has a high pin count. In this article, I want to show you how you can leverage some of the tools in Altium to create your own symbols quickly. Pre-requisites Before we get started, you’ll need a Read Article

Isolated USB Connection Project While working heavily with microcontroller projects in the past, I learned that computer USB ports can be fragile things. Simply shorting dozens of volts across the port just kills them dead—and there are so many other creative ways to destroy USB functionality on a motherboard! I’ve seen USB isolation devices on the market which solve precisely these sorts of problems (developers doing bad with their devices), however, I never really got around Read Article

65W Single IC LED Driver Project One of the projects I’m working on for personal use at the moment is a high color rendering index (CRI) LED panel, which I’m aiming to make about 300W. I was exploring options for making a high performance LED driver that would be quite compact, and while I couldn’t build a 300W single IC LED driver, I was able to design a 65W one that didn’t look like it would melt right through the circuit board. I really liked the IC, so I thought I’d create a Read Article

High Performance Sub 1GHz RF Project This week, I’m building a high-performance sub-1GHz transceiver that I want to use as a standalone Internet of Things node using the ARM Cortex M3 microcontroller. As with my other projects, this project is open source and published on GitHub for you to use as the basis of your own design, or to use as-is. The RF schematic and layout are production proven, as are the microcontroller schematic and all footprints on the board. However, do keep in Read Article

PDN Analyzer Quick Start on a Motor Driver PCB Previously, I posted about designing a simple DC brushed motor controller using a single IC. While it’s a relatively simple board, it will still be transferring a maximum of 4 amps of current if both motors are running at the driver’s full rated current per channel. For a board as simple as this, you could simply look at the trace length and width and use an online calculator (or a little math) to figure out current densities on the traces and Read Article

Driving Small DC Motors With Altium Designer In this article, we’re going to run through the actual implementation of a driver IC from schematic creation to PCB layout. You will find this project on GitHub, released under an open-source license if you simply want to grab it to copy and paste into your own design. Part Selection I have two small, high-speed motors that I want to drive, which will draw about 1 amp each under load, and I’ll need to run off a 30 volt power source in an Read Article