Yet another PCB design

Hardware
1

I have been working on a PCB for D1 Mini boards. The two existing free ones I am aware of are:

Neither of meets my exact requirements. So I designed my own. My goal was mainly to make everything optional so that I can create simple modules for the ESP8266 D1 Mini even without a level shifter etc.

This is the first PCB I have designed and I would love to get some feedback on it.

Features:

  • optional capacitor
  • optional level shifter (solder jumpers in case no level shifter or resistor is used)
  • 2 LED strips (for ESP8266)
  • an additional LED with data and clock pin
  • IR receiver
  • 2 optional buttons that can be of 2 different sizes
  • 2 power connectors, one through voltage regulator
  • spare terminals and D1 breakout terminal
  • bridged solder jumpers for buttons and IR receiver for alternative wiring

Does the layout work like that? What should I improve there?

waw-schematic
waw-schematic2338Ă—1653 172 KB

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3d layout

wawLeds-front
wawLeds-front1846Ă—931 137 KB

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back

wawLeds-back
wawLeds-back1846Ă—931 125 KB

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4

Use 74AHCT logic chips for level shifters instead. They are more reliable and faster.

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5

I like your PCB design, very neat and tidy! Lots of options to bypass components with just a solder bridge is very nice. There’s another design, “yawl-controller”, which I’ve used also because I can skip components I don’t need/want.

Have you considered a fuse?
I sense you made a conscious decision to support only 5v strips/LEDs since you have no dc-dc module.

I can appreciate what you’re trying to do here. I’ve been (very slowly) tooling up my homelab to be able to make SMD boards, and was going to take a shot at designing my own PCB too, as a latent engineer-wannabe. I’m aiming to utilize a relay, RF receiver, Dallas temp sensor, and robust power handling on the PCB and connectors – because I want to add an INA219b to sense high side current and figure out how to make a usermod to collect this information and allow a configurable “shutdown” current/temp threshold. I expect to be quite challenged as I try this project out :slight_smile:

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@numindast thanks for your feedback and support :wink: yes, a fuse and a dc-dc module would make for meaningful extensions to the design. In this project I only use short 5v strips. Good luck with your own project! Don’t forget to test everything on a breadboard :wink:

I had mine printed and it seems to work fine so far with the tests I have run.

signal-2022-07-08-160933
signal-2022-07-08-1609331536Ă—2048 360 KB

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Thanks, makes sense. I kept my design though because those are the level shifters I have.

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It looks great!! Nicely done!