MEP EP#222: Turning It On - New Design Checklists with James Lewis
James Lewis
His passion for teaching non-engineers has led him to create the Baldengineer Blog and the AddOhms video tutorial series
With 20 years of experience in electronics, marketing, sales, and teaching, James boils seemingly difficult concepts down to the core, so that anyone can learn what they need to finish that next great project
James was on the previous MEP EP#141: It Depends – An In Depth Look at MLCCs with James Lewis
How to test and validate if your new PCB Assembly is working properly
What do you do before power on?
Component checks?
Current limiting?
Voltage limiting?
The Smoke Test
What do you do if it all goes up in smoke?
Validating power systems or supplies
Equipment for testing
IR cameras for looking for hot spots
Minimal viable electronic lab equipment
Digital Multimeter
auto ranging
true RMS
measure/verify caps (but gotta take it out of circuit)
Consider bench style
Power Supply
Power output, watch the power ratings
Current limiting (critical)
Output control
Avoid the cheap ATX route
Oscilloscope bandwidth vs sample rate
channel count
built-in AWG
serial decodes
Probes
Function Generator
Great for filters and to replace a clock, but how useful are they?
All-In One devices
Analog Discovery 2
Great for turning-on boards from home
Compromised specs, but could be "good enough."
Soldering Station
Think about rework
Can you remove SMT?
Hot air, etc.
Will you need to add debug headers?
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