Public:Schematic Conventions

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Our team is in the process of creating and implementing standards for all of our electrical design and CAD. This is being done in an attempt to reduce errors in manufactured boards, make it easier for other members to edit boards that were already created, and make the finished CAD look presentable. We will also be creating a DipTrace DRC settings file to set the defaults to our standards and make all our boards follow Bay Area Circuits' manufacturing constraints.

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All content below this point is under construction

Net Naming

All nets with more than two pins should be named with a descriptive name.

Net names should only contain capital letters, numbers, and underscores. Net names should never contain spaces.

More guidance on net naming will be provided at a later time

Power Rails

No VCC/VDD. Net names should indicate the polarity and voltage of the rail. If the zero voltage reference of the rail is not the net named "GND", the net name of the power rail must reflect this.

Further discussions are needed to establish a consistent naming style for this.

I2C/SPI

Will expand on this later

UART

It is very easy to get mixed up with UART nets, be through and double check your work!

UARTx_Source_to_Destination

Examples

Put some examples here

Graphical Considerations

Schematics are the most critical piece of documentation for a PCB. They are read by both ECAD software and fellow engineers. The schematic should clearly illustrate its functionality, be easy to read, and contain enough information so that it is easy to order parts and assemble the finished PCB.

More information will be provided at a later time

Wire Crossings

Long answer short, dots on all 3-way intersections, no dots on 4-way intersections. A dot means that the wires connect, no dot means that there's no connection.

Pictures to be added

Direct Wire Connections

Wires should be as straight 

 

Prevent Overlapping

Components, reference designators, and part values must never overlap anything. The only thing that wires can cross is other wires. Text comments should not overlap anything.

Net Coloring

While net coloring can be useful to easily identity and follow nets around a schematic, the schematic should be completely intelligible without net coloring. This is because the schematic will be printed in printed if it is printed.

Paper Size and Title Block

Paper size: ANSI A (8.5" x 11")

Title Block: Kicad Default, Diptrace TBD

Part Information and Ordering

Using just the scheamtic, anyone should be able to determine which parts should be ordered to assemble the board. To achieve this, the following guidelines should be followed to ensure that all necessary information is included in the schematic.

Still working on this

Symbol Creation

Look, please make symbols that aren't shit or look like shit. If you have questions, please refer to the Kicad Library Conventions for now.

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