William Harter Oct 18,2025 104

Starting a New KiCad Project from an Existing One

This year, I began learning KiCad and currently have four shared projects on PCBWay. Recently, I initiated a new project by leveraging an existing one as a template. If you have a working project and ...

William Harter Oct 11,2025 27

My latest project is a color-changing Pumpkin / Jack o'lantern light

My latest project is a color-changing Pumpkin / Jack o'lantern light powered by a single 9-volt battery, cycling through five colors—red, yellow, blue, green, and orange—every five seconds using a 32,...

William Harter Sep 08,2025 449

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Ordering Printed Circuit Boards

Last week, I received PC boards for a slot machine project that uses 15 LEDs to represent the reels. The PC board was assembled on Tuesday and placed in an enclosure on Wednesday. This is the third pr...

William Harter Sep 05,2025 433

Putting my current project in a case

A recent project involved building a slot machine that utilizes 15 colored LEDs to simulate three reels. The device operates with a single push button, which powers it on and initiates reel movement; ...

hobby case drilling holes in a case

Ondřej Kuběna Sep 05,2025 1723

How to Use Breadboards for Your Projects

1. IntroductionWhat is a Breadboard?A breadboard is a reusable prototyping board that allows you to connect electronic components without soldering, It consists of rows and columns of conductive strip...

Electronics Breadboard DIY Learn Tutorial

William Harter Aug 22,2025 812

Enclosing your project within a protective case

Enclosing your project in a suitable case is an important consideration. The following insights are provided from a hobbyist's perspective and do not pertain to products intended for commercial distri...

Ondřej Kuběna Aug 09,2025 3216

Learn basics with Arduino! Controlling servo using joystick with Arduino Uno R3. For robotic arms, RC Cars, pets and gimbals.

Project description:Do not worry everything will be explained easily even the code and basic of an Arduino :).The goal of this project is to learn how to control a servo motor using a joystick module ...

Arduino PCBWAY PCB Joystick Servo motor

William Harter Jul 26,2025 1262

My experience

Yesterday I wrote about designing my first PC board with KICad and PCBWay, but it wasn’t my first experience. Back in 1979, at age 16 during a Michigan Tech summer program, I saw the traditional proce...

William Harter Jul 25,2025 1387

My experience creating my first PC board with KICad and PCBWay

I recently began designing circuit boards using KiCad and I currently have a share project on PCBWay "Note Sequencer." This circuit can play up to nine musical notes by using CMOS 555...

Kathleen Stepas Jun 27,2025 2821

Design Your Own Pomodoro Timer with ESP32 and a Custom PCB: Step-by-Step Guide for Makers and Students

1. Introduction In this article, I’ll show you how I designed a Pomodoro timer from scratch using an ESP32 microcontroller, an LCD display, control buttons, and a buzzer — all mounted on a custom...

PCB Manufacturing PCB design schematic circuit custom pcb esp32

PCBWay Oct 25,2024 3963

Why has Green Become the Primary Color for PCB Production

With industrial development over time, consumers now have a wider variety of PCB colors to choose from, including green, blue, white, red, and black. However, from the past to the present, green has r...

PCBWay Aug 29,2024 2950

PCB Cleaning

During the PCB assembly process, flux is used as a chemical agent to assist in component soldering. However, if not properly cleaned, residual flux can negatively impact circuit performance over time,...

PCBWay Aug 20,2024 4684

Introduction about Backplane PCB

A backplane PCB is a specialized type of circuit board, typically located at the back or bottom of electronic devices, designed to support and connect various electronic components and subsystems. Unl...

PCBWay Aug 13,2024 3953

What to Do When There Are Too Many Vias on the PCB

Vias are used to connect different layers of circuits on a PCB, transforming the circuit board from a planar structure into a three-dimensional one. This enhances design flexibility and circuit connec...

PCBWay Aug 02,2024 3413

Check before PCB Production

As a PCB manufacturer, we often find various production issues in the Gerber files sent to us by customers. Most of these problems are not complex and are usually due to oversight. Multiple rounds of ...

PCBWay Jul 26,2024 5635

Different Types of BGA

BGA (Ball Grid Array) has many different types, each with distinct characteristics and suitable applications. The choice of BGA depends not only on the type of product you wish to manufacture but also...

PCBWay Jul 25,2024 4924

Introduction to BGA Package

When it comes to surface-mounted components for highly sensitive computer parts, connecting integrated circuits via wires can be complex and challenging. In such cases, the ball grid array (BGA) is th...

Simon Mugo May 20,2024 5157

Battery Charging Technology Part 1

IntroductionDemand for green forms of energy is gaining momentum worldwide with the market growth for technology involving green energy, such as solar panels, batteries, and charging technologies, cre...

Simon Mugo Apr 23,2024 5792

Important Techniques for Determining Battery State of Charge

IntroductionKnowing the energy amount that is left in a battery at use as compared to when the battery was fully charged informs the user how further the battery will keep performing before initiating...

Simon Mugo Apr 22,2024 3545

An Introduction to Battery Cells Protection Methods

IntroductionBatteries are one of the crucial power backup devices in modern technology systems. They play key roles in powering electric cars, home appliances, lighting systems, and many others. The m...