1 - The Design Challenge
Introduction
In WARG’s EE Bootcamp, you will be using Altium Designer to design a printed circuit board (PCB) for a custom voltage regulator of your choice, from scratch! In fact, your PCB will be completely unique to you as you will have many opportunities to customize it.
At a high level, the custom voltage regulator PCB will consist of:
An input power connector
An output power connector
A linear voltage regulator integrated circuit (IC)
+ required passive components to make it functional
LEDs to indicate the state of the voltage rail(s)
Note: When designing your board, it will be up to you to come up with the hypothetical scenario and use-case of this board, which will change what voltages and connectors you may end up choosing.
So, why are we interested in teaching you about PCB design and voltage regulation? Let’s take a look at a few important ideas in the next section and perhaps you’ll understand why!