BLOG ARTICLES

December 18, 2025/David Ray/Electronics & KiCAD Tips The ATtiny1614 is a microcontroller that has been designed to help people bring their ideas to life. It’s a member of the tinyAVR 1-series and packs a punch with its advanced features and capabilities. With a clock speed of up to 20 MHz, 16 KB of Flash memory, 2 KB of SRAM,…

December 16, 2025/David Ray/Article One simple trick that will save you a lot of time when routing your traces. The ‘F’ and ‘D’ key combination is great for productivity. Use ‘F’ To Auto Complete Your Trace Here’s a quick KiCAD trick to save you time when routing your traces. Use the ‘F’ key to autocomplete…

Gerber files are like a recipe for making printed circuit boards (PCBs). They provide manufacturers with a map of each PCB layer, including copper placement, hole drilling, and board shape. People create these files inside the PCB design software and send them to the board fabricator.

December 18, 2025/David Ray/KiCad Tips, PCB Design Circuit Board Design is easier now than it has ever been. KiCAD has really democratized the industry and is actively creating a renaissance of electronic hardware. Visit www.KiCAD.org In your Browser The KiCAD software is a free and open-source Electronic Design Automation package. Sometimes people ask how they…

Minimum RP2040 Design Made Simple I’ve made several designs with the RP2040 from Raspberry Pi. Using the OEM’s design references and other references online, I have designed, what I consider the minimum quality design for RP2040, for when you don’t need extras, just the controller. In this walk through I will give links to some…

July 23, 2025/David Ray/Electronics & KiCAD Tips, From Idea to Product EMail Sales@CyberCityCircuits.com for a Free Consultation Thank you for your interest in hiring Cyber City Circuits for your PCB assembly needs. We offer an assortment of services, including… PCBA DFM Consulting Prototyping Circuit Board Design Firmware QC Testing Packaging We need the following to…

Capacitors are electrical components that store and release electrical energy. They are commonly used in electronic circuits for a variety of purposes, such as filtering, coupling, and storing electrical energy storage. The capacitance of a capacitor, or its ability to store electrical energy, is determined by three physical factors: 1) The type of material used…

When you need a PCB assembled by a pick-and-place machine, you must generate a position file (also known as a component placement file) so the machine knows exactly where to place each component. This process in KiCAD can be a little tricky, so this guide will walk you through how to correctly generate a position…

A good trick in manufacturing to speed up assembly is to order PCBs in panels. In this example, there are 4 different PCBs set in one panel. This way the machines can build 4 boards at one time. Takes less human interaction and less errors than if the boards are assembled and processed it one…