Upverter Intro & Quick Start

Background

PCB stands for printed circuit board and refers to any circuit board that has been printed rather than hand fabricated as the name implies. Upverter allows anyone to design their own PCB, and then export it for printing with a service such as OSHPark.

Overview of Design Approach

The basic approach to design with Upverter is searching for the various components you need (that are generally available and mass-produced) and then putting them together in their editor window.

These parts range from basic resistors to Bluetooth chips. After selecting the components one can then connect the modules together with the wiring that will be printed into the board.

After all the connections have been defined, you are now ready to display the placement of the items on the board. You can then modify their physical placement and the path the internal wiring follows.

Finally, you are now ready to actually go and print your board. There are many services such as OSH Park that will be able to print your designs, so gaining this skill has practical applications.

Getting Started

While on Hackster.io select "Apps" from the navigation menu. Then click on "Try it now" under the Upverter entry.

You must now authorize Upverter to access some of your Hackster account info. The should handle your data responsibly, so press "Accept" if you agree.

You should now see a blank canvas with toolbar on the left, and a list of functionality on the right. You are now ready to start adding parts.

Next Steps

Now that you have the basics down, you can start building a working PCB. For a thorough tutorial visit https://www.hackster.io/Hulkco/create-a-pcb-from-scratch-with-upverter-63a944.