Friday, February 10, 2017

Building a 68000 Single Board Computer - PCB Layout

Plot of PCB Layout from Kicad

I spent some time learning how to use Kicad's PCB layout software and created an experimental board layout. I had never laid out a circuit before using CAD software before, so there was some learning curve and I may have made some rookie mistakes. The routing was all done using the FreeRouting software. The resulting layout is quite complex but looks pretty good. It is a double-sized board, and based on the board size, it looks like it would cost about US$200 - US$250 to have three high-quality boards made from a supplier like OSH Park, and less from some manufacturers in China. Before I did that I would probably carefully review the layout a little more.

All files can be found at github.

3D Rendering of PCB Layout from Kicad

Expensive? Well, I just saw a Motorola MEX68KCB MC68000 Educational Computer Board show up on eBay. The minimum bid is US$295. It will be interesting to see if it sells.

3 comments:

  1. Brilliant project, I just love these old cpus! I'd like to see the finished pcb.

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  2. Jeff, take a look at this chinese manufacter pcbway.com. A friend of mine bought some boards in there and they were good. I'll like to see the finished PCB in a follow up video. By the way, I really enjoy your videos, really in-depth and quite informative.

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  3. Super useful job I experienced here after landing on your blog-world. It was tech and digital learning too. The single board computer layout you revealed here was totally awesome. I think CAD software is now very popular and has been using in many design purpose. I appreciate your innovation. Though my browsing intension was to dive into comparative discussion of Khadas VIM4 vs. Raspberry Pi 4, I was so my glad to have me into your conducive project. The image also look significance.

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