Whether it’s surviving a turbulent rocket launch, or warding off radiation from the galaxy, Brady Salz of Astranis explains some of the unique challenges of designing printed circuit boards (PCBs) for space. Hi Brady, you’re a hardware engineer at Astranis. Can you tell us more about what you’re working on? Brady: Sure! At Astranis, we’re…

As a follow-up to our post on the Top 10 DC-DC Converters downloaded by the SnapEDA community, we thought it was about time to cover the top 10 AC/DC converters! Converting alternating current (AC) into direct current (DC) is one of the most common power electronics applications since electricity is transmitted as AC, yet electronics generally…

When importing footprints downloaded from SnapEDA into Altium, the importer will automatically add solder paste and solder mask anywhere there is a copper pad. Most of the time, a 1:1 ratio between the copper pad and these other layers is ideal (as per IPC standards), however, there are times when you’ll want to remove the…

Today we’re launching CUI’s catalog of buzzers, speakers, microphones, and connectors on SnapEDA, as well as on CUI’s website via our plugin. CUI is a leading electronic components manufacturer with a broad range of board mount electromechanical components. With this new collaboration, designers will be able to drag-and-drop interconnect, audio, and motion parts libraries into their designs.

If you’ve downloaded a footprint from SnapEDA for Altium, then you may have wondered how to properly import the courtyard and cutout layers. When importing the file, you need to map the placement courtyard to Mechanical Layer 15, and the board cutout regions to Mechanical Layer 1. In the video below, we’ll show you how…

Terminal blocks offer designers an easy and secure way to transmit data, signals, and power to your printed circuit board designs.  They’re built from an insulating frame and a clamping component. Terminal blocks serve as an effective method of connecting wires, whether it’s to ground them, secure multiple wires together, or provide communication between a device…

Last month, the 100,000th hardware engineer registered on SnapEDA, so I thought it would be fun to reach out to learn more about what they were working on. Little did I know that it would turn out to be so epic! Stefany Allaire is building the Commodore 256, what she believes should have been the successor…

Some designers on SnapEDA have mentioned that they would like to better understand the naming convention we use for footprints, so we’ve created this blog post as a handy reference. We build our footprints (also known as land patterns), to the IPC-7351B standard, with some exceptions. As such, we follow the naming convention defined in…

Today we’re excited to announce a new collaboration that should put a smile on the face of any designer who has ever made a connector footprint from scratch. We’re launching support for over 25,000 TE Connectivity (TE) products on SnapEDA! Decrypting complex computer-aided design drawings, and translating those into the schematic symbols and printed circuit board…

As engineers, we know that pressure sensors are used in thousands of everyday engineering applications, across a wide range of industries. For example, they’re used in our coffee makers to control the dispensing of liquid, in medical devices at hospitals, and in heating systems to trigger alarms. They measure the pressure, typically of liquids or gases,…