Building A Circuit Board? 4 Power Supply Design Tips You Need To Know

If you’ve ever built a circuit board, you know the difficulties involved. The variety of electrical components involved and piecing them together with the circuit board alone can be challenging. Especially in today’s innovative, technologically advanced product space. You certainly need to be very detailed oriented to have all the components working and performing optimally.

This is amped up (pun intended) when designing power supply circuits, which are the recharging aspects of the design. There may be sub-circuits as well, normal for PCB designs. PCBs, or printed circuit boards, serve as converters for incoming and outgoing energy, making it essential to take into account for circuit, load, and system. Because you need to adhere to PCB layout guidelines, you’ll need PCB layout software.

The above is only the beginning of what you’ll need to consider when building a circuit board for your next power supply design project. Before we jump right into our four power supply tips you need to know, let’s revisit some power supply circuit board basics.

Quick Overview Of Power Supply Circuit Boards

Power supply circuit boards are often challenging to design for a number of reasons. First, you need to understand the three most common power supply circuits you will most likely be using, such as output to AC output, AC input to frequency converter, and DC input to inverter.

For regulated power supplies, voltage output needs to be maintained in some way. This is where voltage regulators play a role. You can also use basic operational types in your power supply circuit board design as well:

• Switch-mode power supply (SMPS). SMPS circuits deliver a complexity that makes products nosier. This cause problems with trace routing when your doing a PCB layout. The PCB layout software you use can help with this, especially if you’re designing more innovative products like smart home devices for instance.
• Linear power supply. For a far less complex circuit for your power supply circuit board, a linear power supply can be utilized. This type of power supply converts AC to DC. “Linear regulators can be implemented as an entire package and added to a circuit with only two additional filter capacitors,” Autodesk “This makes them easy for engineers of any skill level to plan and design from scratch.”

With a bit of power supply circuit board overview behind us, let’s get more in depth. There are many power supply design tips to consider for your next circuit board build, but the following may prove very useful. And get your design moving in a POWER-ful direction.

4 Power Supply Design Tips You Need To Know

Account for thermal dissipation:Too much heat in a power supply board can be really bad. During your PCB design, if you don’t account for thermal dissipation, the project can go into a spiral and be costly pretty quick. Designing ways for thermal dissipation to be done easily is a must-know for your future circuit board build. Use thermal pads, but also put thermal resistance in place for design and future manufacturing

Put emphasis on performance:Performance always needs to be on the designer's mind. Even more so when it comes to filtering design performance. The correct values need to be selected, such as resistance, inductance, and filter specific components. And feel free to use a variety of values to get the best responses during simulations.

Board and material selection is important: The type of board and the materials you choose for your power supply circuit board build is important. The circuit board needs to be able to handle the heat generated during prototype testing, as well as the materials you choose based on the manufacturer guidelines.

More on materials, specifically copper:While we are on the topic of material sourced for your circuit board build, consider the trace widths and thickness of the copper wiring. This is especially important when you have high power supply currents in your design. It is, however, a delicate balance.

You don’t want to have too thick of a copper weight and sacrifice space on your circuit board design. You only need the correct weight that fits and allows current to be moved efficiently for top performance. DFM rules and manufacturer guidelines should also be adhered to for this top power supply design tip to be effective.

Ready To Design?

The above tips on power supply design for your next circuit board build are certainly worth considering. Knowing more about power supply in general is also a good idea, especially for novice designers. These tips can definitely get you moving in the right direction. What are your top power supply design tips?