PCB builder

Three ways to start

Describe what the board should do

Write the requirement in plain language — a sensor node, a motor driver, a power supply — and get a schematic, a placed board and routed copper to review and change. Fastest if you know the function but not the parts.

Draw the circuit yourself

Place components and wire them up directly. Everything you draw feeds the same board generation, so a hand-drawn schematic is a real input rather than a separate mode you get stuck in.

Start from files you already have

Import Gerbers to view, measure and modify an existing board. Useful when you are working from something a previous engineer left behind.

What goes into a finished board

If you have not built one before, these are the stages a board passes through. The builder handles all of them, and you can intervene at any point rather than accepting what comes out.

Schematic

What connects to what. Every board starts here, whether you wrote it or generated it.

Footprints

The physical pad geometry each part needs. Taken from a standards-based library where one exists rather than invented.

Placement

Where parts sit. Thermal, connector position and signal length all matter, and a bad placement cannot be rescued by routing.

Routing

The copper between pads, across as many layers as the board needs.

Design rules

Clearances, widths, annular rings and drill sizes checked against what a fab can actually make.

Manufacturing files

Gerber, Excellon drill, pick-and-place and BOM — the package a fab needs to quote and build.

Do I need to know PCB design already?

No, though you will get more out of it if you understand your circuit. The builder makes the mechanical decisions — footprints, placement, routing, clearances — and explains what it did, so a first board is achievable without learning a desktop tool first.

What it will not do is design a circuit you cannot describe. If you are unsure what the board should contain, start with a similar reference design and change it.

Can I get it manufactured?

Yes. Exports are standard Gerber X2, Excellon drill, pick-and-place and BOM — the same files any fab expects, with presets for JLCPCB, PCBWay and OSH Park so board constraints match the process before you order. Nothing is paywalled behind an export.