I design and sell a lot of model railway electronics.
I build hundreds of pcb's a year.
For some reason I have now become aware that I put all resistor in same way around as colour codes work.
On my pcb designs I like to put all my resistors in a single column down the pcb.
I build hundreds of pcb's a year.
For some reason I have now become aware that I put all resistor in same way around as colour codes work.
On my pcb designs I like to put all my resistors in a single column down the pcb.
Not OCD at all.
It is the correct way to install components, it aids the service engineer when chasing a fault and to lable all the same way makes for ease of reading.
Good man.
Man after my own heart, very few of us with pride in our work left.
It is the correct way to install components, it aids the service engineer when chasing a fault and to lable all the same way makes for ease of reading.
Good man.
Man after my own heart, very few of us with pride in our work left.
That's the de-facto standard for professional board wiring. However I do wonder about SMT resistors where the vertically oriented ones could be either way - I try to stick to a consistent scheme on a board, but doubt I am consistent between boards.
My take on what's an OCD PCB is when the board layout keeps all the polar components facing the same way (however contorted the traces become), and components are grouped by type in ordered rows - often leading to sub-optimal stray impedances and other problems. Its alright to go for neatness, but not at the expense of adding lots of unwanted trace complexity, loop area and unexpected stray capacitance.
My take on what's an OCD PCB is when the board layout keeps all the polar components facing the same way (however contorted the traces become), and components are grouped by type in ordered rows - often leading to sub-optimal stray impedances and other problems. Its alright to go for neatness, but not at the expense of adding lots of unwanted trace complexity, loop area and unexpected stray capacitance.
There's probably an xkcd cartoon in here somewhere. I've done lots of board layouts with kicad and had none of the made.
I started because I wanted to practice using kicad but found getting an artistically pleasing electrically sound layout to be an interesting challenge.
A bit akin to writing code...
I started because I wanted to practice using kicad but found getting an artistically pleasing electrically sound layout to be an interesting challenge.
A bit akin to writing code...
If you really want to know why, try this: solder one single resistor in a different way than usual, then if it doesn't last even a day in its "new" placement you probably know your answer...
A bit more seriously, something like this often happens to me too.
I don't rule out the possibility that it's OCD, but it could also simply be fussiness or aesthetic taste.
The fact is that I just couldn't resist seeing one out of place!
I’m not sure about your design but thought you’d like this. I turned this tranny into a preamp. Volume on the right and input selector on the left.
How OCD something like that is, all depends on its purpose as well as how complicated the board is.
For me it's always function over form.
So placing things in the same direction is a nice thing to have, but if it doesn't fit the layout very well (or other technical reasons), it goes out of the window very quickly for me.
Even when you repair stuff, it's mostly just nice to have, but you still have to double check the schematics and layout anyway.
That being said, I haven't done much in through hole for a very long time.
Even my own hobby projects are basically all with SMD (except for tube stuff)
Since it's so cheap these days, most of the time I even get them assembled.
For me it's always function over form.
So placing things in the same direction is a nice thing to have, but if it doesn't fit the layout very well (or other technical reasons), it goes out of the window very quickly for me.
Even when you repair stuff, it's mostly just nice to have, but you still have to double check the schematics and layout anyway.
That being said, I haven't done much in through hole for a very long time.
Even my own hobby projects are basically all with SMD (except for tube stuff)
Since it's so cheap these days, most of the time I even get them assembled.
We are posting on this diyaudio site. Everyone on it is OCD in one way or another! That preamp is Awesome.
Member
Joined 2009
Paid Member
When I do pcb layout, which is rare, I want it to look aesthetically pleasing, not just built but the layout file on the screen too.
I started with the DOS version 2.6 of EagIe around 1990 after giving up on tape and mylar layouts for digital projects that got far too complicated. I refuse to subscribe to Autodesk's extortion demands since most tube amp boards require the pro version due to their size even if they are very simple layouts that take a couple hours to do. I'm still using Eagle 5.11 which is the last version before Newark / Farnell bought them out. I have experimented with Kicad 7.0, but haven't actually finished a board yet.
Am I OCD? Yes, but I got past the all through hole resistors facing the same way stage long ago mostly due to a correspondingly low patience level. Coming from a 41 year career at Motorola where I did PCB layouts for cell phones, two way radios, and other RF boards, I learned to let the circuit dictate the layout. Look at the suggested layout page on some RF IC chips that work in the 1 GHz+ range and the manufacturer will tell you exactly where to put the important parts and often exactly which ones to use.
I had one of those transformers as a kid in the early 60's. It fed a big selenium bridge rectifier and a bunch of caps for my (rare) solid state projects or fed the 12 volt heater windings on a transformer pulled from a discarded vacuum tube console organ to generate adjustable high voltage. Variacs were unobtainable to a kid who got his parts from the trash dump or the auto junkyard. Grandpa's old train transformer allowed me to "turn it up till it glows" at a young age.
Am I OCD? Yes, but I got past the all through hole resistors facing the same way stage long ago mostly due to a correspondingly low patience level. Coming from a 41 year career at Motorola where I did PCB layouts for cell phones, two way radios, and other RF boards, I learned to let the circuit dictate the layout. Look at the suggested layout page on some RF IC chips that work in the 1 GHz+ range and the manufacturer will tell you exactly where to put the important parts and often exactly which ones to use.
I've come to like KiCAD 6+ a lot. I now use 7.0.x. It's worth the time investment.
OCD is very debilitating. There's a reason it's a disorder defined in the DSM V (and ICD in Europe). There's a big difference between being detail oriented with high standards and having OCD.
Tom
I use PCBCAD720 which I wrote myself.
One feature I like which I use a lot is the "swap auto placer", it goes through the components and if swapping 2 components decreases net size it keeps the new order and optimises the net.
Once I have finished the pcb I use a re-annotator to renumber components along and down the pcb.
OCD is very debilitating, that is a fact.
That is if you do things like check every window and door lock 30 - 50 times before going to bed even when you know you have already checked it dozens of times before and you are telling yourself you already checked it whilst you are checking for the 40th time.
OCD is when you find a resistor you put in backwards and HAVE to take it
out and reverse it.
G²
Although of course this is not a "clinical" thread and for sure we all have great respect for those who are affected please note that there are about 5 recognized level: subclinical, mild, moderate, severe and extremely severe.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7273799/
It was interesting to participate in this thread, but personally I would stop here.
