Discussion

In this lab session we constructed a complete adjustable power supply circuit PCB
layout using the Proteus 7 professional software consist of ISIS schematic capture and ARES
PCB layout. Proteus is a software package for computer-aided design, simulation and design
of electronic circuits. It consists of two main parts, the ISIS , the circuit design environment,
which also includes the simulator VSM , and the ARES , the circuit board designer. The
developer and manufacturer of the software package is Labcenter Electronics. The
ISIS, Intelligent Schematic Input System is the environment for the design and simulation of
electronic circuits. The component library contains more than 10,000 switching components
with 6000 ProSPICE simulation models. You can create your own parts and add them to the
library. ISIS includes a basic VSM engine with the following functions such as DC / AC Volt
& Amperemeter, Oscilloscopes, Logic Analyzers, Analog signal generators, Digital Pattern
Generator, Timer functions and protocol analyzers including RS232, I2C and SPI. The
components and materials in the adjustable power supply circuit diagram is listed down as the
circuit will undergo PCB fabrication process. The components are aligned to make sure to fit
in the sketch. The track is determined to not overlap other tracks and wide enough to carry
the required current. The designed circuit is constructed such as all common components
which is the capacitors and resistors are next to each other to reduce a lot of time during
components assembly. After the design using auto router the circuit is routed to determine
whether there are errors such as traces overlap occurs. After there are no errors electrical
check is performed on the circuit such as netlist check and simulation result. After the circuit
is stimulated there should be no rounded red circles which means traces are connected
together at a undesired pathway. The numbers of components is checked to be the same as the
circuit constructed on ISIS. the circuit is also stimulated into 3D visualization to determine
the distance between each components whether is very near that makes soldering process
difficult. After all the check the artwork circuit copied into pdf and then printed on the
transparent plastic sheet. The final product results in a plastic sheet with a photo negative of
the PCB in black ink. For the inner layers of the PCB, black ink represents the conductive
copper parts of the PCB. The remaining clear portion of the image denotes the areas of non-
conductive material.