Open the editorEditor

PCB view

Your circuit laid out as a printed circuit board beside the breadboard, routed and checked, with the files a fab house needs if you want it made.

Which plans

Everyone can open the PCB view, lay out the board, route it and check it. The files that make a real board (the Gerber and drill zip, the bill of materials and the pick and place file) and ordering are part of Pro, like the other exports: Pro, every paid plan and the 14-day Pro trial have them, and so do students in a class and teachers during the class trial. On Free those items carry a small Pro tag and open the offer to try Pro.

Opening it

Press the round More button on the canvas toolbar, then PCB. On a computer the board opens beside the breadboard, and the × in its corner closes it. On a phone it takes the canvas, with Breadboard, Schematic and PCB tabs along the top.

What it shows

  • Every part as its footprint, the copper pads and holes the real part is soldered into: an axial resistor at 10.16 mm, a 5 mm LED with its cathode on the square pad, a DIP for a chip, a TO-92 or TO-220 with each leg named, a 6 x 6 mm tactile switch, a screw terminal for a battery, and a 2.54 mm header for a module such as an HC-SR04, a DHT11 or an SSD1306.
  • An Uno project as an Uno shield: the board has the Uno's outline, its four mounting holes and its headers where an Uno's are, so it plugs on top. A Nano project gets a Nano socket instead. Choose Board, then Rectangle board or Arduino Uno shield to change it.
  • Thin lines between pads (the ratsnest): connections still to be routed. They come from the same netlist the simulator runs, so a part on a breadboard row is connected to whatever else is on that row.
  • A line along the top saying how many nets are routed and whether the board passes its design rule check. Press it for the list.

Parts are placed for you, each near the parts it is wired to. Where a part has no footprint of its own, its pins are read off its drawing at 2.54 mm, and the list says so: check the spacing against the real part before you order.

Laying it out

  • Drag a part to move it, and press R to turn the selected part. The first change pins every part where it is, so nothing moves under a track.
  • Route (or X), then click a pad, click where the track turns, and click the pad it goes to. Tracks run straight and turn at 45 degrees.
  • V while routing puts a via in and carries on along the other layer. L swaps the layer you draw on: red is the top, blue the bottom.
  • Autoroute routes everything not yet routed and keeps your own tracks. A net it cannot route keeps its thin line; move parts apart or draw it by hand.
  • Click a track or a via to select its net, and Delete removes it.
  • Board also has Ground pour (copper joined to GND over the rest of both layers), Show it as made, Fit the board to the parts, Place the parts again and Remove all tracks.

Everything you change is saved with the project and can be undone.

The design rule check

The board is checked against JLCPCB's and PCBWay's standard 2-layer service: 0.152 mm (6 mil) between copper and for the narrowest track, 0.3 mm smallest drill, 0.13 mm annular ring and 0.3 mm from copper to the edge. Mokxi draws 0.25 mm signal tracks and 0.5 mm power tracks with 0.2 mm between them, so a routed board passes with room to spare. Each problem in the list has a red ring on the board; press it in the list to go there.

Exporting and ordering

Export gives:

  • Gerber and drill files (.zip): top and bottom copper, solder mask and silkscreen, the board outline and the Excellon drill file, in the layout JLCPCB and PCBWay take. The silkscreen carries each part's reference, the project's name and mokxi.com.
  • Bill of materials (.csv) and Pick and place (.csv), in JLCPCB's assembly format.

Building on the breadboard is enough for many projects, and nothing here asks you to order. If you do want a board made, the foot of the Export menu has Order this board from JLCPCB and from PCBWay: either one downloads the Gerber zip and opens that fab's quote page in a new tab. Press its upload button (Add gerber file on JLCPCB) and choose the zip; their standard options fit the board. If a link ever carries a Mokxi referral code, the order card says so; your price is the same either way.

What it does not do yet

Surface mount parts, more than two layers, thermal spokes on the ground pour, and pushing tracks aside while you draw are planned for a later version.