MTS310 Sensor Board Schematics

[nsh1233]

I'm doing a school project and i am suppose to draw the schematics of this MTS310 sensor board on Altium Designer. But i'm not sure what 2conpads and 4conpads mean? (Refer to picture) Please help.

[hkBattousai]

They are just pads for soldering an input/output connector for each.

Just leave some pads on the PCB as depicted in your project assignment paper. Later, you can either place a connector there or solder cables just like in the following image.

[nsh1233]

They are just pads for soldering an input/output connector for each.

Just leave some pads on the PCB as depicted in your project assignment paper. Later, you can either place a connector there or solder cables just like in the following image.

Thank you so much! Any idea how big should the pads be?

[hkBattousai]

They will be according to your connector selection.

For example, if you choose a connector like this:



The pitch between the pads must obviously be 5 mm. And of course, in order to prevent pads touching each other, the pad widths must be smaller than 5 mm. If they are going to conduct high voltages, keep the pad widths small. Their heights can more than 5 mm.

If you want to directly solder wires to your PCB, pad dimensions can be chosen arbitrarily.



In this case, I suggest drilling extra holes to tangle the wires through as in the image below, so that the mechanical strength of the connections will be higher.



Good luck.

[Laertes]

If space is tight and mechanical strength is not an issue, you can also make some rectangular pads near the board edge and surface-mount the wires onto them. You can even find a nice little surface-mount connector that would fit your pads(for example, the Molex Pico-Spox series for really tight spaces) so you can choose wether you want to put the connector on or not (as hkBattousai explained for THT connectors).
But maybe that's not an ideal solution for a school project because this technique is, in most cases, considered to be a bad practice due to its bad mechanical strength. But for prototying it might be a good thing. Another good use of this would be in constructions that will be potted afterwards, so the potting gunk will provide the mechanical support.