New (child) board for design review

[pcprogrammer]

Lately quite a bit of schematic and PCB design review request are made by new members, and unfortunately most of them provide crappy material.

So how about a new board or child board just for design review request with a sticky at the top with guidelines for a proper review request.

Within the guidelines there need to be how a schematic should be drawn to make it easily readable for us. Rules like signal flow from left to right, power supply positive from the top, negative and ground from the bottom. As minimum use of net ports as possible and connections best made with wires or busses. Add a couple of example schematics that show a proper build up of these rules.

No crappy screenshots, but a good PNG of the schematic attached as an expandable thumbnail and not as a big inline image, or a PDF to download. This makes it easier to zoom in to read the schematic.

Also advice on providing as much information as possible, like datasheets, application notes and motivation as to why some components are chosen.

For a PCB review it is also needed that it is not provided with crappy screenshots. Maybe best if supplied as gerber zip file. There are online viewers that make it possible to zoom in.

This way we don't have to repeat ourself that much and can just refer to the sticky if crap is presented.

[thm_w]

I prefer PNG over gerber personally.

Maybe in the FAQ or guidelines can point them to this: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskElectronics/wiki/design/#wiki_schematic_diagram_guidelines

[jpanhalt]

How would a child board for "crappy" material help?  We seem to have enough boards already, much less child boards, including one for political and personal attacks misleadingly named "General Technical Chat."

[pcprogrammer]

I prefer PNG over gerber personally.

As long as it is not a crappy screenshot that has a bad resolution, it does not matter if they use PNG, PDF or gerber. What matters is the reviewability.

Maybe in the FAQ or guidelines can point them to this: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskElectronics/wiki/design/#wiki_schematic_diagram_guidelines

This is a nice one, but on a quick glance I partially disagree with the bit on the power supply symbols. It should be a balance between the amount of them. Take for instance the schematic iterations found in this thread: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/advice-on-my-first-larger-design-in-kicad/?topicseen

Attached are parts of it showing what I mean. For me the second version is better, but for my taste the power and ground symbols should be on the left and not in the middle.

In my eyes there are many problems with that schematic that do not require that much effort to make them more readable. Like on that page with the power supply bits, instead of those three blobs that have close interaction, draw it as one single circuit without those supply symbols all over the place.

How would a child board for "crappy" material help?  We seem to have enough boards already, much less child boards, including one for political and personal attacks misleadingly named "General Technical Chat."

It would hopefully save us from having to point out the rules for how to draw a proper schematic every time some noob or wannabe posts one to have it reviewed. Maybe just a sticky at the top of the beginners section, but that would not be read if they post in the projects section. Sure a dedicated board might still be missed and the sticky in it can also be skipped, but if it only set a few people straight on correct schematic drawing that would be a win.

With the internet full of those shitty youtube videos and all those crap dev board schematics the Chinese are throwing at us, it is only getting worse. So who knows if our effort will help in balancing it a bit.

And I know I can just ignore and skip all that crap, but what would the forum be without people willing to put some time in helping others.