Yeah right, you might say. First PCB? Aren't you an EE? Yeah, but I never woorked as an EE, and thus far anything I built for myself I just point to point wired it.
Frankly, I could have done the same here. But I wanted to see how this goes before starting a more complex circuit (which I already have a schematic for). This one is super simple, actually, it's a programmer for ATMega 328P micros, which will be in all my other circuits. With a nifty ZIF socket for the chip to be programmed. It's basically the same as the one I made for ATTiny85's, except that one I hand wired on a protoype shield to plug into an Arduino Nano. The ATMega programmer firs an Arduino Nano on the board to be the driver.
Assuming it all checks out, in a week or soo I'll have 10 boards. I only need 1, so if they are good I guess I'll have 9 boards for anyone interested. Not selling anything, heck it only cost me $2 for the 10. The schematic comes right from an Arduino sketch included with the IDE as an example - it's the Arduino as ISP sketch. I used EasyEDA for this one, since they are tied to a large parts supplier as well as a board maker, and they have libraries and footprints for every part they sell, though in this case I don't need to buy any components, I have plenty of everything on hand. Since my project is on EasyEDA, and I made it public, anyone can go take a look. Use this link (I think)(you might have to sign up to actually open anything - it's free though, sorry)
https://easyeda.com/megaslug/Atmel-Programmer-using-ArduinoISP
Next up, if this proves successful, will be my turnout controller. I have some mods to make to the schematic because I figured out how to use the same circuit to control 2 turnouts via central control or 3 using only local control, so I can use the same circuit for the mainline dispatcher controlled turnouts (with local control buttons that can be locked out) and for places like yards where the turnouts will always be manually activated. Insteadof designing 2 different circuits. It will simply depend on what components you populate as to which function the board will have.
That one is wholly my own design and will also be freely made available as Open Source Hardware for anyone to make and use. The software for it is still a work in progress, but that will also be made freely available. I have no desire to get into the model railroad business, I'm making this stuff for my own use, and if someone else wants to use them as well - be my guest.
--Randy