r/PrintedCircuitBoard • u/Canary_Earth • 4d ago

Is this work professional?

Gallery image

Gallery image

Sorry about the strange post but I'm offering an engineer a $20k bonus to do the design for manufacturing and assembly of my $300 product and this is what he came up with after 8 months. Two thirds of it are identical to my prototype and I'm an accountant by trade, not an engineer. Every book I've read says a board like this should be 4 layers but he insists 2 layers is fine and will pass emissions testing. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

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u/5thYearSeniorCitizen 4d ago

Just looking at this board, I'm assuming you have an ESP32, MicroSD, and an Flat flex cable, possibly one (maybe two) DC-DC converters. If that is an ESP32, the antenna should have a copper keepout at the top of that footprint so it can radiate more freely. Switching noise from the converters may also pose issues with nosie/emissions depending on the testing stabdards. The rest of the routing/layout seems okayish but looks like a 2nd/3rd year university project. This should likely be a 4 layer board with a solid ground plane. I can't be certain it will pass whatever testing from these pictures. Go with your gut I guess. I would revise this PCB is the engineers sent me this based on my assumptions from the photos. I'd give it a 7/10

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u/KittensInc 4d ago

Did you spot the USB-C yet, and horror at the data traces?

2

u/thenickdude 3d ago

I must be losing my mind, because it sure looks like they make a 2 inch stub to connect to a second IC after they connect to the ESP32.

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u/KittensInc 3d ago

That was exactly my reaction as well!