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PCBs lessons learned

A project log for Symbol LS4208 barcode reader retrofit

I have had a broken Symbol LS4208 barcode reader laying around for a while. I decided to give it a new life.

miklos-martonMiklos Marton 06/16/2021 at 21:530 Comments

The good:

- PCB shapes turned out to be good. The PCB was scanned then vectorised and then imported to EAGLE. This process worked out fair enough.

The bad:

- The footprint of the salvaged pushbutton is small (damn I have skipped the always verify footprints on a printout before PCB ordering) Using multiple device footprints in these cases usually a positive thing.

- Always add more info on the silkscreen if possible: having the USB coloring present would have been helpful

- When making single boards like the RJ50 side make it universal: I should have broke out all the 10 RJ50 pins to pinheaders, then it could have been repurposed for other things in the future.

- The ESD protection TVS was not at hand instead I populated NUP4302. However that part does not have connection between the in and out pins. Some extra green wiring was necessary.

The lucky:

- There were some DRC errors: the beeper pad overlapped with one connector pad.Luckily the connector pad was not connected to anywhere.

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