learning to lay out a printed circuit board takes some time. but after you’ve churned out a few it’s really pretty easy. If you find yourself at that point it may be time to learn about much more complicated board fabrication. We think a good primer is this multi-layer PCB layout guide which [Rik te Winkel] recently put together. It’s one of the results of his internship experience.

One of the major differences with boards that have much more than two layers is the ability to alter what layers are actually connected by vias. Vias are plated holes through the substrate that connect different layers of copper. In the case of a 2-layer board these just go best through and connect the top to the bottom. but as you can see above, there are additional choices when it concerns multi-layer boards. #1 is a through through connecting all of the layers. #2 is a blind via; it stops part way through the board. and #3 is a buried via; it connects internal layers but cannot be seen from either side.

The guide is aimed at Eagle CAD. To use much more than two layers you’ll have to purchase a license. but we think the concepts can easily be translated to other PCB layout software like Kicad.