Electrical, Electronics and PCB Design Safety & Compliance

What you’ll learn
Understand electrical product safety concepts, classifications and terminology
Understand the most important electrical safety requirements for an electrical/electronics product design project
Understand the concepts of clearance, creepage and solid insulation and be able to design the related safety measures
Understand the importance of critical components and be able to verify if such components are properly certified/approved. Examples with transformers and capacitors
Understand IP protection against ingress of water and solid parts and properly choose the best solution for a particular design
Be able to draw insulation diagrams, a very important tool for product development, in order to represent the insulation strategy and the product compliance
Be able to find and use technical international standards with respect to electrical products safety
Understand where the safety aspect learned in the course belong in the product design/development lifecycle
Examples with households appliances design
Properly set clerance and creepage values in PCB design CADs, like Eagle Layout PCB Design software (contents applicable also to other CADs software)

Requirements
Students should already know basic electronics, e.g. basic components like capacitors, resistance and basic concept like currents, voltage, power.
It is not necessary knowledge on active components (e.g. operational amplifiers) or digital electronics (e.g. microcontrollers)
We will not talk about coding firmware
Description
What students say about this course:

“This course is very informative. As electrical engineer, I am honestly getting valuable information through this program. COURSE WAS EXCELLENT BOTH IN PRESENTATION AND PACKAGE”, Ivwionoku

“Great info on standards, where to get them and how to implement them practically in CAD!”, Alvaro

“Great details on safety aspects of products with clear methodologies of design using informative examples. Thank you so much!”, Pramit

Last Update:

******** October 10th, 2016 – Added a section on how to set and check clearance and creepage in a PCB Design CAD Software. Section name “PCB CAD/CAM SOFTWARE – CLEARANCE AND CREEPAGE”

******** Published in May 1, 2016 ********

Course Description

Being a capable electronics designer does not make you a good one.

Being an expert in Arduino, Raspberry, firmware, embedded software and microcontrollers, hardware, PCB design, digital and analog design, is only a part of what designers need to know.

A beautiful and functional product can be appealing, but if basic safety rules are not taken into account even before starting the actual design activities, a poor design can endanger people and cause its designer big troubles.

This course focuses on design safety with respect to electrical/electronics application, including PCB design. It covers the most important aspects that designers need to know, and it teaches a general methodology to develop electronics and electrical applications (including PCB) in compliance with safety principles and international standards.

+++++ Have a look at the course curriculum +++++

At the end of the course:

you will be able to find in international standards and understand the applicable electrical safety requirements for your electronics project
you will be able to calculate the most important parameters like clearance/creepage distance and solid insulation, to be considered during insulation, electronics and PCB design
you will be able to set and check creepage and clearance on PCB CAD/CAM Software
you will be able to choose the proper IP isolation against ingress of water and solid particles
you will be able to choose critical electronics components and verify their certifications
you will know what insulation diagrams are and how to make and use them
you will know what international standards are, how they are made and where you can find them
and you will understand the design process and steps toward a compliant product
so basically you will be able to design a functional, safe and ready for the market electrical application.

HAVE A LOOK AT THE LESSONS AVAILABLE FOR FREE IN THE COURSE CURRICULUM !!!

We will introduce the basic concepts and techniques of electrical, electronics and PCB design for safety, teaching you the path to a project compliant with product safety legislation.

We will cover both basic electrical definitions like the product classification and more advance concepts like creepage calculation and critical electronics components.

Throughout the course you will find practical examples on how to use these techniques on electrical and electronics household appliances design (e.g. food mixers and electric toasters), and also how to set some parameters in a CAD/CAM Software for PCB design.

We will take as a reference the most important and recognised international safety standards, like IEC 60335 series, IEC 60529, and the like.

The last section will be dedicated to describe the whole design process, from the design specifications to final verification and validation, with a practical example on an electric toaster design.

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The course is made essentially of video lessons, but reference to guidelines and datasheets are provided, when considered useful.

You will also find several tests. We strongly recommend to take the tests before proceeding to check the concept you have learned.

If you really want to understand the safety related part of an electrical/electronics and PCB design and complete your technical culture with this important cornerstone, this course is a must.

HAPPY LEARNING!!!

Who this course is for:
This course is for student, professionals and hobbyist engaged with or interested in electrical/electronics design