Quote Originally Posted by 92sho16 View Post
What is the with of the 12V traces? Most hobby pcb shops use 1 oz copper as a base but I would recommend using 2 oz. The calculator below is a good tool to figure out the required trace width in order to keep temps down. Incandescent lamps draw a fair amount of current so I would recommend using a power plane for the 12V. One other tip would be dont have any 90 turns in the traces I would recommend changing all those to 45s.


PCB Calculator
The copper pdb board I have on hand is indeed only 1oz. Currently, the 12v traces are only 0.04" from the 12v connection to the DC-DC converter, and 0.08" to and from the MOSFETs. I'm pretty sure the 0.04" should be plenty to feed the DC-DC converter and the arduino. I measured it's current consumption on my bench power supply, and it pulled a max of 0.02a of current, most of which was to turn on the red part of the RGB-LED. The traces between the 12v and the MOSFETs though, I tried to keep all those pins close together so I could use short pieces of copper bar or wire to handle the load of the lights. I tried a few different PCB trace width calculators, and even with 2oz boards, I was getting >0.2" traces needed to reach anywhere near 12a. Given my tight size constraints, it was a problem. Hence.. I was going to add the short copper bits. Actually.. what I had planned to do was drill a big enough hole at the 12v in/out points, and have the length of wire pull through far enough to actually reach all the way to the MOSFET pins. Basically, the 14awg wire would be tied right to the MOSFETs, which appear to be rated to a max of about 20a. Seems like a nice clean way to handle the amps.

Like I said.. I tried to keep all my traces on one side.. to make this DIYable. But.. I guess if I really needed to use 2 sides.. so I could create a nice fat 12v plain, It would be doable. But.. with the idea of using the copper bars to handle the load.. I should be good right?

I'll go back and try to round off a few more of those 90 corners in the traces. I guess the IT engineer in me likes sharp corners.

Thanks for the feedback. It's much appreciated.