Protoboard Designer: PCB CAD

Protoboard Designer

In-app purchases

About this app

Go from circuit idea to production-ready Gerber file in minutes. Protoboard Designer is the easy PCB design app for makers: draw your circuit board layout exactly as it will be manufactured — no netlist, no schematic capture, no learning curve.

Design printed circuit boards on your phone or tablet, or in your browser at protoboarddesigner.com. Your PCB projects sync between Android and the web.

KEY FEATURES
• WYSIWYG PCB layout editor — the circuit board you draw on screen is exactly what gets manufactured. No surprises at the fab house.
• Autorouter — connect two pads with an airwire and let the app route the track. Route the whole board at once, or scope it to SMD pads, through-hole pads, one side, or just your selection.
• Design rule check — check copper clearance, annular ring, drill diameter and drill spacing before you send the board out, and catch a drill placed on an SMD pad while it is still free to fix.
• Ground plane & copper pour — fill the board with copper in one tap, with automatic voids around every pad and track, thermal spokes on connected pads, and keepout areas where the pour must not go.
• Gerber & PDF export — send production-ready Gerber files to any PCB fab (JLCPCB, PCBWay, OSH Park…), or export a PDF to etch your own board at home.
• Track stats as you draw — routed length and maximum current for the width you picked, so you size copper with numbers instead of guesswork.
• Teardrops for stronger pad-to-track joins.

INSERT & GENERATE
• Photo overlay — photograph a real board and trace straight over it.
• SVG and DXF import — bring a vector graphic in as copper, silkscreen or milling, or a CAD outline in as your board shape.
• PCB antennas for a target frequency, and planar spiral coils with a computed inductance value.
• QR codes, Data Matrix and barcodes, in silkscreen or copper.
• Mounting holes with screw keep-out, and pad or via arrays on an exact pitch.
• Via stitching to fill a pour or sew up a board edge.
• Breakout adapters — fan a fine-pitch SMD part out to a 0.1" header.

LIBRARY & SYNC
• Built-in component library, KiCad footprint import, or any public GitHub repository as a footprint source.
• Cloud sync — your boards are backed up and synced between your phone and your browser. Start on the sofa, finish at the desk.

PERFECT FOR
• Makers and hobbyists designing perfboard, stripboard (veroboard), or custom PCB layouts
• Students learning electronics and circuit board design
• Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and ESP32 builders moving beyond the breadboard
• DIY electronics projects — from a quick prototype board to a small production run

SIMPLER THAN DESKTOP EDA
Professional PCB design software is powerful, but built for engineers routing complex multi-layer boards — and it takes weeks to learn. Protoboard Designer keeps only what you need for hobby and prototype circuit boards, so you spend your time building electronics, not learning software.

Try the free PCB designer in your browser at protoboarddesigner.com — no install required. Or download now and sign in with Google to start your first board in seconds. No credit card required.

Ratings and reviews

Bro.. When I working with 160mm width 230mm pcb board, my board go disapears. Try to seek with zooming out and in its there, but then go pointer to spot its gone again. Its like board bumping random like offset from coordinate. We hope five stars to the next update for this very very very usefull App. thanks

now this is a prime example of a perfectly crafted app that has the power of software which only can be run on a computer but somehow ported for a mobile platform. welcome to a world where you can design PCB layouts and generate GRBR files on the go for FREE. it's one of a kind. you won't find any other apps on Google play or the app store that come close to it. I use Easy EDA and I was always searching for a mobile app strong enough to interface similar tools but to no avail until now.Bravo!

Makes you sign in to use the app - developer response - thanks for looking into ways to make it run without a login. Apps get tiring when I need an account to do anything. When I tried the app, it only supported two layers so I'm looking forward to maybe supporting three or four in the future

What’s new

• Photoview: see your board as the fab will make it, in the mask colour and finish you order.
• Solder mask: board settings, mask checks, and a mask view that shows where the mask is open.
• 43 new footprints, among them mechanical keyboard switches.
• Copper pour and design rule checks are much faster, and the pour keeps every clearance.
• The app opens faster. Type an exact rotation, and edit a footprint's pads without ungrouping it.