Now that design requirements have been determined, and we know some of the objectives of the design, we need to create schematics. There are a few important circuits that will need to be created in the schematics:

• Power regulator circuit that converts 12 V to 5 V
• Connections between the power regulator 5 V output and the pin header
• Connections between the power regulator 12 V output and the LEDs

Before creating the schematics for this design, you’ll need to create a new project to hold all of your design data. Then, we’ll build the regulator circuit and select the other components that will be used in the PCB layout.

Create a New Project

Before starting schematics, we need to create a new project, which you will then save to your Altium 365 Workspace. If you have not done this yet earlier in the course, refer to Unit 1 Lesson 3 to see how to create a blank project and save it to Altium 365.

Once the project is created, we want to add a new schematic to the project. Right-click on the project inside the Projects Panel inside of Altium Designer, highlight the Add New to Project option, and select Schematic. The new schematic will appear in your project, and you’re now ready to start adding components into the design.

The new schematic will be completely blank, and we need to add some components and circuits to the schematic. First, we’ll start by finding the LEDs we wish to use, then we can determine the total current requirements for the system. Once the total current is determined, the power regulator can be designed.

Make sure to save the schematic and the project. Next, save the project to your Altium 365 Workspace. Navigate to the Projects panel, right-click on the project History & Version Control Make Project Available Online option. From here, you can follow the steps to enter your project into the version control system in Altium 365.