Advice required for a Newbie on 2 sided Board Design

[fetster]

Hi all, really sorry for what is probably a very simple question but I am totally new to PCB design.

I have created a single sided circuit design, printed and drilled it on Voltera. Problem I have is that the connectors (40 pin female and RJ45) need to sit on opposite sides of the board.

The 40 pin connector sits on the non printed side with the pin headers going through the drill holes so I can solder and connect them to the printed circuit connectors on the other side.

The RJ45 sockets sit on the same side as the printed circuit and their headers go through the drilled holes to a blank board on the other side.

I’ve attached photos for clarity.

Would I have to include vias and print on the blank side of the board so I have connectors to solder the RJ45 headers to or is there another way of soldering the RJ45s to the printed circuit?

[softanalle]

Just adding the contacts to other side does not solve your problem, since then you need to connect the other-side circuits to main side. This is normally referred as vias. [it is a through hole filled with conductive material, such as copper or silver, connecting two sides electrically].

I haven’t tried to create vias manually, nor have I used any via -components.

If you are required to keep RJ45 and 40-pin connector on different side of board, could you choose SMT version of RJ45 connector, so that you can solder it directly to top -side and still make it single-side board? Such as: https://www.digikey.fi/product-detail/en/pulse-electronics-network/E5288-006-02-L/553-2274-2-ND/4868944

T

[mewertow]

Hi @fetster,

Depending on the size of the pins, I would recommend using rivets to connect the two sides. Rivets will give you an electrical and mechanical connection between the two sides, just like plated through holes. You can also use them for vias.

If the pins are too small / large for our rivets, you have another option, but you would need to modify your board. You can print pads for your connector on the bottom (bare) side, then route those pads out to vias made with rivets to connect the two layers.

Let me know if you have any questions!