Fantastic write up - thank you! I also love hearing about why each part was chosen. As an electronics hobbyist I often mimic portions of others' designs but I'm not always entirely sure why a certain part was chosen among the various options.
Do you prototype all this on a breadboard before making the PCB and picking specific parts? I'd be curious to hear more about your process. I feel like I always need to test everything I build on a breadboard first since I inevitably miss some small detail if I go straight to schematic + PCB design.
Great question! It really depends. If I'm working with a part I haven't ever worked with before, I'll often make a minimal breakout board that I can talk to with a devboard like an Arduino or Feather.
If I'm pretty familiar with everything, I generally dive into a rough PCB layout and debug from there. If I absolutely can't get anything to work, I'll go back to the drawing board and possibly do some little breakouts, for example: https://twitter.com/theavalkyrie/status/1457845661370568709
Edit: for this specific project I did make breakouts for testing the MOSFETs and solenoid drivers. I'm glad I did, since I was able to try out a couple of different options for each: https://twitter.com/theavalkyrie/status/1550878465876004865
Second the poster above, really enjoyed the reasoning around how and why you picked parts and the intent of various circuits..
Do you have any books you recommend on electronics? I feel I understand the basics, like what various components do in isolation, but would love to level up and understand circuit design like how you are approaching it here
I'll echo sibling's comment about just doing it. Theory only takes you so far, it's important to actually build and experiment, even if it's just in a simulator.
I can recommend Practical Electronics for Inventors as a solid base of projects to experiment with and learn from. If you want to learn how to improve circuits and optimize for specific behaviors, there is a wealth of information in manufacturer application notes. A lot of the protection circuitry used in my article follows advice found in application notes.
IMO the best way is to just pick a project and work on it. Using application notes and datasheets lets you piece together circuits, and you pick up design patterns along the way.
Do you prototype all this on a breadboard before making the PCB and picking specific parts? I'd be curious to hear more about your process. I feel like I always need to test everything I build on a breadboard first since I inevitably miss some small detail if I go straight to schematic + PCB design.