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How I Made a Cheap PCB

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Re: How I Made a Cheap PCB

#41

Post by reidrac »

My experience with a Chinese fab was different: I got all the PCBs shorted, and because they were quite cheap their customer support was good enough to never admit that the problem was on their side, so I didn't bother because... it was a really cheap one off.

I suspect the problem was with their support of the Gerber files generated by KiCad, but I don't know for sure.

I used OSHPark in other cases and, even not being dirty cheap (they're USA based), they're still quite cheap and so far the quality of the boards have been excellent.

Re: How I Made a Cheap PCB

#42

Post by alex_hitchins »

jwr wrote: post #38

Several points: * KiCAD has become a great tool for designing boards, even fairly complex ones. And it's completely free, both in terms of freedom and money. Don't get locked into EAGLE, which is becoming increasingly obsolete (development is glacially slow) and will suddenly become quite expensive to use once you want a certain board size or a number of layers. * There are multiple PCB services in China, itead.cc, s…

Have you ever used DipTrace?

Re: How I Made a Cheap PCB

#44

Post by [deleted] »

reidrac wrote: post #41

My experience with a Chinese fab was different: I got all the PCBs shorted, and because they were quite cheap their customer support was good enough to never admit that the problem was on their side, so I didn't bother because... it was a really cheap one off. I suspect the problem was with their support of the Gerber files generated by KiCad, but I don't know for sure. I used OSHPark in other cases and, even not bei…

[deleted]

Re: How I Made a Cheap PCB

#45

Post by iheartmemcache »

jwr wrote: post #38

Several points: * KiCAD has become a great tool for designing boards, even fairly complex ones. And it's completely free, both in terms of freedom and money. Don't get locked into EAGLE, which is becoming increasingly obsolete (development is glacially slow) and will suddenly become quite expensive to use once you want a certain board size or a number of layers. * There are multiple PCB services in China, itead.cc, s…

I just jumped into this thread thinking "man I really hope he did something clever and made a 6 layer board with vias, awesome grounding, and low dielectric constants at home" rather than him just firing the board off to a house and getting some standard FR4 back. KiCad post-CERN is great, nearly Altium 16-levels of good (arguably better in some cases).

For some DIY goodness -- Paul Carlson's method[1] is still my favorite home method for making what-I-consider-really-almost-production-grade boards. Also throwing my hat in the ring for OSHPark as being the community/my vendor of choice as well.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=au2ba5gWLWk

Re: How I Made a Cheap PCB

#46

Post by joshvm »

pyb wrote: post #33
oddeyed wrote: post #21

Anyone considering doing similar in the UK, try ragworm [1]. Low cost (and cool orange) PCBs. They are trying to position themselves as the community PCB provider who you should go to for low-volume jobs e.g. kickstarter prototypes, hobbyist projects, and presumably are hoping that those early prototypes grow into big orders for them. Turnaround is 10 working days because they presumably combine lots of people's orde…

If you need a cheap PCB prototype more quickly (2 days), the PCB Train service is always a good source.

Worth pointing out that PCB Train is business cheap, not hobbyist cheap. You'll easily pay upwards of £50 for a "short" turn around board from PCB Train (10 days) and you'll have to pay extra for things like ENIG.

A 1 square inch board, 2-layer standard finish, 2 day turnaround is north of £300. You don't need to pay much more to get multiple quantities though, so this is largely setup cost.

Note that you'll also pay for wasted space, unlike OSHPark - a 100mm square design also costs about £330.

Re: How I Made a Cheap PCB

#47

Post by bobadams5 »

jwr wrote: post #38

Several points: * KiCAD has become a great tool for designing boards, even fairly complex ones. And it's completely free, both in terms of freedom and money. Don't get locked into EAGLE, which is becoming increasingly obsolete (development is glacially slow) and will suddenly become quite expensive to use once you want a certain board size or a number of layers. * There are multiple PCB services in China, itead.cc, s…

Has KiCAD improved their schematic/footprint library management? Last time I tried to use it (2 or 3 years ago) it drove me crazy with how difficult it was to use.

I've used Diptrace, KiCad, Altium, and Cadence Allegro and KiCad was by far the worst of these for handling parts.

Re: How I Made a Cheap PCB

#48

Post by kersny »

david-given wrote: post #11
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here! But I think that is the point of the article. The best way to make a cheap PCB is to just buy one. And he's probably right. There are definite advantages to etching a PCB at home - if you make a mistake that you only discover on assembly, you can make a new run in hours instead of weeks - but soldermask, small vias, and small features are much easier at a real plant. And you won't beat the prices. He recom…

Do you know any places that do assembly as well? My soldering skills are approximately good enough to do 0.1 inch pitch pins about 90% of the time, which isn't really good enough for surface-mount, and most modern microprocessors don't come in anything else.

You could check out Macrofab: https://macrofab.com/

I've never actually used them but their online tooling is impressive, they have reasonable prices for low quantity assembly, and they've manufactured and fulfilled a few kickstarter projects.

Re: How I Made a Cheap PCB

#49

Post by swsieber »

daniel-cussen wrote: post #31
swsieber wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that part of the farmer's market is the experience of the setting and the fact that the food is (usually) fresh - much more than anywhere else. Edit: My point is that I go to farmer's market for the experience, not to support the local farmers. It just so happens that the locals are the best are providing that experience. I do have to admit though that wanting to support the local farmers may have boots…

Would the experience be the same if the people weren't there?

Well, no.

Re: How I Made a Cheap PCB

#50

Post by linker3000 »

madengr wrote: post #28
diskcat wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people in China are willing to work for a lower labour standards I don't see why I shouldn't buy from them. They are already making huge sacrifices working in terrible conditions because they weren't lucky enough to be born in the US or western europe et al. Chinese workers are very smart and hard working, so their position in life is not based on their ability but simply bad luck (relative to people born in the U…

That US PCB manufacturer is also sending his kid to school, paying state and federal taxes, SS, healthcare for employees, and probably allot for hazardous waste service. What makes you think the Chinese PCB manufacturer is not in the 1%; just assumption the US manufacturer is.

So what we're all really saying is that our current concept of 'money' and how it is generated and moved about is fucking up the world and we really need to work out a better way of managing society and balancing our needs against those of the environment.

If only.

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