How I Made a Cheap PCB • Hacker News Board

Re: How I Made a Cheap PCB

#51

Post by pmoriarty » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 1:52 PM UTC

diskcat wrote: post #23

afandian wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe $100 is what it should cost (assuming some kind of ethical baseline for labour standards and environmental damage).

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…

What makes you think the money you spend on Chinese goods isn't mostly going to the rich 1% in China? China has their own billionaires who mostly make their money off the backs of the Chinese poor, just like it happens in the US.

Re: How I Made a Cheap PCB

#52

Post by skaevola » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 1:59 PM UTC

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #7

madengr wrote: post #3

Nice, instead of supporting the PCB business 5 miles away, send it to China. The copper not on your PCB is probably floating down some Chinese river, hence "Dirty PCB".

The PCB business 5 miles away has US labor and associated costs. Compare the Chinese board to Advanced Circuits in the US - http://www.4pcb.com/ - you can't get anything without spending over $100.

Advanced Circuits is not the cheapest American pcb manufacturer. OSH Park is much cheaper.

Re: How I Made a Cheap PCB

#53

Post by ZenoArrow » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 1:59 PM UTC

cillian64 wrote: post #36

ZenoArrow wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to have great soldering skills for surface mount components. The easiest way to solder surface mount is the "solder stencil + solder paste" method (for want of a better term). You create a solder stencil to match the pin layout, place it over the PCB pads, apply solder paste, place the component on top then melt the solder (if you'd be doing multiple batches it's easy enough to modify a toaster oven to…

What do you cut your stencils from? I've spent a lot of time mucking about with various plastics and never gotten particularly good results - 0.5mm pitch pads tend to start melting together into a mess. The good stuff is meant to be Mylar, AKA PET. I've bought plastic advertised as Mylar which has not been particularly good, and I suspect it may actually be PE rather than PET, as apparently the two are often confused…

Depends on how much you want to spend. If you're on a tight budget, you could try this...

http://www.popsci.com/article/diy/build-diy-soldering-stenci...

Re: How I Made a Cheap PCB

#54

Post by unwind » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 2:06 PM UTC

ZenoArrow wrote: post #35

alex_hitchins wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it is listed under "Ramblings". I don't think it was written as an article, it's just a blog post that could help out someone looking to do the similar.

> "Well, it is listed under "Ramblings"" My issue was with the word 'made'. If I see a title for 'I made x' I expect a little more than 'I ordered x'. I'm not going to make an article about 'How I made an iPad' if I just ordered one from Amazon.

Huh? Teaching oneself PCB layout software and actually, you know, doing the layout work is certainly "doing".

It doesn't even say, but I assume (from the picture of the unpopulated board) that the OP also soldered the board, which is even more "doing".

Re: How I Made a Cheap PCB

#55

Post by schiffern » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 2:19 PM UTC

diskcat wrote: post #23

afandian wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe $100 is what it should cost (assuming some kind of ethical baseline for labour standards and environmental damage).

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…

>If people in China are willing

What makes you think the workers have any other choice? They're not "willing" if it's wage slavery.

What makes you think the people injured by pollution are willing? When exactly did they give their consent in this transaction?

(the knee-jerk response to both is "government regulations", but those are so thoroughly captured/corrupted that no real consent is transmitted)

>If I bought from a US companies most of the money would go to a rich 1% new yacht and new iphones

This seems equally likely in China.

Re: How I Made a Cheap PCB

#56

Post by jdietrich » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 2:19 PM UTC

madengr wrote: post #3

Nice, instead of supporting the PCB business 5 miles away, send it to China. The copper not on your PCB is probably floating down some Chinese river, hence "Dirty PCB".

Copper is a valuable commodity. No Chinese board house will be foolish enough to waste it. With modern processes, it's simply a case of neutralising the etchant and filtering out the precipitated copper.

"Dirty PCBs" are so named because they're not great quality. The solder mask and silkscreen aren't perfectly aligned and the minimum trace width is eight mil.

Re: How I Made a Cheap PCB

#57

Post by jdietrich » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 2:21 PM UTC

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…

pcbshopper.com is an excellent comparison shopping tool for prototype PCBs. Enter the specifications for your board and it will quote prices from dozens of board houses.

Re: How I Made a Cheap PCB

#58

Post by 3JPLW » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 2:24 PM UTC

diskcat wrote: post #25

takno wrote: post #4

Could easily have been titled "no way back for America: how even small-time hobbyists can outsource to China now"

It hasn't been long since somebody told me that unless you do 10000x item runs it's not worth it. I wonder if this low unit cost for small number thing is a recent development.

Not at all. There's a whole slew of companies with different arrangements of pcb/fab/express in their names. They've all done 5 boards for ~$50 for a very long time. Granted, they're simple two-layer boards. If you need anything more, then, yes, I agree.

Re: How I Made a Cheap PCB

#59

Post by lsllc » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 2:29 PM UTC

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…

+1 for OSHpark, I can get boards in my hands in 4 days using their expedited service.

Re: How I Made a Cheap PCB

#60

Post by jdietrich » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 2:30 PM UTC

ZenoArrow wrote: post #17

david-given wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 don't need to have great soldering skills for surface mount components. The easiest way to solder surface mount is the "solder stencil + solder paste" method (for want of a better term). You create a solder stencil to match the pin layout, place it over the PCB pads, apply solder paste, place the component on top then melt the solder (if you'd be doing multiple batches it's easy enough to modify a toaster oven to…

Using an electric hotplate for reflow also works very well for prototypes. You just watch the board and judge the reflow point by eye.

https://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/59

Cheap PET stencils are available from OSH Stencils and SMT Stencil. For small boards, it's not difficult to dispense solder paste by hand with a syringe. The application doesn't need to be precise if you're using a board with a solder mask - surface tension does the hard work for you.

https://www.oshstencils.com/pricing.php http://www.smtstencil.co.uk/