How I Made a Cheap PCB • Hacker News Board

Re: How I Made a Cheap PCB

#81

Post by robert_foss » Fri, Apr 01, 2016, 1:07 AM UTC

PCBShopper[1] lets you compare prices and shipping times between ~20 Chinese vendors.

On a separate not I'd highly recommend DirtyPCBs[2], not only because of how funny their FAQ[3] is, but also because of the the reasonable quality boards. They also allow panelized jobs without any extra charge, which is rather unique. Typically that is bit more you have to pay extra for that.

Typically you'll find that you pay 14USD for 10 5x5cm boards. Delivery time ~30 days.

[1] PCBShopper http://pcbshopper.com

[2] DirtyPCBs http://dirtypcbs.com

[3] DirtyPCBs FAQ http://dirtypcbs.com/about.php

Re: How I Made a Cheap PCB

#82

Post by nibnib » Fri, Apr 01, 2016, 7:30 AM UTC

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…

They are about 3x the cost of OSHPark. I get OSHPark orders in about 2 weeks delivered to Europe, so 7 business day dispatch isn't particularly competitive.

edit: ah, I didn't notice their pricing scaling, they meet OSHPark when the quantity increases. That's a little annoying actually, is there any pricing information or do I have to look at the site every time?

Re: How I Made a Cheap PCB

#83

Post by Gibbon1 » Fri, Apr 01, 2016, 10:42 AM UTC

jwr wrote: post #77

bobadams5 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. It's pretty bad. Lots of quirks, I still haven't guessed the right incantations for it to notice libs you added, managing library paths is a mess, and you have to do most of that work for every project. But then again, coming from EAGLE, I'm used to this…

I've used a couple of tool$ AKA commercial tools

Cadence Allegro PCB Designer is a right steaming pile. The whole issue with path's are a problem. You don't have libraries like you do in Altium or ancient ORCAD, you have directories of files that define pads and parts.

Lately poking about with Altium. I think it's fairly good.

I still have a copy of the old ORCAD circa late nineties, was 'okay' Or put it this way, needed to layout a PCB in 2005 and tried Eagle and... dug out and installed ORCAD from 1998.

Re: How I Made a Cheap PCB

#84

Post by hatsunearu » Fri, Apr 01, 2016, 3:45 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…

http://pcbshopper.com/

Use this tool to choose the cheapest PCB option. It takes into account many different Shenzen PCB houses and picks the best one for the board size/color/etc specs you choose.

Re: How I Made a Cheap PCB

#85

Post by jhallenworld » Fri, Apr 01, 2016, 5:38 PM UTC

I've used http://www.myropcb.com/ It's a Canadian front company for a Chinese PCB house.

They have a very reasonably priced parts purchase and assembly service. Basically you give them your design, BOM and money, and they send you back complete assembled boards.

I used a very old version of PADS for board layout, but it doesn't matter- they build from gerbers, assembly drawing and pick & place file.

Re: How I Made a Cheap PCB

#86

Post by pcbway » Wed, Apr 06, 2016, 7:54 AM UTC

PCBWay is cheap and the quality is ok. For $38 special summer deal pricing) you can get 100*100 centimeters of PCB for 5 pcs. I paid extra to have some special features like white soldermask and black silkscreen and a $30 tax for multiple designs. Still, it seems like a great deal. Turn-around was under about 7days.

http://www.pcbway.com/hh

Re: How I Made a Cheap PCB

#87

Post by bobadams5 » Sat, Apr 09, 2016, 6:33 PM UTC

jwr wrote: post #77

bobadams5 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. It's pretty bad. Lots of quirks, I still haven't guessed the right incantations for it to notice libs you added, managing library paths is a mess, and you have to do most of that work for every project. But then again, coming from EAGLE, I'm used to this…

Altium does an amazing job with their integrated libraries. You create an integrated library, add a schematic library and a footprint library to it, and compile it like any other design project. You can also use supplier search to import part parameters from distributors.