Designing and assembling my first PCB • Hacker News Board

Re: Designing and assembling my first PCB

#61

Post by MSFT_Edging » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 12:30 PM UTC

dhosek wrote: post #11

OK, so people are ordering a custom PCB from China for a one-off? Whatever happened to making them at home? I remember my brothers doing this in the bathroom sink with a board coated with copper¹, some special markers to draw the circuit on the board and chemicals to wash off the extra copper. I’m guessing they might have used our dad’s electric drill to put some holes in the board as well, but looking at the article…

I knew someone who destroyed three surface pro keyboards with chemical etcher.

I've got a cat and live in a carpeted apartment. I prefer to keep most projects "dry" for that reason.

Re: Designing and assembling my first PCB

#62

Post by mschuster91 » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 12:30 PM UTC

ge96 wrote: post #10

Retr0id wrote: post #2

It's incredible how cheap it is to get custom PCBs made at prototype scale these days, even ones with advanced features. It feels like we're living in a golden era of custom manufacturing.

It is unfortunate hope local companies like OSH Park get love too. The marketing of companies like JLC or pcbway whenever I post a hardware project on a website like Hackaday or Hackster always reach out to me to use em. Not that it would matter so many big makers on YT use em.

While we're at it, anyone here aware of a PCB supplier and (ideally) assembly provider that is available for Europeans?

Re: Designing and assembling my first PCB

#63

Post by olelele » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 12:32 PM UTC

jimnotgym wrote: post #58

Does anyone else remember when designing and assembling your first pcb involved marker pens and ferric chloride?

I made an old school linear psu for my arp 2600 clone like that. I etched w something else :)

Re: Designing and assembling my first PCB

#64

Post by mschuster91 » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 12:33 PM UTC

taylor-tg wrote: post #13

klysm wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This and sheet metal manufacturing from Oshcut have been game changers for me

To throw another in the mix, SendCutSend has consistently been a reliable and affordable option for 2D cut parts. They recently added CNC machining offerings, though I can't speak to their affordability on that. Overseas will almost always win on price (at least in small quantities), but it's hard to beat the turnaround from local manufacturers...

> Overseas will almost always win on price (at least in small quantities), but it's hard to beat the turnaround from local manufacturers...

Overseas can work with crazy turnarounds too. Once I ordered a bunch of stuff from Digikey, and the parcel came around from the tiny village of Thief River Falls MN to rural Bavaria in less than 30 hours, picking/handling included. And free shipping, despite being less than 100€ in volume.

Re: Designing and assembling my first PCB

#65

Post by 15155 » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 12:35 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #62

ge96 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is unfortunate hope local companies like OSH Park get love too. The marketing of companies like JLC or pcbway whenever I post a hardware project on a website like Hackaday or Hackster always reach out to me to use em. Not that it would matter so many big makers on YT use em.

While we're at it, anyone here aware of a PCB supplier and (ideally) assembly provider that is available for Europeans?

https://aisler.net/

Re: Designing and assembling my first PCB

#66

Post by greatony » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 12:35 PM UTC

Did you find out that designing, manufacturing and testing PCBs are very interesting, but also very exhausting. You have quite a lot of repetitive jobs, especially paper work to do.

Re: Designing and assembling my first PCB

#67

Post by mschuster91 » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 12:40 PM UTC

dhosek wrote: post #11

OK, so people are ordering a custom PCB from China for a one-off? Whatever happened to making them at home? I remember my brothers doing this in the bathroom sink with a board coated with copper¹, some special markers to draw the circuit on the board and chemicals to wash off the extra copper. I’m guessing they might have used our dad’s electric drill to put some holes in the board as well, but looking at the article…

> Whatever happened to making them at home?

That method works for creating single sided PCBs with through-hole components or rough SMD parts. Double sided PCBs are more effort but still possible.

But everything more complex than that - multiple layers, blind or buried vias, fine-pitch SMD, anything involving clock frequencies higher than say 50-100 MHz or depending on specific impedances or capacitances, or requiring stuff like vias to groundplanes to dissipate heat in copper? No way even for a dedicated hobbyist. And you need special equipment to make a proper stencil if you can't use a soldering iron due to feature size or because it's impossible otherwise (=BGA parts).

And where it gets really spicy is sandgrain sized SMD parts (0201 and smaller). Even for professional repair shops, that size requires experienced experts...

Re: Designing and assembling my first PCB

#68

Post by 15155 » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 12:41 PM UTC

ErroneousBosh wrote: post #48

ge96 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is unfortunate hope local companies like OSH Park get love too. The marketing of companies like JLC or pcbway whenever I post a hardware project on a website like Hackaday or Hackster always reach out to me to use em. Not that it would matter so many big makers on YT use em.

The problem with OSH Park is that they're in the US, so they're prohibitively expensive for shipping and there's no guarantee your boards will even make it to you. I've also got concerns about the quality of American electrical products.

> I've also got concerns about the quality of American electrical products.

American PCB fabs are far higher quality/capability than most Chinese quick-turn fabs, but good luck getting Advanced Circuits or similar to talk to you for under $5k.

That isn't to say that the products JLC and PCBWay produce aren't high-quality: they are - for what they are, but you aren't using JLC boards in your $100mm satellite.

Re: Designing and assembling my first PCB

#69

Post by MeteorMarc » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 12:43 PM UTC

jimnotgym wrote: post #58

Does anyone else remember when designing and assembling your first pcb involved marker pens and ferric chloride?

Yes, but not how to copy the paper design to the pcb with the marker pen. I am pretty sure a did the drilling after the etching.

Re: Designing and assembling my first PCB

#70

Post by ErroneousBosh » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 12:44 PM UTC

throwaway219450 wrote: post #49

ErroneousBosh wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with OSH Park is that they're in the US, so they're prohibitively expensive for shipping and there's no guarantee your boards will even make it to you. I've also got concerns about the quality of American electrical products.

In the past if you didn't live in the US, OSHPark was a great option. Local fabs were very expensive, had big setup fees and even the "maker" places charged more and you'd only get HASL. Meanwhile OSH gave you 3 with ENIG and the quality has always been excellent. They nailed the automation to make group buys cost effective. If you live in the US, it's free shipping and for breakout boards or smaller work, still a gr…

Right now it's several hundred dollars to get anything electronic out of the US and into the UK, unless you're a big enough company to be able to lawyer your way out of it.

We'll see what 2026 brings, I suppose.