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Designing and assembling my first PCB

vilkeliskis.com

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Re: Designing and assembling my first PCB

#71

Post by JKCalhoun »

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.

I'll have to try OSH Park.

They don't do assembly, just the bare PCBs—and my last projects required assembly.

Re: Designing and assembling my first PCB

#72

Post by JKCalhoun »

hananova wrote: post #28
bschwindHN wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OshPark's quality is high, but their prices are certainly higher too. Good to support them though if you live in the States, since that's where they manufacture the boards.

That's kind of the problem though. jlc/pcbway aren't just "cheaper", for anything 2 or 4 layer that doesn't require special coatings, thickness, or finish such as gold fingers, it's just so cheap and fast that it makes no financial sense to buy locally. You'd pay several hundred percents more to get the boards maybe 1-2 business days earlier. In addition, china is where all the world's pcbs are made, even for commerc…

But, holyshit, the tariffs when ordering from JLCPCB from the U.S. this year have been astronomical.

Re: Designing and assembling my first PCB

#73

Post by JKCalhoun »

It's always cool to see people discover KiCad and the amazing world we live in now where a hobbyist can come up with something that can masquerade as a commercial offering.

The transition to SMD and having the "fab" do the assembly was another hurdle for me.

Now I tend to consult LCSC Electronics at the same time I am designing my circuit: checking availability and price of the various components I am proposing to use in my design.

Re: Designing and assembling my first PCB

#74

Post by Waterluvian »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #72
hananova wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's kind of the problem though. jlc/pcbway aren't just "cheaper", for anything 2 or 4 layer that doesn't require special coatings, thickness, or finish such as gold fingers, it's just so cheap and fast that it makes no financial sense to buy locally. You'd pay several hundred percents more to get the boards maybe 1-2 business days earlier. In addition, china is where all the world's pcbs are made, even for commerc…

But, holyshit, the tariffs when ordering from JLCPCB from the U.S. this year have been astronomical.

It's interesting to me because it tries to protect American options, but for Americans only. It creates an opportunity for the rest of the world to be able to get boards printed far cheaper than the Americans can.

Maybe I'm just catching up to what people already know, but it feels like the tariffs are especially bad for parts and not just products where the U.S. market is the final stop.

Re: Designing and assembling my first PCB

#75

Post by RetroTechie »

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?

Eurocircuits

(disclaimer: have no experience with them)

Re: Designing and assembling my first PCB

#76

Post by alnwlsn »

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 have a small CNC mill and can carve out a board if I don't have time to wait for ordered boards. It's a pain to set up to get it to cut properly, the boards are either one sided or with no vias, and the lack of solder mask makes it harder to solder, especially for SMD components that rely on the solder blob being a certain shape. Additionally, I find that the traces tend to peel off a little too easily, though that may be down to the Ea-Nasir quality copper clad boards I'm using.

It is pretty fast though, and worth learning if you need to do prototyping quickly. You can have a finished board in just hours instead of a week.

Re: Designing and assembling my first PCB

#77

Post by the-dude »

RetroTechie wrote: post #75
mschuster91 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Eurocircuits (disclaimer: have no experience with them)

I have, only PCBs, no assembly though.

I have been ordering from them since last century and they are excellent, great customer service too.

Re: Designing and assembling my first PCB

#78

Post by handle584 »

hananova wrote: post #28
bschwindHN wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OshPark's quality is high, but their prices are certainly higher too. Good to support them though if you live in the States, since that's where they manufacture the boards.

That's kind of the problem though. jlc/pcbway aren't just "cheaper", for anything 2 or 4 layer that doesn't require special coatings, thickness, or finish such as gold fingers, it's just so cheap and fast that it makes no financial sense to buy locally. You'd pay several hundred percents more to get the boards maybe 1-2 business days earlier. In addition, china is where all the world's pcbs are made, even for commerc…

> You'd pay several hundred percents more

Sounds impressive in relative terms but not quite so in absolute terms, because PCB is dirty cheap so 100% is just $10-$20.

> it's not unreasonable to expect them to deliver higher and more consistent quality than home fabs.

Actually it is the opposite, OshPark quality is consistently higher than JLC for years. Chinese manufacturers can do Apple products but also Temu craps, so don't get your hopes high. The only reasonable expectation is being cheap reduces quality.

Re: Designing and assembling my first PCB

#80

Post by jhogendorn »

LoganDark wrote: post #45
jhogendorn wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So a lot of this goes away if you try to stick to jlcpcb basic parts from lcsc, and you sort of develop preferred components for things. Another trick is when in a category, for example angular hall sensors, once you have the key attributes like vin, smt, etc, sort by quantity desc to see what parts get heavily stocked, that tends to indicate what is popular in industry and likely to be a good generic fit. Out of the…

LCSC has been my problem. It's built into EasyEDA, but most search results aren't in stock, and most of the rest have high minimum order quantities. I needed a lot of different resistor, capacitor, etc values so each and every one needed me to go through that search.

Yes, you need to design for what jlc stocks as basic parts to retain your sanity. Dont just slap down a 1206 resistor and call it good, jlc prob has no stock in that size in that value, but they probably have it in 0603. Once you get a handle for whats basic or very common extended parts, that sort of thing gets a lot easier. You kind of have to work backwards, ie if i need a diode i see what jlc has in basic and make my part choice accordingly.
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