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How I Made a Cheap PCB
- ZenoArrow 11y agoNot really much of an article is it, could be summarised as 'How I ordered a cheap PCB by choosing one of the many companies offering to build cheap PCBs'. I was expecting a little more DIY from the title.
- LeifCarrotson 11y agoSame 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 recommends http://dirtypcbs.com/ http://dirtypcbs.com/, I personally have had a lot of success with https://oshpark.com/ https://oshpark.com/ - local support, you only need 3 boards (not 10) for prototypes, and they do 2-layer in 12 days for $5/sq inch and 4-layer in 2 weeks for $10/sq inch. Once you need a production run, take it to Gold Phoenix.
- lucaspiller 11y agoDoes anyone have any recommendations for a PCB fab in Europe? i.e. where I don't need to wait 4 weeks.
- deutronium 11y agoI've had PCBs from China take a little over a week, if you checkout http://pcbshopper.com/ http://pcbshopper.com/ you can specify the delivery time you want to pay for.
- alex_hitchins 11y agoBoldPort (https://boldport.cratejoy.com/ https://boldport.cratejoy.com/) recently had some excellent boards made up with European Circuits (http://www.european-circuits.co.uk/ http://www.european-circuits.co.uk/).
- oddeyed 11y agoI wrote a bigger comment too but Ragworm do (pretty cheap) 2-week turnaround. Only 2-layer by default though, get in touch with them for more.
- cillian64 11y agoIf you pay DirtyPCBs some more money for decent shipping you can get your board in about two weeks. A week for fab, a few days for shipping. $14 for the boards, $14 for the shipping. It's still very cheap for very good boards, and even cheaper if you can batch up a few projects and combine shipping.
- david-given 11y agoDo 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.
- ZenoArrow 11y agoYou 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 do this). Solder stencils are also easy enough to create, especially if you have access to a laser cutter. Are there any hackerspaces near where you live?
- cillian64 11y agoWhat 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.
- jwr 11y agoJust order them from OSHstencils. They aren't expensive.
- ZenoArrow 11y agoDepends 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-stencil-out-soda-can http://www.popsci.com/article/diy/build-diy-soldering-stenci...
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- alexhawdon 11y agoI enjoyed it. As someone unfamiliar with these things I was pleasantly surprised to learn how inexpensive it was.
- alex_hitchins 11y agoWell, 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.
- ZenoArrow 11y ago> "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.
- unwind 11y agoHuh? 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".
- ZenoArrow 11y agoTrue, was probably mostly a case of misunderstanding. I was hoping to see an article about making PCBs as in making them at home. If the term used was 'assembling a cheap PCB' I'd probably not have overreacted.
- jpindar 11y agoI work in electronics manufacturing and if I said "we made a new board for this project", I would mean we laid it out and sent it out to be fabricated.
- agumonkey 11y agonext: how I printed PCBs by printing P, C, B and s.
- madengr 11y agoNice, 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".
- LeifCarrotson 11y agoThe 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/ http://www.4pcb.com/ - you can't get anything without spending over $100.
- afandian 11y agoMaybe $100 is what it should cost (assuming some kind of ethical baseline for labour standards and environmental damage).
- diskcat 11y agoIf 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 US etc.) The least I could do is buy their labour so that they may improve their lives. If I bought from a US companies most of the money would go to a rich 1% new yacht and new iphones for his daughters. I would rather feed a poor chinese worker family and send a youngster to school.
- madengr 11y agoThat 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.
- takno 11y agoCould easily have been titled "no way back for America: how even small-time hobbyists can outsource to China now"
- diskcat 11y agoIt 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.
- 3JPLW 11y agoNot 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.
- reitanqild 11y agoMy big question after reading this is what the project is and if we are going to see it on DEF CON.
- pgvoorhees 11y agoExpect some kind of power analysis. I'm guessing key extraction of some kind.
- alex_hitchins 11y agoThis surely must be some sort of service utilising space capacity akin to OSH Park.
- oddeyed 11y agoAnyone 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 orders at once then cut them out. I've had good experience with them but the big downside is that the front-page prices are for two-layer only. Also, obviously if you need them faster then try someone else. Their website is a bit odd too. [1] http://ragworm.eu/ http://ragworm.eu/
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- pyb 11y agoIf you need a cheap PCB prototype more quickly (2 days), the PCB Train service is always a good source.
- joshvm 11y agoWorth 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.
- pyb 11y agoYes but I was talking about their prototypes (no solder resist or silkscreen legend) which are a lot more affordable, and quicker. (seems ca. £37 for 100m2)
- nibnib 11y agoThey 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?
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- jwr 11y agoSeveral 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, seeedstudio (both use the same PCB factory), pcbway.com and more. All offer great prices. * For small boards, OSHpark.com is actually cheaper. Also, their boards come with ENIG finish by default, which you really want for SMD work. * The companion OSHstencils.com is a fantastic resource: every board I order gets a stencil made.
- alex_hitchins 11y agoHave you ever used DipTrace?
- iheartmemcache 11y agoI 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=au2ba5gWLWk
- bobadams5 11y agoHas 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.
- ggoss 11y agoI believe so, yes, though the degree to which this is true depends on whether or not you were using the beta at the time. The latest KiCad stable is worth a look if you haven't tried it in a while
- reidrac 11y agoMy 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.
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- god_bless_texas 11y agoAnyone here use expresspcb.com and their own software? I've tinkered with Eagle and considered KiCAD but I am intrigued by the co with the software built into their design process.
- pgvoorhees 11y agoI've used it an age ago. Don't bother. The software wasn't terribly sophisticated. The library support was OK at best. And the only thing it really does is make ordering a little easier. It's only slightly more work to use a FOSS tool and generate output which can go to and board house.
- robert_foss 11y agoPCBShopper[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 http://pcbshopper.com [2] DirtyPCBs http://dirtypcbs.com http://dirtypcbs.com [3] DirtyPCBs FAQ http://dirtypcbs.com/about.php http://dirtypcbs.com/about.php
- jhallenworld 11y agoI've used http://www.myropcb.com/ 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.
- pcbway 11y agoPCBWay 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 http://www.pcbway.com/hh