3 ms·
Is there any real value in PCBs like these these days? 2 layers from China can be fast and is very cheap. You can’t do anything complicated on these single laye
by gswdh 7y ago
Is there any real value in PCBs like these these days? 2 layers from China can be fast and is very cheap. You can’t do anything complicated on these single layer DIY boards, they also carry the risk of defects potentially causing a lot of frustration.
- NikkiA 7y agoThere is mild value to photo-resist processing DIY, 2-sided is easy and it's a lot quicker than waiting for a shipment from china. But 3d printing, CNC routing, all those methods are an order of magnitude coarser production and not suitable for anything except very simple projects, and veroboard/stripboard is about on-par signal integrity wise.
- pixelface 7y agoone niche where i'd argue it's not only valuable but also period correct is restoring and modifying vintage electronics. Frequently they are single sided through hole boards that were not born from a CAD program, and are not available for purchase. You can certainly make the new board with CAD and a fab house, but for things like vintage synthesizers a hand etched board may actually be more appropriate and original. Also the importance of latency in some cases is significant. When the goal is to iterate a board quickly several times and a diy board is good enough, being able to have a board in an hour or less could mean multiple board iterations in one day where sending out to fab might draw out each board iteration to a week long wait.
- krallja 7y agoDo people still do wire-wrap prototyping? Strong enough for (tiny-scale) production, yet no chemicals, soldering, or drilling required.