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Personally I looked at etching and said "no". But still, I would love to have a way to build PCBs at home and I'm keeping an eye on people (mostly the Opulo/Lu
by kakwa_ 13d ago
Personally I looked at etching and said "no".
But still, I would love to have a way to build PCBs at home and I'm keeping an eye on people (mostly the Opulo/LumenPnp guy) experimenting milling and more recently engraving with fiber & UV lasers.
- bluGill 12d agoI've reached the point where I know I'll die before I get a faction of my todo list done. Building PCBs is on of those required steps for several parts of my todo list, and so I'll be glad to outsource if that is affordable. (if is key here, if it turns out expensive I might get a setup to do my own)
- kakwa_ 12d agoPCB manufacturing is reasonably cheap. YMMV, but JLCPCB was ~$20 for a set of 5 boards (minimal order quantity) last time I ordered. What you lose is not monetary, it's the ability to iterate quickly. It can be mitigated with next day manufacturing+delivery from local manufacturers... at a cost (IIRC, ~$80). But frankly, it would be nicer to pluck a blank board in a laser, press burn, and have a good enough board in 10 minutes. Fiber lasers are kind of capable of doing that, but they are still a bit expensive (~$2000), the result is imperfect (scorched epoxy board), and you can do at most 2 layers... if you are willing to manually tap rivet vias to connect the layers.