3 ms·
On the subject of "Trying this at home", it turns out you can approximate this type of manufacturing process at home with under $500 worth of tools! The uncom
by theunixbeard 13y ago
On the subject of "Trying this at home", it turns out you can approximate this type of manufacturing process at home with under $500 worth of tools!
The uncommon things you need are:
1. Custom PCB (http://oshpark.com/ http://oshpark.com/ $1.66/sq. in., min. only 3 copies of board)
2. Stencil for your custom PCB (http://www.oshstencils.com/ http://www.oshstencils.com/ $.60/sq. in.)
3. Solder paste [different than regular solder, it's glue-like at room temperature rather than solid] (http://www.smtsolderpaste.com/ http://www.smtsolderpaste.com/ there may be better vendors for paste, I've used these guys. Anyone have suggestions?)
4. Heat Source, for on-the-cheap use either a high-wattage toaster oven or hot plate (never to be used with food again!) See Sparkfun's writeup on it here:https://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/59 https://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/59
As you can see, as pg said the hardware renaissance is coming (http://www.paulgraham.com/hw.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hw.html). As an example oshstencils.com just launched a few months ago and before that it was a minimum of $30+ for even the cheapest mylar stencil vendors. Things are moving fast!
- asb 13y agoI agree that a lot of this stuff is surprisingly affordable and doable with low-cost equipment. That said, it's worth noting that in the case of the Raspberry Pi the BGA package of the BCM2835, even were it available in small quantities makes it infeasible to work with at home. For instance to break out the pins from the BGA you're going to need blind vias (OSHpark doesn't support this, plus the pi needs a 6-layer PCB). The RAM is soldered on top of the BCM2835 in a package on package configuration. I found oshstencils just yesterday, it looks great! As you can say, you can make some seriously impressive circuits at low cost with vendors like these.