The purpose of the Manhattan style to make PCB

Nowadays it is possible to make PCB with software so what is the purpose or objective to make Manhattan style PCB. Thanks in advance.

Reply to
Chris
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Saving money and time. A decent machine for engraving PCBs is like 100 times more expensive than the tools needed to build Manhattan style circuits. And several time slower than one person doing them if we consider the time required designing the circuit with software.

Of course we're not talking about mass production.

Reply to
asdf

I find that it takes me about the same amount of work to whip out a prototype PCB on KiCad, send it off for fab, and build it up as it does to build something "Manhattan style".

If I can tolerate the wait for the bare board to come back from OshPark, that's almost always how I do it these days.

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Tim Wescott 
Wescott Design Services 
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Reply to
Tim Wescott

It's a great breadboarding technique. Those white breadboards intended for ICs aren't so great for analog or especially radio circuitry. With "Manhattan", you have a good ground area, and it's easy to change things. You can always repackage later, or just put the "messy" board in an enclosure. With radio circuitry, you want that good ground, and may not want traces going all over the place, you want as short leads as possible, much easier with the ground all over the place and building over it. It's also cheap. Before it upgraded itself, the local "surplus" place was a great source of blank copper circuit board, nice and cheap. But some of it had holes in it, so making etched boards wasn't going to work, but the holes didn't get in the way of soldering ground leads to the board.

Circuit board layout was never that complicated, I used to do it with a pen or tape, just making choices about layout as I went. But you have to get the layuout out of the computer and onto the board, and then etch the board. These are extra steps. The "Maker" world has the output of the layout software sent somewhere that applies the resist in some way and etches the board, but that takes some time, and actually costs money, even if it's now a lot cheaper than once upon a time.

Michael

Reply to
Michael Black

For an even faster turnaround time, I can whip up a PCB at home: transfer a laser-printed artwork onto copper with a clothing iron, etch, drill, solder. Counting from the time you send to the printer, you can have it it ready for drilling within 15 minutes.

Great for anything simple, in particular.

Example:

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Reply to
Kaz Kylheku
[snip]

What process and materials are you using? ...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations                               |     et      | 
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

The above was produced with a laser print job on some glossy brochure paper, transferred to the one-sided copper-clad using a clothing iron.

The tiny circuit board was etched in a small quantity of ferric chloride, using the plastic cap from a 1.89 bottle of V8 juice as the bath container.

Toner was removed from the copper using acetone. (Isopropanol doesn't cut through it.)

Then holes were drilled by hand.

(Usually I tranfer the silk artwork also; I didn't do it this time. When I do, I like to spray some clear coat over it as a fixative to make it more durable.)

The design was made using FreePCB, and rendered to a PNG file using the GerberRender.EXE.

Reply to
Kaz Kylheku

Kinda hard for 8mil trace-to-trace with plated through holes, though.

How does it work for four layer?

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Tim Wescott 
Wescott Design Services 
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Reply to
Tim Wescott

Get a Dremel!

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics
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John Larkin

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