First PCB

Back in the early days, i used to sometimes hold the solder with my mouth. I think.

greg

??? You can buy single and double sided PCB copper laminates on EBAY for next to nothing.

unless you are constrained by other factors

Ouch To get any more complex you are going to need software ... Why not use the opensource PCB program ? Its simple, does 8 layers, and manual routing

It can generate postscript output or gerber ... and the ps can generate the silk and assembly layer ... so you dont have to "guess" what components reside where.

I hear you! Thats why I prefer the simplicity of PCB ... no silly autorouter and everything is limited ... you create your own footprints.

heres a board I designed and built at home a few months back

its usually the other way around :) the laser toner transfer method is usually the quickest way to get boards done. even if you dont have a laser printer surely you can get access to one at the office, school, library? if not a laser printer a copier perhaps?

personally I think this will depend on whether this is a one time thing for you or if you plan to be making boards regularly. if the latter, opt for one of those $50 benchpress drills on ebay with 5 speeds. Another $20 should get you a large assortment of carbide drills bits of varying sizes

Are these production runs or hobby boards? if hobby boards why bother?

I am still a newbie at this so I am paying attention to the responses of other to this thread

This is the third time I am hearing this. I am going to make a note of it for the next board I work on.

Actually, I've tested it at around 50 layers. It *defaults* to 8 layers when you build it though. You do run out of layer colors pretty quickly though.

It has autoplace if you want it :-) Also autoplace, optimize, and automiter.

Yes, I've thought about autoneck and autoteardrop, but it's WAY down on the priority list.

Just for fun, could you please try the optimizer and automiter options in PCB on your board? I'm always on the lookout for more testing, and it produces (IMHO) pretty boards.

And here I thought 8 layers was OVERKILL. Who the hell makes 50 layer boards ... jeesh

No hobbyist needs more than two layers and 640k of DOS RAM ;)

I may look into it But honestly I like to do it by hand ... and I go through a lot of sketches on paper before I lay it out under PCB.

LOL Here is the layout .pcb file:

Knock yourself out ... post up your results i am eager to see what it looks like ... my email address is on the silkscreen layer

That is the other method I was taught in certification class. They called it the solder bump method. It is really personal preference as to which works better for you.

One other thing to consider, is that as long as you have 3/4 of the device on the pad (side to side) and don't have solder touching the body you are in good shape, assuming no blow holes, disturbed joints, etc. The point is that it doesn't have to look picture perfect. If you get it good enough the first time, leave it because the more times you reflow it, the thicker the intermetalic layer (the chemical joint between the part and the solder) gets and this is the weakest point.

Where I work, it was a big deal when I created the first multi layer (more than two) board. I think my boss would have a stroke if I suggested an 8 layer board.

I have actually be curious as to how many layers it takes to route a mother board that uses on of the Intel P4-D chips that come in a 780 pin PGA.

Any guesses?

Don't let the State of California see you doing that...

I can't even imagine what all of those pins could possibly be _for_.

You've got, say, 64 bits of address, and 64 bits of data, read, write, and IO/Memory. And maybe interrupts. That's like, 150 pins. And only if you have a 64-bit wide address and data bus both!

Any explanations? ;-)

Thanks! Rich

Well, two things: First, PCB uses a "layer" for everything - silk, outline, copper, etc. Plus you can have multiple PCB layers for each copper layer (think "split power planes" == two layers, etc). So, the layers get used up pretty quickly. 8 working layers is only really good for a 4-6 layer board, less if you assign different layers to each power/ground net. If you have ground and two voltages, plus an outline layer, even a two sided board won't fit in 8 PCB layers.

Second, that was just for testing. I figured, if I could get it to 50 layers, I'd passed all the "natural limits" (like 32 bits per int) and was confident that I'd written the code right. If you build it for 8 or 16 layers, a lot of that code gets optimized out in favor of simple bitmasks.

Actually, I know someone who's rebuilt his PCB for 24 layers (I have no idea why he needed them, though). For some people, PCB layout is an extreme sport.

The rats's nest feature is very useful for doing placement, too.

Well, it pointed out a few bugs in my work-in-progress PCB, and the results aren't as optimal as I'd hoped, but here's the results:

Go here:

Look at the second bur on the page. Sizes: I have a 1/2 and a 1 - I wish I had a 2. Maybe your dentist can give you some old ones.

Once you have used a decent press, you'll never go back to doing it by hand. Whether you can build something like a simple press is an unknown - I judge the probability very low.

Ed

I'm glad you are such an expert on what I can and cannot do.

Power, mostly. 226 VCC, 24 VTT, 273 GND. The 100W or so melt the bond wires otherwise.

Regards,

Iwo

I imagine pretty much anybody that can work with metal and tools could do it, but why bother, when there's this:

If it wraps on your reader, you'll have to copy/paste.

Cheers! Rich

You don't seem to realize that is in your No-Hotlink zone.

I suppose if you're reading news via the web, and it url-ifies the link, my server will stop you (thinking you're trying to embed one of my images in your html pages, which is bad). Try this page instead:

I opened a new tab in my browser and cut & pasted the page URL. I get only the *Please do not hotlink* graphic that way too.

Probably your local cache. Try shift-refresh.