PCB Design Kit Questions.

I suspect most lurkers in this group have been there at some point in their lives.

Mechanical aka router type solution are expensive. Great for same-hour in-house protos in a pro house. Not for hobby unless your surname is Gates/Hilton etc.

So it's back to considering chemical etching. The good thing about etch-your-own is that you'll soon discover why most of us don't any more. Once the novelty is over, you'll appreciate the no-mess fab house approach. Even for small batches, it gives a quality product at a price that almost all hobbyists can justify. There are a growing number of fab houses that accommodate small orders by consolidating them onto commercial panels. I currently use Futurlec

for all small jobs, and some that are so small they probably laugh when they see the order. One I sent off just after Xmas was for three of a 3100*1700 (thou/mil) double-sided job. Beats the hell out of the mess and the task of trying to get all your dual-in-line holes actually in line. And when you decide that plated-through-holes are better than wire bridges, I'm sure you'll go the same route.

Please don't misunderstand. I'm not trying to talk you out of it, but I am pointing out the realities as I see them after 35 years in electronics (both as a hobby and a professional).

Wow! some very nice ideas and comments. I really appreciated every one. This give me a lot to think about and read about before I dive into it. Thanks a bunch everyone.

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^^^^^^

Yes, you're wrong to ass-u-me. ;-)

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Rich Grise, Self-Appointed Chief,
Apostrophe Police

I etched a board once, and it came out acceptable, but it was not fun.

What I've mostly done for prototypes was to get that Vectorbord(tm) with pad-per-hole on one side, plated-thru holes, and a ground plane (more like a grid, of course) on the other side. Then just wire point-to-point with #30 wire-wrap wire. I've done a 4 MHz 68HC11 that way, and it worked. :-)

Good Luck! Rich

The "minimum order" is one helluva lot less than $(US?)100 at some places - which is why I use or have used them.

So you're happy to have your hobby project contain a PCB full of hacks, heat-damaged traces from parts being removed and replaced, and so on?

Buying 2 boards vs. 1 board is not a 100% price increase, it's more like a 15% price increase. It's insurance. Even if I am only building one board, I want that board to be the best possible. And I do a _lot_ of home hobby projects!

Huh. In my day job we have a minimum order of 9 _panels_ for prototypes. The projects I work on are mostly 6-up so that's a minimum order of 54 boards.

I have one project (which I hope to God will finish itself and disappear soon) that is 24-up, so every spin is 216 boards minimum.

I understand where you're all coming from, but you all mentioned the same thing: customers. There's a category of people who don't have customers. We need ONE board at a time. When we assemble a board, one of three things happens:

1. The board works. We're done.

1. The board doesn't work, but we can get it to work. We're done.

2. The board needs to be changed. We fab a new one.

This is true for me now as a home hobbiest. It was true for me when I designed 80386 motherboards. I plan on designing my next board to fail, and be fixed, and I want the least expensive single board I can find. Either it works or it needs to be debugged, neither require multiple boards.

Fine, but keep in mind that it costs very little extra (perhaps 10%) to produce several boards compared to one. Most of the cost is in setup not in the few cents of extra material used. Also, yield is not perfect so PCB makers generally have to start more boards than they expect to deliver (they often ask to be allowed to deliver over or under the order quantity by some margin such as 5% or 10%). So maybe if you're a hobbyist you want to share with another person or keep one for a spare, it's really just about free anyway.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

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"it\'s the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
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Well, if I wasn't, it would have been case #3 instead ;-)

I have such a board in my furnace. Flying transistors, cut traces, etc. Having a second board that looked like that wouldn't help. Having a second board with corrected traces on it would.

But, why are you named after a bird?

Thanks, Rich

because all the animal names were taken ;-)

Use reference "Gootee board" for google

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JosephKK

And i thought Order Aves of Phylum Vertabrae were part of Kingdom Animae.

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JosephKK