PCB drilling: problem solved

If you can't afford 33$ to have a two-sided plated-through-hole board with solder mask and silkscreen made, how can you afford the tools, chemicals, materials, time and space to futz around to end up with an inferior product in every way?

The mentality of you DIY PCB guys baffles me totally.

If you only have enough money for a $3.00 board, and $2.00 worth of etchant, and need it right now ...

Well, you "appliance operators" have never understood "Real Hobbyists" anyway. ;-) ;-)

Cheers! Rich

Yep. I needed four (peripheral) USB jacks for a recent project. I ended up buying four iPod Shuffle (old style) docking stations on clearance at Radio Shack for $3. Not only did they have the socket I needed, but also came with cables and other goodies I can use. ;-)

For me this really is a hobby, so I really don't have any deadlines to meet. And since I've got three kids, I've got little money for the hobby to begin with.

Jeff

Who says people who make DIY PCBs can't afford professionally made ones? I roll my own because I can have a finished board in a couple of hours rather than a couple of weeks.

Tim

Speed is the reason I do it, I can make a prototype PCB at home in about 30 minutes.

Leon

Exactly! I keep my etching machine around just in case I want a simple PCB quick.

if you pay an extra $10 for fedex delievery, you can have shipped overnight

if you pay an extra $10 for fedex delievery, you can have shipped overnight

With that logic, why climb the mountain when you can rent a helicopter and fly up there. Because we can make our own and prototypes don't have to be made with professional pcb's, they just have to work.

You also have to pay for rush service *buildling* the board, which can sometimes double the price. And you still won't have it for a few days, because it still takes 1-2 days to make the board, plus a day to ship it. The last board I had made took almost three weeks from ordering to possession, because I couldn't justify the cost of "fast" service.

You can mask, etch, and drill a board in about an hour. I do my own boards for all my one-shot boards (i.e. prototypes, test boards, socket adapters, etc), but send out for the "final" boards. I might revise a board a few times in a day before I get it right.

Plus it's more fun to do it yourself sometimes.

"Fedex. When it absolutely, positively, doesn't have to be there until tomorrow."

It's not a matter of being able to afford it. I'm impatient, and it's not economical for me. Did I mention I'm impatient? The last board I did, just a week or two ago, is single side, all through hole, and would cost $60 USD total from PCBCART in 7 days. I only need one. No soldermask, silkscreen, nothing extra.

All my tools/materials for doing my own cost much less than $200. Chemicals and consumable materials are cheap. $60 for one 3.5x7 inch, single side board. Plus I wait a FULL WEEK. That's about 1/3 the cost of my tools/materials alone.

How does it make sense again to have a PCB house make all your PCBs??

The mentality of the out-source brigade baffles me. Despite all the PCB house promises, and their "premium-rush" charges, they always seem to end up a day late with creative excuses "Ah-ha we received the files at 0802, they must be there by 0800" --- "It's a public holiday in Mongolia" ---- : "We had them our ready, but the Fedex guy missed his pickup, real bad luck" and so on. There seems to be no way to get a PCB in less than 3-4 days. Even goofing about, I can make a prototype in a couple of hours.

And before anyone mentions "precision"...

That's an 01005 capacitor next to a TVSOP (0.4mm pitch) part, hand-soldered onto a home-made board. Photo taken with a microscope.

So you only have one design happening at a time? Work on one thing, send off the gerbers, start the next idea, by the time you are bored with that the PCBs will have arrived, so you can get un/board/bored playing on the workbench, then when you get bored back to the next or last but one idea.

and nothing ever gets finished :-)

martin

Late at night, by candle light, snipped-for-privacy@netzero.com penned this immortal opus:

For the investment you can make many boards, with a significant reduction in per board cost, even the one-offs.

Hobbyists don't care about the extra time and labor, they do it for fun.

Some designers make initial prototypes, it's a lot faster than waiting for the boardhouse to get off its ass.

That said, if a design is done and is sellable it's time to send it off for professional fabrication.

- YD.

You really are sick :-) Welcome to the club!

cheap. $60 for one 3.5x7 inch,

Yeah, I got something going on like that. I've been working on it since the start of the year, here and there. I've already made one nice build on a PCB, but I found out the hard way that the switching regulator doesn't like long traces! I'll get it done some day.....

I designed a little double-sided board once, that I could make 6 of out of one piece of PCB material. I took my tape-up (Yes, tape on mylar, with some ink here and there) to a photo shop guy, and asked him i fhe could print it 6-up, registered. He said, "No Problem!" It wasn't very expensive. I exposed the board in the afternoon sun and etched it in the driveway.

It worked, and it was great fun!

Cheers! Rich