where can I get a circuit board for a project appearing in Radio Electronics magazine?

Surface-mount adapters, like the Bellin things, can be stuck to a piece of copperclad with sticky foam tape. The copperclad is a great ground plane.

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One advantage is that all the connections are visible on the top side, and you can change things without flipping the board over, like if it's on your bench with a zillion cables connected.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

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jlarkin
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I used to write project articles for that and other magazines. Most of min e didn't have a PC board design at all. Sometimes a company such as FAR Ci rcuits would make an arrangement with the magazine to produce and sell a PC board.

Nowadays, if building just one unit, I would use perfboard (probably pad-pe r-hole) and simply lay it out as I go. That's the quickest way. The only reason for wanting a printed circuit board would be if the layout was criti cal or it was unusually complicated. In that case, scan the image, clean i t up, and do a toner transfer method using a laser printer, then etch.

Reply to
mc

Can you post a pic up on dropbox ???

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Reply to
TTman

Agreed. IIRC, Larkin uses a dental drill on copperclad to carve at least some critical layouts. As a last resort, prior to etching, you may be able to mount a carved copperclad critical circuit chunk to a larger universal motherboard; Manhattan style if you glue it in place or quasi-Manhattan with standoffs.

Thank you, 73,

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Don Kuenz

The first time I used HCl/H2O2 instead if ferric chloride, I never went back to ferric chloride. It really worked well and fast. For my HCL I used muratic acid for swimming pools.

Ya, a dremel drill press helps a whole lot.

OH, try this, >

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Mikek

Reply to
amdx

Etching is slow and messy. It takes weeks to get ferric chloride stains off fingers.

If you enjoy the process, go for it. If you want to do electronics, there are easier ways.

Simple circuits can be done on copperclad, maybe with adapters. More complex stuff deserves a PC board with vias and planes, which is fast and cheap nowadays, but requires a layout. A home-etched board needs a layout too, but resolution and adhesion are bad, no silk, no vias, no mask, no planes, no plating. Yuk.

If you order quick-turn boards, may as well get a few.

This is pulsed high current, hundred amps or two, Manhattan.

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jlarkin

Some metals are easy to plate at home.

NT

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tabbypurr

Which sort of brings us back to the original poster's implicit question:

Is there a board making service that will work from a good graphic of the published design rather than Gerber files? Or a way to turn a graphical image into a Gerber file?

Reply to
mc

PCB fabrication is not electronic design.

There is free PCB software around, and outfits that will make you several boards for $25 in 5 days.

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jlarkin

No, but I can on imgur:

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Reply to
BillyBob

you have a picture of the assembled pcb or a component placement to get the scale right?

it won't take many minutes to do in kicad

Reply to
Lasse Langwadt Christensen

Sorry, I made an error. I think I posted the wrong side/ perspective. Here it is with scaling:

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Reply to
BillyBob

the other one was better, but a component placement would help

Reply to
Lasse Langwadt Christensen

Ok, here's all I have from the article:

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Reply to
BillyBob

You could scan the image and convert it to a gerber and send it to SEEED or one of the other low-quantity board makers.

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Reply to
Jasen Betts

Easyeda.com can import images into the copper layer of its PCB designer, other software probably can too, but I have tried with it.

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Jasen Betts

to

e
o

e

What percentage is that? I use HCl on my toilet to clean rust stains and t hat's 20%. It's available in smaller bottles, about 20 oz I think.

I bought one of those and it's a piece of crap. It's all plastic and bends when it shouldn't. Totally worthless. I ended up buying a full size floo r drill press and have never regretted it, $200 from Costco many years ago.

That looks much better than the Dremel stand. Cheaper too!

I may need to pick up one!

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  Rick C. 

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Rick C

I just looked, the bottle says 31.45% Hydrochloric acid. I don't remember the ratio of H2O2 I used. I found the ratio on someone's webpage.

Maybe they have cheapened it, the one I have is a least 30 years old. After reading your next line I see I didn't post the dremel drill press you were thinking of. But it holds a dremel drill. The one I use is at least 30 years old, so probably not built the same anymore. Mikek

Reply to
amdx

That would be trivial to assemble it on veroboard.... A few track cuts, a few wire links... barely worth the effort to lay out a PCB. However... Seed studio ( China) will give you 10 off for around $15 all in, inc post.BUT you have to give them gerbers. Their PCB size is 100mm x 100mm so will easily acomodate your design. Make top and bottom layers the same so you get the benefit of the strength of PTH holes for the components.

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Reply to
TTman

published design rather than Gerber files? Or a way to turn a graphical i mage into a Gerber file?

I don't know of any board houses who will use an image. You may find some who will work with a DXF file (I think that is the suffix for Autocad files ). Otherwise you can just layout your own. It's actually very, very easy if you use an easy to use layout package like FreePCB. Normally designers start with a schematic in some other layout package and import the netlist to the layout program. But with FreePCB you don't need that. You can manu ally add components and then add nets to connect the pins the way you want. This builds the netlist internally and voila you have a layout!!! Click the menu to make the Gerber files and there isn't much more to it tha n that.

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  Rick C. 

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Rick C

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