
How I Made a Cheap PCB - tghw
http://www.keacher.com/1490/how-i-made-a-cheap-pcb/
======
jwr
Several points:

* KiCAD has become a great tool for designing boards, even fairly complex ones. And it's completely free, both in terms of freedom and money. Don't get locked into EAGLE, which is becoming increasingly obsolete (development is glacially slow) and will suddenly become quite expensive to use once you want a certain board size or a number of layers.

* There are multiple PCB services in China, itead.cc, seeedstudio (both use the same PCB factory), pcbway.com and more. All offer great prices.

* For small boards, OSHpark.com is actually cheaper. Also, their boards come with ENIG finish by default, which you really want for SMD work.

* The companion OSHstencils.com is a fantastic resource: every board I order gets a stencil made.

~~~
bobadams5
Has KiCAD improved their schematic/footprint library management? Last time I
tried to use it (2 or 3 years ago) it drove me crazy with how difficult it was
to use.

I've used Diptrace, KiCad, Altium, and Cadence Allegro and KiCad was by far
the worst of these for handling parts.

~~~
jwr
> Has KiCAD improved their schematic/footprint library management? Last time I
> tried to use it (2 or 3 years ago) it drove me crazy with how difficult it
> was to use.

It's pretty bad. Lots of quirks, I still haven't guessed the right
incantations for it to notice libs you added, managing library paths is a
mess, and you have to do most of that work for every project.

But then again, coming from EAGLE, I'm used to this stuff being incredibly
crappy. I don't know — do other tools get this right?

~~~
Gibbon1
I've used a couple of tool$ AKA commercial tools

Cadence Allegro PCB Designer is a right steaming pile. The whole issue with
path's are a problem. You don't have libraries like you do in Altium or
ancient ORCAD, you have directories of files that define pads and parts.

Lately poking about with Altium. I think it's fairly good.

I still have a copy of the old ORCAD circa late nineties, was 'okay' Or put it
this way, needed to layout a PCB in 2005 and tried Eagle and... dug out and
installed ORCAD from 1998.

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oddeyed
Anyone considering doing similar in the UK, try ragworm [1]. Low cost (and
cool orange) PCBs. They are trying to position themselves as the community PCB
provider who you should go to for low-volume jobs e.g. kickstarter prototypes,
hobbyist projects, and presumably are hoping that those early prototypes grow
into big orders for them.

Turnaround is 10 working days because they presumably combine lots of people's
orders at once then cut them out.

I've had good experience with them but the big downside is that the front-page
prices are for two-layer only. Also, obviously if you need them faster then
try someone else. Their website is a bit odd too.

[1] [http://ragworm.eu/](http://ragworm.eu/)

~~~
pyb
If you need a cheap PCB prototype more quickly (2 days), the PCB Train service
is always a good source.

~~~
joshvm
Worth pointing out that PCB Train is business cheap, not hobbyist cheap.
You'll easily pay upwards of £50 for a "short" turn around board from PCB
Train (10 days) and you'll have to pay extra for things like ENIG.

A 1 square inch board, 2-layer standard finish, 2 day turnaround is north of
£300. You don't need to pay much more to get multiple quantities though, so
this is largely setup cost.

Note that you'll also pay for wasted space, unlike OSHPark - a 100mm square
design also costs about £330.

~~~
pyb
Yes but I was talking about their prototypes (no solder resist or silkscreen
legend) which are a lot more affordable, and quicker. (seems ca. £37 for
100m2)

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takno
Could easily have been titled "no way back for America: how even small-time
hobbyists can outsource to China now"

~~~
diskcat
It hasn't been long since somebody told me that unless you do 10000x item runs
it's not worth it.

I wonder if this low unit cost for small number thing is a recent development.

~~~
3JPLW
Not at all. There's a whole slew of companies with different arrangements of
pcb/fab/express in their names. They've all done 5 boards for ~$50 for a very
long time. Granted, they're simple two-layer boards. If you need anything
more, then, yes, I agree.

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ZenoArrow
Not really much of an article is it, could be summarised as 'How I ordered a
cheap PCB by choosing one of the many companies offering to build cheap PCBs'.
I was expecting a little more DIY from the title.

~~~
LeifCarrotson
Same here! But I think that is the point of the article. The best way to make
a cheap PCB is to just buy one. And he's probably right.

There are definite advantages to etching a PCB at home - if you make a mistake
that you only discover on assembly, you can make a new run in hours instead of
weeks - but soldermask, small vias, and small features are much easier at a
real plant. And you won't beat the prices.

He recommends [http://dirtypcbs.com/](http://dirtypcbs.com/), I personally
have had a lot of success with [https://oshpark.com/](https://oshpark.com/) \-
local support, you only need 3 boards (not 10) for prototypes, and they do
2-layer in 12 days for $5/sq inch and 4-layer in 2 weeks for $10/sq inch. Once
you need a production run, take it to Gold Phoenix.

~~~
david-given
Do you know any places that do assembly as well?

My soldering skills are approximately good enough to do 0.1 inch pitch pins
about 90% of the time, which isn't really good enough for surface-mount, and
most modern microprocessors don't come in anything else.

~~~
ZenoArrow
You don't need to have great soldering skills for surface mount components.
The easiest way to solder surface mount is the "solder stencil + solder paste"
method (for want of a better term). You create a solder stencil to match the
pin layout, place it over the PCB pads, apply solder paste, place the
component on top then melt the solder (if you'd be doing multiple batches it's
easy enough to modify a toaster oven to do this).

Solder stencils are also easy enough to create, especially if you have access
to a laser cutter.

Are there any hackerspaces near where you live?

~~~
cillian64
What do you cut your stencils from? I've spent a lot of time mucking about
with various plastics and never gotten particularly good results - 0.5mm pitch
pads tend to start melting together into a mess. The good stuff is meant to be
Mylar, AKA PET. I've bought plastic advertised as Mylar which has not been
particularly good, and I suspect it may actually be PE rather than PET, as
apparently the two are often confused.

~~~
jwr
Just order them from OSHstencils. They aren't expensive.

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reidrac
My experience with a Chinese fab was different: I got all the PCBs shorted,
and because they were quite cheap their customer support was good enough to
never admit that the problem was on their side, so I didn't bother because...
it was a really cheap one off.

I suspect the problem was with their support of the Gerber files generated by
KiCad, but I don't know for sure.

I used OSHPark in other cases and, even not being dirty cheap (they're USA
based), they're still quite cheap and so far the quality of the boards have
been excellent.

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madengr
Nice, instead of supporting the PCB business 5 miles away, send it to China.
The copper not on your PCB is probably floating down some Chinese river, hence
"Dirty PCB".

~~~
LeifCarrotson
The PCB business 5 miles away has US labor and associated costs. Compare the
Chinese board to Advanced Circuits in the US -
[http://www.4pcb.com/](http://www.4pcb.com/) \- you can't get anything without
spending over $100.

~~~
VLM
4pcb is $33 each min 4 total $132 for 60 sq inches per board times 4 = 240 sq
inches or 1548 sq cm for $132

dirtypcbs is $14 for qty 10 of 25 sq cm boards or 250 sq cm total. So 1500 sq
cm of boards from dirtypcbs would cost about $14 times 6 or $84.

Note that ethically, outsourcing to China is the modern version of handing
syphillis blankets to indians. "Well, they're warm blankets, and they did ask
for it, and anything is morally acceptable if the victim is tricked into
accepting it, if you're really screwed up ethically". It only costs $50 more
not to participate in something as ethically distasteful as Chinese
manufacturing and you get the product in a day not a week without trashing the
environment and while treating human beings like humans, even if they are not
white.

Also, if you live on the west coast, you and your kids are breathing the
airborne pollution from those Chinese plants for the rest of us.

~~~
05
> It only costs $50 more not to participate in something as ethically
> distasteful as Chinese manufacturing

So, you don't own any recent electronic devices either, I presume, like
smartphones, computers, home appliances? And who do you think manufactures the
components for your not-Chinese-made electronics?

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robert_foss
PCBShopper[1] lets you compare prices and shipping times between ~20 Chinese
vendors.

On a separate not I'd highly recommend DirtyPCBs[2], not only because of how
funny their FAQ[3] is, but also because of the the reasonable quality boards.
They also allow panelized jobs without any extra charge, which is rather
unique. Typically that is bit more you have to pay extra for that.

Typically you'll find that you pay 14USD for 10 5x5cm boards. Delivery time
~30 days.

[1] PCBShopper [http://pcbshopper.com](http://pcbshopper.com)

[2] DirtyPCBs [http://dirtypcbs.com](http://dirtypcbs.com)

[3] DirtyPCBs FAQ
[http://dirtypcbs.com/about.php](http://dirtypcbs.com/about.php)

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reitanqild
My big question after reading this is what the project is and if we are going
to see it on DEF CON.

~~~
pgvoorhees
Expect some kind of power analysis. I'm guessing key extraction of some kind.

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jhallenworld
I've used [http://www.myropcb.com/](http://www.myropcb.com/) It's a Canadian
front company for a Chinese PCB house.

They have a very reasonably priced parts purchase and assembly service.
Basically you give them your design, BOM and money, and they send you back
complete assembled boards.

I used a very old version of PADS for board layout, but it doesn't matter-
they build from gerbers, assembly drawing and pick & place file.

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alex_hitchins
This surely must be some sort of service utilising space capacity akin to OSH
Park.

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god_bless_texas
Anyone here use expresspcb.com and their own software? I've tinkered with
Eagle and considered KiCAD but I am intrigued by the co with the software
built into their design process.

~~~
pgvoorhees
I've used it an age ago. Don't bother. The software wasn't terribly
sophisticated. The library support was OK at best. And the only thing it
really does is make ordering a little easier. It's only _slightly_ more work
to use a FOSS tool and generate output which can go to and board house.

