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I may live to regret this, but here goes. I have been asked off-forum a couple of times recently for assistance getting boards made, by folks who are a little uncomfortable about doing this. I figured the right thing to do was help these folks out. So that got me thinking that there may be others out there who might be feeling the same way. So I am putting this out there, that I would be prepared to offer to help get some project boards built for any who would like their own boards, but just don't want to get involved in the process.

There will need to be some conditions to this of course: 

-Orders are restricted to the shared project boards currently available on rtr12's thread of 12/12/19, located towards the end of the electrical reference materials sticky post here. Additions are being made to this list as more project boards become available.

-End user must be an OGR member.

-I will recommend a fabricator and get a price first, for the quantity of boards desired, then I will need payment by Paypal F/F, before any boards actually get ordered. (I do not want to get involved in check depositing and waiting for clearance, etc, etc.) This price from the fabricator will be the only charge to the end user.

-Shipment will be directly from the fabricator to end user (I don’t want to get involved in handling and re-mailing stuff). Note that offshore boards are considerably cheaper than domestic, but receipt is usually about a month out. For extra cost it can be expedited to about 10 days.

-No split orders. All boards ordered must go to one postal address.

-I will not be responsible for late, lost, or missing shipments. Nor will I be responsible for errors or omissions  on the part of the end user regarding boards ordered, or for what purpose they are used. All I am really doing here is facilitating getting boards of your choice ordered and shipped to you.

-I will forward to the end user all progress emails and notifications that I get from the fabricator, including available links for checking order status.

-No guarantees that any board is fit for end user’s purpose; only that the boards worked as intended for whoever posted them.

-No extra work or re-design services included. Minor re-design work would be considered separately, and charged nominally extra for.

-I don't plan to undertake ordering of components. This is the responsibility of the end user according to the BOM posted with most project boards. I can probably steer you in the right direction though. Also there is lots of ready assistance available here on the forum.

-This service may be discontinued at any time.

-Please keep all communications relative to this service restricted to email only. My email address is in my profile.

There are three board fabricators that I have used several times each over the past year. Here are the pros and cons:

1. OSH Park is a domestic outfit based in CA. They are cost and time effective for small orders in multiples of 3 (ie: 3,6,9, etc.) of smaller boards, say less than 4 square inches. Their prices get high quickly for larger boards. Boards usually arrive within 2 weeks of order. Standard shipping is free; expedited options are available. 2oz copper thickness is standard, and covers most of what we might need. Quality is excellent, but the solder pads are not pre-tinned. Soldering is a bit more difficult.

2. ALLPCB is an Asian company offering very attractive prices for large board quantities, say 20 or more. They really shine for amounts of 50, 100, 200 etc. Fab time is usually 2-3 days. Standard shipping is economical, but takes about a month. They have expedited shipping options for additional cost; this gets you about a 10 day turnaround. Their quality is excellent. Solder pads are pre-tinned; easy to solder.

3. JLCPCB is another Asian company offering attractive pricing and fast fab time. They offer a basic package price of $5 for five identical prototype boards, of no larger than 100 x 100 mm dimensions. They also offer great pricing on large orders, say 10, 20, or more. They offer different board colors such as red, black, blue, yellow, white, and of course green. Colors other than green add a day or 2 to fab time. Standard shipping is economical, but again takes about a month. They have expedited shipping options for additional cost; this gets you about a 10 day turnaround. Their quality is excellent. Solder pads are pre-tinned; easy to solder. They offer 1, 2, 4, 6, or 8 oz copper thickness. Heavier thicknesses add cost of course.

So that's about it. Note that there is no financial benefit in this for me. I am only trying to help others get their boards built if I can. If it gets to be too much of a headache, I will be forced to rescind the offer. 

Regards, Rod

Last edited by Rod Stewart
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I've designed printed circuits boards professionally for 25 years (Mentor Graphics PADS PCB) and as a hobbyist (DipTrace) since changing careers for an additional three. Just a dear warning, that it ain't as easy as it seems. Due competency from both the circuit designer and the board designer must be demonstrated before a marriage is made.

I sure wish you luck, but I fear your original quote may come to realization quicker than you think. Please proceed with all due caution on this endeavor, and don't be afraid or feel remorse if you have to quickly retract your kind and generous offer. I've done some 'independent contractor' board layouts. They've always been difficult projects between the customer and the designer.

Rod, one thing to note, for larger quantities of small footprint boards, it's good to have then panelized.  If you're assembling a bunch of items with same design, it speeds the process if you can plop the same component into 10-20 copies of the board all at once and then move on the the next component.  You typically have to specify panelization at the time you order if you want it.

CJ; appreciate the comments, but to be clear, I am not offering to do custom circuit and board design for others here. I am only offering to help with ordering of existing board designs from our shared project sticky thread, that rtr12 has tirelessly compiled for us. 

John, I appreciate your comment as well. I have actually done panelization on a couple of previous larger orders, and I agree it is a great way to go. One you may recall was the DIY 317 vreg board from last year, for which I sent you a panel of the finished boards, in appreciation for all your help and tutoring. 

Regards, Rod

PCB design complexity is obviously based on a number of factors.  For most of the simple projects we do here, it's really not a complex issue. For small two-layer boards, it's usually a pretty simple job.  With the modern layout packages, it's a ton easier than in the bad old days.  Most of the time for my projects, I try to do the component placement in as an intelligent manner as I can, and then turn the autorouter loose. 

One issue often overlooked is the PCB trace width, especially if the circuits will carry any power.  I've been guilty of that myself, and I gotten to suffer the consequences as a result of that oversight.

Where things get real dicey is when you have either very dense boards or very large boards, then component placement becomes all important to optimize the result.  Also, getting into high frequency or high power tends to introduce it's own issues.  When you start talking about multi-layer boards, things get really interesting!  I only had one project with a really large 8 layer board, what a rain-dance that was!  Anyone remember tape and dots?  You haven't lived until you need to do a significant engineering change to a taped layout and a really large PCB!

I spend a lot of my career on the other end of the operation, I'd trot into drafting with a circuit design and a desired board footprint and someone else got to try to cram my design into the space allotted.

I didn't get the impression that the OP was doing anything other than helping with some of the vendor interactions.

I am sure that people not familiar with the entire product process will think he is doing more than described above.

Really a nice gesture, but I'm surprised he has the time to do this.  He's  still dropping albums according to the internet. 

Suppose someone just wants 1 or 2 of a particular PCB.  Has anyone thought of a process that doesn't clog up the forum (or get booted to the WTB forum by a moderator) to see if another forumite has a few extras lying around?  That is, a couple boards could be mailed within the U.S. for around 70 cents (includes USPS non-machinable surcharge for stiff envelopes). 

All in the spirit of a hobby forum for folks of like mind!

Right.  But we're talking nickels and dimes so what I'm thinking:

usps nonmachineable surcharge

Take bare boards which are 1/32" or 1/16" thick, insert in a cardboard sandwich no more than 1/4" thick, insert in regular envelope.  A few boards of the size we're dealing with will be less than 1 ounce.  Apply 55 cents or Forever stamp plus 15 cent surcharge - there is even a non-machinable Forever butterfly stamp which costs 70 cents today.  I like to mark the envelope non-machinable or give to USPS counter clerk who can mark envelope as such.  Cross fingers that sorting station does not run envelope thru the high-speed sorting machine which might bend and crack the board. 

If you have nothing better to do, look up youtube videos showing USPS sorting machines in action and you'll see why you want to pay the non-machinable surcharge! 

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gunrunnerjohn posted:

PCB design complexity is obviously based on a number of factors.  For most of the simple projects we do here, it's really not a complex issue. For small two-layer boards, it's usually a pretty simple job.  With the modern layout packages, it's a ton easier than in the bad old days.  Most of the time for my projects, I try to do the component placement in as an intelligent manner as I can, and then turn the autorouter loose. 

One issue often overlooked is the PCB trace width, especially if the circuits will carry any power.  I've been guilty of that myself, and I gotten to suffer the consequences as a result of that oversight.

Where things get real dicey is when you have either very dense boards or very large boards, then component placement becomes all important to optimize the result.  Also, getting into high frequency or high power tends to introduce it's own issues.  When you start talking about multi-layer boards, things get really interesting!  I only had one project with a really large 8 layer board, what a rain-dance that was!  Anyone remember tape and dots?  You haven't lived until you need to do a significant engineering change to a taped layout and a really large PCB!

I spend a lot of my career on the other end of the operation, I'd trot into drafting with a circuit design and a desired board footprint and someone else got to try to cram my design into the space allotted.

Yes, I started my career with the 'black masking tape' and the dot stickers. Didn't do a lot of boards like that, but made me really appreciate the CAD packages when they started coming out, even in their simplest forms.

I just recently moved and finally tossed the tape masters from some Wall Street tradeing system projects that I did in the 1980's.  Back then most of the parts where still thru-hole, and some the boards I had were the size of a sheet of letter paper!  It took weeks to tape up one board, and the checking was almost as time consuming as the taping!  Even then, I only remember one board that was error-free after the whole process was done.

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