Who Needs Help Getting Project Boards Made? (For Those Who Are Not Comfortable With The Process)

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. 

aussteve posted:

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

Haha; good one aussteve! 

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!

Stan, it's a little more expensive than that.  Flat stiff envelopes have a special rate structure, this is the 2020 rates. 

Also, the flat photo mailers that would be suitable for this task end up being around 30-35 cents each in quantity 25 or more.

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

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! 

If I have to shag over to the USPS to mail these, I'd probably be less inclined to be "helpful".  I don't know about other folks, but if I were offering this capability, I'd want the ability to print the postage at home and drop the stuff in the outgoing mail.

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.

I started with Dazix and finished in Cadence.   Only did tape on boards I etched at home.   One board my dept did had two of the I/O connector models built mirror images.  Luckily the product could still be tested while a corrected design could get proto parts in house.