Author Topic: Suggestion for an episode: How to make your own PCB at home.  (Read 3754 times)

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Offline Mark_SF_BayTopic starter

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Suggestion for an episode: How to make your own PCB at home.
« on: October 03, 2020, 06:55:21 pm »
I have a suggestion for Dave of EEVblog. Would you do a show on making your own PC boards (at home). The following is a video on this but you may have more insights and improvements on the approach.

https://youtu.be/1Y6mNqMU9z8

What do you think?
« Last Edit: October 04, 2020, 03:57:48 pm by Mark_SF_Bay »
 

Offline ledtester

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Re: Suggestion for an episode: How to make your own PCB at home.
« Reply #1 on: October 03, 2020, 07:41:05 pm »
Certainly Dave can chime in for himself on this. I'll just point out that PCB layout and manufacturing is a vast subject and Dave has done a number of videos on it -- i.e.:

https://youtu.be/2AcpRCNhbsw?list=PL8D3B363139B67FF3

The closest he's ever gotten to hobbyist-level etching, though, is, I believe, #1197 - Etching With Water.

Among hard-core hobbyists I think interest in etching your own PCBs has waned for the following reasons:

- there are faster construction methods that will get you to a proof-of-concept
- double-sided boards and boards with a high-density of tracks or small features are hard to do
- the cheapness of services like JLPCB, pcbway, lcsc, ...

You can find many threads on this forum that discuss etching techniques.
 

Offline Mark_SF_BayTopic starter

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Re: Suggestion for an episode: How to make your own PCB at home.
« Reply #2 on: October 04, 2020, 04:03:37 pm »
Oh ok, still might be interesting to try.
You mentioned faster construction methods that get you proof-of-concept. Did you mean PCB simulators (Altium, OrCAD, etc)?
Thanks.
 

Offline pickle9000

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Re: Suggestion for an episode: How to make your own PCB at home.
« Reply #3 on: October 04, 2020, 04:20:07 pm »
For the most part it's cheaper to have them made by a pcb house. Shipping counts of course and can cost more than the boards themselves. I have a mill but unless really necessary I'll still order boards. Any at home process will not have the detail you need for most jobs.

Having said that perhaps a whiteboard conversation about the material costs and time involved (including turnaround).

A tutorial on how to do an enclosure, panel layout and such would be interesting to see as well.

 

Offline ledtester

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Re: Suggestion for an episode: How to make your own PCB at home.
« Reply #4 on: October 04, 2020, 07:25:48 pm »
You mentioned faster construction methods that get you proof-of-concept. Did you mean PCB simulators (Altium, OrCAD, etc)?
Thanks.

I meant prototyping techniques like:

- Manhattan / Pittsburgh construction
- using a prototyping board -- e.g. stripboard or a pad-per-pin board
- free air soldering:

1082716-0

Some videos / links:

- https://youtu.be/xPUmuRSxqys
- https://youtu.be/kH110yjYZ2g
- https://youtu.be/vq968AFgPhg
- https://www.analog.com/media/en/training-seminars/tutorials/MT-100.pdf
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Suggestion for an episode: How to make your own PCB at home.
« Reply #5 on: October 05, 2020, 03:55:46 am »
I used to etch a lot of my own boards, it was fun and and it was a cheap way to get reasonable PCBs done in a hurry. Now it's so ridiculously cheap to have boards made in China that the only time I etch my own anymore is when I need a one-off and don't want to wait. Otherwise I can get 5 boards for about $7 shipped from JLC. Good quality double sided with solder mask and silkscreen. Now they even let you choose any color mask they offer for no extra cost.
 
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Offline Fungus

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Re: Suggestion for an episode: How to make your own PCB at home.
« Reply #6 on: January 12, 2021, 07:25:19 am »
I used to etch a lot of my own boards, it was fun and and it was a cheap way to get reasonable PCBs done in a hurry. Now it's so ridiculously cheap to have boards made in China that the only time I etch my own anymore is when I need a one-off and don't want to wait. Otherwise I can get 5 boards for about $7 shipped from JLC. Good quality double sided with solder mask and silkscreen. Now they even let you choose any color mask they offer for no extra cost.

This.

And they don't even take weeks to make them any more. You can often have them in a week.
 


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