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What to do with extra proto PCBs?
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james_s:
I've used them as spacers when applying solder paste, soldering practice, breakout boards for parts of the same package style, reinforcement or shims in various mechanical constructions. More artsy fartsy types could probably find things to build out of them for the cosmetic appearance. Probably the easiest thing to do with them is give them to a school or club that teaches electronics as soldering practice, if anyone even does such a thing anymore.
T3sl4co1l:
Or just not make them at all!

I make dead-bug protos up to about 100 components per board.  Schematic capture and layout take more time than diving in and doing it, plus I learn more in the process, bringing up the circuit a piece at a time.

Conversely, if the layout time isn't taking longer than the proto, that's a clear indication that your circuit (or your design method..) is not high enough performance to require an on-board proto, and the solderless breadboard will do fine.

If you are dealing with larger circuits than that, you need to reconsider your prototype flow.  Break it down into smaller, better-specified subcircuits.  (Helps as a design methodology, too!)  Get dev boards instead of laying everything out in solder.  If it's non-critical in terms of performance, do it on solderless breadboard instead.

Alternately, study SPICE simulation or the like -- SPICE is probably harder to get right than a breadboard*, but it's a hell of a lot easier to change out parts in!

*It's tricky, because you can easily poke down some components and wires and get a believable result; but, as they say, it takes two to lie: one to tell it, and one to believe it.  Mind, it's not that the computer is lying, it's more insidious than that: it's only telling you something about the circuit you've entered.  It is up to you, and only you, to construct a circuit that is realistic and representative, and to check and verify the models used are also realistic.  Meanwhile, you have to deal with all the vagaries of a numerical solver: stability, accuracy, speed...

Tim
T3sl4co1l:

--- Quote from: ataradov on November 20, 2018, 10:53:11 pm ---
--- Quote from: analogo on November 20, 2018, 10:21:00 pm ---Not many friends of the environment in those PCB houses, it seems.

--- End quote ---
There is nothing they can do about it anyway. There is going to be unused hole in the panel anyway. The additional cost of etching a design there is negligible for the environment.

--- End quote ---

In fact, not only that, but I'd expect the setup costs (including materials, processing and waste) are steeply in favor of larger board quantities.  That is, while you might not be creating more waste (environmental contamination, say) with a single-board quantity, the amount created by a 10-board run might be, pff, only two or three times greater -- for a tenfold increase in useful end product.  That is to say: the economy of scale is STEEP at these quantities, very prohibitive against single-digit levels!

As for what to do with them -- meh!  The waste is done and gone.  The fab has paid for it, in whatever way they do (whether directly and responsibly, or by leaving an ever-more-toxic hazard to future generations..), and that cost is rolled into the price you already paid.  (Heh, well, maybe...)

If the value of keeping the extras is zero, or even negative, there is only one logical thing to do: throw them out, period!

Even at purchased cost, they're hardly, if even, worth posting to anyone else.  They're that cheap, which is pretty amazing when you think about it.

The greater lesson is to grow a sense of real value of things.  Disinterested in, and separate from, the effort you put into them, the connection you may have with them.  For something this cheap, even just consideration about it, is literally "penny wise and pound foolish"!

(That reminds me, I need to get back to w--...oh.)

Tim
bloguetronica:

--- Quote from: analogo on November 20, 2018, 09:52:29 pm ---Cheap PCB prototype houses usually send 5 or 10 PCBs per order. But all my order are real one-off "prototypes": I just need one or two PCBs to test if the design is working. If it is, I will move to the next step and design another part of the circuit.

Now I have plenty of useless PCBs.  :-//

What could I do with them? What do you do with your extra PCBs other than throwing them away?

--- End quote ---
The "wasteful" line of though doesn't apply here. Most PCB houses drill a stack of 3 to 5 boards at a time. If you want a smaller batch, say, of three PCBs, you can order them from OSH Park. That might be more expensive, though.

Kind regards, Samuel Lourenço
NiHaoMike:
If the design is not confidential, sell them as paperweights/bookmarks/jewelry depending on how big they are.
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