Is there a group better suited to electronic queries, preferably a UK based one?
I haven't dabbled with building my own circuits for a few years. I used to use strip board from Maplins. I'm wondering about having another go, but this time I wondered whether PCBs would be easier?
Do you make your own PCBs or send the diagram to someone else to etch it for you? (If so, to whom?)
What software is best to design PCBs? Since I will only be doing it occasionally as a hobby I don't want to pay hundreds of pounds if possible.
There's loads of PCB design packages out there. Generally they are priced on the basis of how many pins/nets they are authorised for, so if you are only making small PCB's, you can get a fully-featured professional package for a low price (or even free).
You can make your own single-sided PCB's if you've got basic kit. Double sided is tricky to do at home.
You can send off for PCB's to be made or visit your local PCB manufacturer, bearing in mind that some PCB makers focus on the budget end of the market and some are more high-end/high-volume, so will not be cost effective for small quantities.
Not easier than using Veroboard. But likely 'nicer'.
I make my own from start to finish - but not usually if only one required. Still use Vero for that.
I've looked at quite a few and most ain't easy to use. I still make mine using !Draw on this old machine - I have my own library of the common layouts like say an op amp. But then I quite enjoy working out a layout by 'hand' as it's a hobby rather than a profession.
I mostly use veroboard, usually the type where each strip is cut between every 3rd hole, as I'm almost always using some DIL chips.
_Very_ occasionally, I'll etch a board, but to give some idea just how occasionally, I'm still using the last bottle of ferric chloride I bought from a local chemist shop ~30 years ago! (I doubt you can still do that.)
If you want some paper to design your layout on this board, send the following piece of postscript I knocked up to a postscript printer or print it via ghostscript to some other type of printer (cut the file so it starts with the %!PS-Adobe-2.0 line and ends with the %%EOF line)...
%!PS-Adobe-2.0 %%Creator: Andrew Gabriel %%CreationDate: 30th March 1994 %%DocumentData: Clean7bit %%DocumentFonts: %%LanguageLevel: 1 %%Orientation: Portrait %%Pages: 1 %%EndComments
/drawhole { /y exch def /x exch def x radius add y moveto newpath x y radius 0 360 arc closepath
y 3 mod 0 eq { x track sub y 0.5 sub moveto x track sub y 0.5 add lineto x track add y 0.5 sub moveto x track add y 0.5 add lineto } { y 3 mod 1 eq { x track sub y 0.5 sub moveto x track sub y track add lineto track 2 mul 0 rlineto 0 track 0.5 add neg rlineto } { x track sub y 0.5 add moveto x track sub y track sub lineto track 2 mul 0 rlineto 0 track 0.5 add rlineto } ifelse } ifelse
is free for small double sided boards for non-commercial use. It's very good and easy to use.
Having them made by someone else can be expensive for small quantities due to the tooling charges but look at Toptec
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on-line quotes and they will take the Eagle file direct, with no need to mess about with Gerber files.
You can make your own UV exposure unit with tubes and control gear from RS, etc. I've successfully fabricated SMD boards down to .65mm lead pitch at home this way.
You can even make your own bubble etch tank to speed up the etching. Use google for that.
Thanks for the .ps file - very handy. I also use the three-way prototyping boards and this is a useful design aid.
Another vote here for Cadsoft Eagle, BTW. It runs on Linux as well!
My only beef is the limits on their 'Eagle Standard' product. It can use up to 4 layers on a single-sized Eurocard board (100mm x 160mm). I'd rather have the limit two layers on a larger board. But that is because I'm used to home etching and up to two layers ... maybe I should think about using one of these PCB pools.
For very occasional use, you can buy a laser printable, iron-on sheet called Press-n-Peel. Simply print your pcb layout in reverse, iron onto your board, peel off and etch. It's fine for simple one offs.
Software! for a small one off? Pencil and paper to draft the layout then use etch resistant transfers direct onto clean board. Or even the Dalo etch restsiant marker and draw you design, though TBH the transfers are better unless you ensure that the marker pen line is absolutely solid filled with ink.
The UV based photographic system is a faff for a one off. Much better if you are making more than a couple of boards to the same layout.
I've always thought it to be a much underrated printing language. In the past, I've done loads of interesting things with it. I think one of the best was printing CD labels, where I have very stange shaped text bounding boxes to allow for the circular edge of the CD and the centre hole, with variable length text depending on the CD contents. The postscript program inside the printer works out how to fit the text in, do all the line wrapping, etc, and what the largest point size it can use is. No faffing around with WYSIWYG word processors trying to get the text in and point size chosen by trial and error, which is totally unsuitable for a production line.
but prints properly. There is no clipping issue -- the top and bottom edges are cut in a funny place because that's how I needed it done for one project, to make components on the board line up with the case cutouts. You can change the 63 and 39 in the file to print a different number of columns and rows.
This is an interesting little book, and comes with the basic version of Eagle. Explains about layers (inc. silkscreen and solder mask). Talks about different PCB fabrication techniques, including amateur ones.
I've been looking at:
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is highly functional and free. Limited Windows support, but I use FreeBSD...guess a UNIX wannabe like Linux would be OK.
Dave Plowman (News) coughed up some electrons that declared:
I used it once. It's fiddly and you need access to a decent laser.
But with care it can produce quite nice results with very little aggravation and expense.
The two bits that might go wrong are: laser printing is bad - but that takes seconds to spot and do again; most of the fiddliness is in the iron on stage. Just take your time, peek carefully and if it hasn't taken, replace and keep ironing.
I had to have two goes the first time, but the end result was more or less perfect.
are almost de-facto for one off PCB production, if you want to send away and have a perfect board in a week. For a hobby board, it's expensive (30 quid range give or take) but for that you can have a dogs bollocks "proper" multlayer board with vias, mask, silkscreen and everything. Nice if you were making something you wanted to be proud of for a long time perhaps, or something especially complicated and fiddly.
For the actual DIY making of PCBs, Iron n peel's been mentioned.
I've heard of some people who will take the output from Eagle (or whatever) as PS or PDF to a local print shop and have it produced as film, then do the normal UV + etch at home. Probably the most reliable and cost effective option, once you get set up with a suitable print shop.
I've seen web articles about people who claim to have used inkjets to make a UV mask directly, either onto inkjet film (OHP sheets) or very heavy guage tracing paper - they claim the trick is to use cyan (for it's built in UV blockers) and yellow (good UV absoption) together (ie print phot quality in a particulare shade of green). Then follow the UV process. You'd need to google for this ("inkjet PCB" or something like that). Never tried it, but it would barely be much of a waste of time and materials to give it a shot.
eagle PCB for the software - costs nothing for non commercial use. Pretty professional for light to medium complexity work IMO (I assume you don't want to put down 6 million pin BGAs?!!!. Easy to make new components (library parts) and lots of 3rd party libs too.
The ironing stage is the fiddly bit, but for the odd board where it's not worth investing in a UV box and photoresist spray or boards, it's fine. Cost wise, I've certainly only used it for a few one offs that were slightly wider than my rather small UV box.
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