I've made loads of PCBs, and it is fairly simple imho. I used a uv light box, but did try skylight at least once. For beginners & simple projects I'd suggest either stripboard or pad board, you can look at PCB production & its pitfalls later. You can of course also make PCBs with just a dremel.
NT
Terry Casey explained :
For the more complex stuff, I used a system rather like a wire wrap system. It used a fine enamelled wire from a plastic pen, and plastic combs to control the wire on the board. You simply wrapped around a IC pin, then hooked onto the comb, to you next pin and so on, then you soldered. It allowed some fairly complex stuff to be built, providing cross-talk or capacitance between wires wouldn't a problem. It used the Veroboard with tiny copy patches at the holes, or Veroboard prototyping boards. You could also make connections to tiny pins which were a tight fit to the Veroboard holes. It was very easy to make up memory boards on Euro size boards.
You can (or could) get etch resistant pens. Draw the circuit on the copper, then etch in the normal way. That was the earliest method I remember.
I have a spare domestic iron that I use for work with veneers - doesn't everybody?
I only used to make simple, one-off boards so never tried a photo technique: I used to paint the resist onto the copper before dunking the board into the etching tank.
Nick
I think I'd made quite a few PCBs before they came along, so I stuck to the nail varnish with its need applicator brush and mixing ball in the same container!
My first attempts used candle wax on the board which I melted and smoothed over with the barrel of my 25W Henley Solon soldering iron but gave up after two attempts as the element failed after both of them!
I just scratched through the wax to the bare board and used concentrated nitric acid applied with a glass dropper to etch it - outdoors, of course!
(A school friend who was heavily into chemistry was on good terms with a local chemist and got the acid for me!)
Depends what you are interested in. EPE still does the odd basic project that isn't just a single chip and its application note.
If you want to start at a nuts and bolts level with basic transistor circuits then ISTR there is an EPE Electronics for beginners or if you want something a little more challenging you can learn most of the basics about classic bipolar transistor circuit designs from Ferranti's classic E line Transistor Applications (free online) at:
Photo method helps when you're no good at freehand drawing. ;-)
You are quite correct. The component values would be tailored for a high impedance.
The shock and horror, a poxy crystal cartridge feeding a Mullard 5/10.
Here was I thinking it was Shure V15 material :-(
Thanks for the enlightenment and the circuit of course.
AB
Next step up being layout rub down transfers... makes laying out DIP pads etc much quicker. You can either use them direct on a board as an etch resist layout, or on acetate to make a photo etch template.
Sounds like a verowire pen... I still have one I bought decades ago. Never used it much it has to be said.
If you a design, a PCB is $2 delivered from China:
But if you have the files and can wait a month for the slow boat it's pretty cheap and easy these days.
Theo
I still notionally have all the electronics magazines I bought (or my dad bought for me in many cases) since 1972. Mostly Everyday Electronics, Practical Electronics, ETI (Electronics Today International), Elektor, Electronics and Music Maker (was a Maplin publication). Also a few Practical Wireless if it had something of particular interest.
Elektor is still going, and I think a merger of Everyday Electronics and Practical Electronics might still be going, although I don't buy them anymore. Elektor sell PCBs for their projects, and in some cases complete kits and/or carry adverts for them from other people.
Wow
That does make surface mount difficult, and some components nowadays are only available surface mount, sadly. Having said that, I have used them on veroboard, but you really need to be extremely good at soldering for this to work.
Nah - the PCB designs produced by the electronics magazines were not that specific, and there's lots of flexibility in discrete through-hole components. Boards can even have footprints for multiple component choices where necessary.
My board etching stuff is still in the garage with bottles of unused and used ferric chloride which I used to buy from the chemist (bet you can't do that anymore), but I haven't used them
20+ years.Nowadays, I design my PCBs with KiCad and get them manufactured from the gerber files, although I wouldn't have been able to afford that as a teenager (even if it had been available at the time).
I do prototypes or one-offs usually on Tri-pad veroboard. This is excellent for DIL chips and GPIO connectors, and also things that don't fit this pattern. It used to be sold only by Maplin, made for them by Vero. I now order it direct from Vero since Maplin vanished. I was going to include the URL, but it's gone from their website - I emailed Vero and that's a mistake they're fixing and it's still stocked.
I subscribe to it interesting sometimes .
yes I've noticed, you can get SOIC to DIP but they can be expensive sometimes far more than the chip itself. The real problems comes with the square packages which are almost impossible to prototype or hand solder, especailly when the pads are under the chip.
But if you buy a kit the parts are usually the correct size.
Yes those cost even put us off at uni. it's only really worth doing if yuo want loads of same tyoe of boards.
What's tri-pad board ? unless it;s just board with 3 holes conencted together , then another £ ......
we've used matrix board where each hole is surrounted by copper ready to solder a few students use that, and then there's matrix board that has just holes more like plug booard no copper.
Our PCBs are made using a CNC machine to route out the copper. LPKF S103
I doubt it's an option for the hobbyist but it would be interesting to see if someone can design & make a system at a reasnable price, afterall it's similar to a 3D printer in the way it would function.
Hey, great link to the scan of the Ferranti book - I remember that myself. Thanks for that.
J^n
Not if you buy from our Chinese friends:
Square packages not a problem either:
As I mentioned upthread, $2 for 10off 100x100mm 1.6mm thick, jlcpcb.com If you pay the extra $20 for express shipping, they come in just over a week. We have a batch system - once a week/fortnight/month, collect up all the boards and send them as one order with express shipping.
(the $2 is a loss leader, when you start tweaking the parameters it gets a bit more realistic but still insanely cheap - like $12 - for a stack of boards)
You will have to have the argument with your accounts department about paying by credit card, since the Chinese supplier is not going to give you a credit account.
We have one of those (Bungard CCD). It's a pain to set up, hopeless at doing anything fine pitch, double sided is annoying, and you don't get soldermask which is critical for surface mount soldering. It's not really got used for very much, especially now you can get very high quality boards from China for so little.
Theo
Yes yuo can get them cheaper, but still more expensive than a 555 or 741 and you still have to solder them to the board without damage and get the pins for prototyping, and then uo to 2 months delivery.
but you need the equipment.
It depends on the quanitiies. anyone is more than welcone to try these comanies.
We haven't found that a problem.
But not very convinet for us, once a student has produced their board the chances of is being correct is quite small, so it;s done within a day or too so they can corect their errors and try again, just one board at a time by several students. This is far more inmortant for teaching than just hetting a board.
Tim+ snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote: .
I've seen that BitsBox has already been mentioned to source components but I don't think that any one has mentioned
Not sure how things are going now, but a great source of bits was radio rallies.
I used to go years back, when large numbers of amateurs could buy the bits and put a tranceiver together quite easily.
They stopped being interesting when all the morons could do was compare the number of knobs on the latest Kenwood.
There may still be a few people that cater for proper amateurs though.
Drayton Manor was one of the better ones.
I would have thought that the desriptions of the various rallies described in your RSCB link would answer that question.
I'm sure I saw a youtube video report of one - possibly in Kent, somewhere - which showed that there was a very large selection of bits and pieces available.
Not been for years myself. I really enjoyed the early ones but the last few I went to just didn't compare.
We were "spoilt" though. One of the last I went to was Telford, the day Diana croaked. Things were dropping off badly. I guess the MOD tightened up their stock control :-)
Sadly after the CB days, practical electronics skills for wireless amateurs went more toward opening cardboard boxes.
There may be a few places worth going to. I see Nantwich has a rally now, I might just go along.
The Food & Drink festival was a major dissapointment, but I will be in the area on the 17th.
AB
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