A Word Of Warning About The New RadioShack PCB Kits

[Paul Marossy]

I bought PCB kit from RS yesterday. I can usually make 6-8 projects out of one of those kits, so the cost to me is acceptable (though it is really kind of expensive). Anyhow, I was shocked and disgusted at the PCB - it's only about 1/64" thick! I decided to try and etch a PCB anyway, and that part went OK, I guess. But, it's so thin that you can hardly drill any holes in it! Absolutely pathetic. The kits I have bought in the past have had a PCB that was at least 1/16" thick, but this is just plain ridiculous. Either these people are really out of touch with reality or it's a manufacturing defect - I dunno. Here's a pic of my etched PCB, it's kind of hard to see the actual edge, but it's about as thick as two business cards put together. 



Just a head's up for y'all. 

[no one ever]

yep, they're extreeemely thin and double sided... flexible too. eeeasily broken.


etchant takes a long time to its job too. and the "etch resist solvent" had weird precipitates in it. the instructions were xeroxed.. the whole shebang looked incredibly cheap.

[Hal]

those look like the boards I got for 25 for $5 from goldmine.

[Paul Marossy]

They are so thin, you can literally cut them with any old scissors! This is really a sick joke. 

[fixr1984]

The boards i got in my RS kit about a month ago were pretty thin like you say, I cut them with a tin snips pretty easy. I bought replacement board from RS a few weeks ago and its twice as thick. The size is 4.5" x 6.25" and its $5. The down sided is that you only get one board but at least they are thicker than what the kit gives you.

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

They are so thin, you can literally cut them with any old scissors! This is really a sick joke. 

Then again, for some applications, you might WANT this! (not often, though. The only time I ever wanted thin single sided board material - if it IS single - was when I had the hare-brained idea that the easy way to make a double sided proto was to do the two sides separately & then pin them together with wire thru the vias - yeah, anyone here can guess what went wrong )

[Paul Marossy]

Then again, for some applications, you might WANT this! (not often, though. The only time I ever wanted thin single sided board material - if it IS single - was when I had the hare-brained idea that the easy way to make a double sided proto was to do the two sides separately & then pin them together with wire thru the vias - yeah, anyone here can guess what went wrong)

I could see some logic behind two thin PCBs sandwiched together. It's still a real PITA to drill them, though...