Having boards fabricated for dummies, Eagle edition

[bwanasonic]

I'm looking for advice on the current state of PCB fabrication. My only experience was a number of years ago with PCB Express, and it went great as far as it went.  I manually panelized a handful of circuits and at the time I had the patience to cut apart the boards myself, and all was good. But now I really can't be bothered to kick up a bunch of nasty toxic dust, and I really want the niceties of silkscreen and soldermask, and maybe even a two-sided board or two. I've a number of layouts in Eagle I'm looking to have very small batches of boards made (6-12 @).

Any advice from people currently use board fabrication services as they are today would be appreciated. I'm talking VERY SMALL hobbyist production runs, and the less dicking about with Gerber files etc, the better. Ideally of course I'd like to just send my Eagle file off and say "here make a dozen of these as cheaply as possible". I've toyed with the estimate pages of a few sites for a 2.8" X 1.5" single-sided BMP clone, and got it down to about $10 a board.

Tips on ideal board layout sizes, panelizing, gotchas to look out for, etc. I'm primarily using the GaussMarkov libraries and running a few different DRU checks.

Thanks

[alanp]

OSHpark are about as simple as it gets -- upload your Eagle .brd file (that passed the osh DRU file check), press "Order", and off it goes.

They're not the world's cheapest source of pcb fabbing, though.

[gjcamann]

Oshpark makes very good boards and are reasonably priced. If you want cheaper boards at a cheaper price try itead. I've used both. Oshpark is better but itead is cheaper - especially if you could use one of their standards sizes (10cmx10cm 10pc for $35). I'd use Oshpark if you have close traces or surface mount, I would use itead for thru hole and well spaced traces.

[bwanasonic]

Thanks for the tips. I've checked out Oshpark and Itead pricing and spec pages, and it's not immediately apparent if silkscreen and soldermask are standard? It also seems like another instance where being an early adapter of Eagle updates burns me (I'm running 6.5 Mac).

[alanp]

If you're uploading Eagle brd's to OSH, then yes silkscreen is included.

If you're uploading gerber files, you need to ask someone else. Them things scare me.

[trixdropd]

The GuasMarkov libraries have small holes/pads on many parts for my taste, so be sure your parts fit ahead of time.

[mth5044]

^ I too had a hard time with that. None of the components fit.

[jubal81]

Even if you use iTead or Seeed (my favorite), it's helpful to upload your file to OSH to see their generated preview.

[electrosonic]

There are lots of free Eagle libraries, but many bits need tweaking. The main thing I have had issues with are the drill sizes. A digital calliper can be had for pretty cheap of ebay, so it is easy to check pin sizes and component footprints. It sucks to finish a board and wait for 3 weeks ( probably much less if you are in the US) to get it only to find your relay or jacks don't fit in the board.

I use OSH Park because I like the quality of the boards, I can upload native .brd files ( not making berbers gives me one less thing to screw up) and their web interface is quick and simple. Might not be the cheapest, but it works for me.

Andrew.

[Ajay]

All my boards are built in China, at elecrow www.elecrow.com
They start at $9.50 for 5 boards of  5x5 cm, double sided with silk screen one each side (hence my preference for small SMT boards  )
And if they make more board that pass the electrical test, they include it in the shipment (i.e. For my MXR clone they sent me 11 boards instead of the 10 ordered).
Also, they have eagle files for layout check and gerber output, so you don't have to mess with that

[bwanasonic]

Thanks for the tips! Boards on order from OSHpark. I did enlarge the pad / drill sizes from the GM library. It might be really cool to develop an open source DIYstompboxes repository for Eagle libraries. When I posted my request it did bring to mind the question of "what does DIY mean to you?", as I am essentially asking how to NOT DIY 

[G. Hoffman]

When I posted my request it did bring to mind the question of "what does DIY mean to you?", as I am essentially asking how to NOT DIY  

Nonsense.  They can make a much better quality board than you can do yourself.  Did you design it yourself?  Then you did the hard part, let them do the part that can be done much better in bulk.

For what it is worth, I've done many boards with OSH Park using gerber files (I'm using Kicad, as I find the limitations of Eagle to be very problematic), and the only problems I've ever had were mistakes on my end (using the wrong footprints, and the like) - they have always sent me exactly what I designed.  You need to make sure your drill files are scaled properly, and you need to make sure you name your layers correctly, but beyond that it is pretty simple.  Before you order, they show you a mock up of your board, which is good enough I don't even use Kicad's Gerber viewer to test things anymore.  Take your time to inspect all of the mock ups, and there is no problem.  For instance, front and back photos from a board I did last year, sort of...the digital versions are more recent than the board, as I made a couple of mistakes in the design, which I've bodged around until I actually get any of the programing done....


Kicad 3d output:




OSH Park mockups (they have individual mockups of each layer, but you can't get those after you OK them).




Finished board:

(You might notice the adaptor board I got from OSH Park on here too - I used a .75mm footprint for a part that only comes in .50mm pitch.  WHOOPS!!!)



I may have to give iTead a chance, though, as I've got a power supply that is running $30+ on OSH park, which is a bit more than I really want to spend on this particular project, which would be $15 on iTead.  Does anyone know if iTead will do internal cutouts?  I've got some isolation slots I want on this board (probably overkill, but can't hurt!)


Gabriel

[gjcamann]

I've read that itead wil do slots and cutouts, but I haven't been able to figure out how yet. They send you a personal email when you order letting you know they have reviewed your design.
Also, Itead includes tenting and silkscreen on both sides with their prices.

[electrosonic]

Osh Park will do unplated cutouts. See here -

http://support.oshpark.com/support/solutions/articles/134889-internal-cutouts-and-slots

It is worth clicking on the "support" tab on OSH Park's front page and reading all the FAQs

Andrew.

[G. Hoffman]

Osh Park will do unplated cutouts. See here -

http://support.oshpark.com/support/solutions/articles/134889-internal-cutouts-and-slots

It is worth clicking on the "support" tab on OSH Park's front page and reading all the FAQs

Andrew.

Yup, I know that - I'm wondering if you loose that with the cheaper iTead, and it sounds like maybe not.   


Gabriel