OSH park Ftw!!

[pappasmurfsharem]

Just got these back. I'm addicted to eagle and OSH now

[J0K3RX]

Used Diptrace... Totally Agree!! I may never etch again

[alanp]

OSH is pretty sweet, yeah I never bothered with etching to begin with! (Other than paying Keefe to do some for me now and then.)

Joker, are the small pads for components a diptrace thing? I've seen that in a couple places, now.

[J0K3RX]

Joker, are the small pads for components a diptrace thing? I've seen that in a couple places, now.

No, the small size of the pads is called "learning curve" they are bigger now. The via's which were too big I have now made smaller and I figured out how to get them tented/masked... Also enlarged the switch holes so I can actually board mount the switches...   but, still very happy with it...

One really good thing about sending these out to OSH is that I feel comfortable using much thinner traces than I normally would if I were going to etch... And that makes thing work out better with the layout!

[mth5044]

Another huge +1 for OSH

[pappasmurfsharem]

It works woot! Although to apparently don't have another spdt

[J0K3RX]

Nick, looks great man!

[Valoosj]

The via's which were too big I have now made smaller and I figured out how to get them tented/masked...

Could you elaborate on this? I use diptrace as well (best program ever)

[J0K3RX]

The via's which were too big I have now made smaller and I figured out how to get them tented/masked...

Could you elaborate on this? I use diptrace as well (best program ever)

When you export your gerbers make sure the "Vias" box is unchecked on both top mask and bottom mask.

[Valoosj]

You clever bugger!

Those PCBs look nice, but I found one thing lacking in the possibilities at OSH: you can't have oval shaped holes in your PCBs.
The fact that you can have any shape PCB you'd like is a big plus though.

[J0K3RX]

You clever bugger!

Those PCBs look nice, but I found one thing lacking in the possibilities at OSH: you can't have oval shaped holes in your PCBs.
The fact that you can have any shape PCB you'd like is a big plus though.

Yes, as you can see I have not figured out the oval hole thing yet..   Do you know if the oval hole issue is across all board design applications or is this just a Diptrace thing?

[Mark Hammer]

Interesting.  Did not know about this.  Ironically, forum member Alain Parent just drew my attention to ITEAD the other day, yet another mail-us-yer-Gerber PCB fabrication service.

I see some of the PCBs at OSH are posted for others.  A great many are, unsurprisingly, Arduino-related, but there are a bunch of pedal-related layouts posted too.

[deadastronaut]

nice boards...

@jim: how much for those 3?.. i take it they are USA based?.



@anyone:  any UK based reasonably priced fab places?..

[slacker]

I had a look a while ago and couldn't find any UK based ones that offered the same sort of service. There's these guys http://www.pcbtrain.co.uk/ who look OK for small runs, a bit pricier than the various Far Eastern fab houses but not bad. They do a one off prototype service but it's probably too expensive for the likes of us, think it's about 30 quid a pop.
I found a couple of others but when I looked into it the actual fabrication was done in China or where ever and they just had a UK office or probably just a bloke with a computer and a phone who dealt with punters.

[deadastronaut]

cheers ian 

[pappasmurfsharem]

nice boards...

@jim: how much for those 3?.. i take it they are USA based?.



@anyone:  any UK based reasonably priced fab places?..

This is from OSHs web page

"We bring you high quality, lead free boards (ENIG finish), manufactured in the USA, and shipped for free to anywhere in the world."

At $5 for a sq.inch and 3 pcbs why bother with a uk based one?

My 3 noisy cricket boards, albeit small, were $7 shipped for 3 boards

[deadastronaut]

ahh ok, cheers nick.  

edit:

''go to the fab every 2 weeks, and have a 2 week turn time from the fab.''

ahh,  so 'they' are just  the guy with the pc ian mentioned then ....still seems pretty cool.

[J0K3RX]

Mine were a bit more because of the size.. $30.00 for 3 but I didn't pay for this run, I shared the design with another person and he payed the full cost, I got 1 board and he got 2. I have since corrected some mistakes/flaws and re-ordered 3 more, still waiting on those. If you wanted to do a bigger run of boards the price drops from 5.00 down to $1.00 per sq inch for 2 layer boards with a minimum of 150 sq inches. So, that's about $150.00 and they don't have to be all of the same boards either but they do have to come in quantities of 10 each I believe...

It's nice to be able to do double sided stuff, sets you free from trying to cram everything on a single side and you can do layouts that are otherwise impossible on single sided boards!
Plus, with Diptrace you can run a verification check against the schematic so you know the layout will work, pretty much. I am sure Eagle an other design software have this also...

I like that OSH lets you upload your gerbers and you can see a preview of what your board will look like in just a few minutes.. very cool 

[J0K3RX]

Anybody try this? 10 boards double sided $45.00 plus 9.90 flat rate shipping... not too bad if they are good quality.

http://www.3pdt.com/products/pcb-manufacturing-double-side-10-10-cm-or-less

[Valoosj]

Yes, as you can see I have not figured out the oval hole thing yet..   Do you know if the oval hole issue is across all board design applications or is this just a Diptrace thing?

Making oval holes is not difficult in diptrace, but OSH doesn't fab that kind of holes. I use makepcb for that reason and cut and file my rectangular boards to the preferred shape.
When using viewmate to check my designs, the holes are oval, so it definitely isn't a diptrace problem.

I need to link my libraries in diptrace to get that schematic thing to work. Made all of my components myself, so that's another big task yet to be done. So much work, so little time ...