Explaining PCBs to a complete beginner

[HumphreyJeffers]

Hey guys. I'm completely new to this hobby, but extremely excited to start building amazing pedals in the future. I've already gathered all the supplies needed to build the beginner project and have done a lot of research, but I can't seem to find a lot of information about pcbs, which I know I will need in the future. I have a rough understanding of what they are, but do they have to be purchased or are they usually created? And if so, how do I print a printed circuit board?H

td;lr- How do you guys get/make your PCBs for projects

[antonis]

Hi & Wellcome..

If you don't start with designing & etching PCBs, then you need nothing to understand about them..

Better start with relative simple Perf/Strip boards...

[Kevin Mitchell]

The internet is loaded with tutorials and breakdowns. For these kinds of things I'd say that most knowledge comes with experience.

If you want to bust into the tinkering world I say pick up some breadboards and start plugging away some easy circuits. Just enough wrap your head around the idea of how a circuit works.

Quickly you'll learn what not to do before finding what works best for you.

-A PCB (printed circuit board) You're pretty much taking out chunks of copper leaving fine traces(call them wires if you will) for the electrical connection. If you are missing every definition/explanation on google maybe you should walk around the block and clear your head.

Research before asking for things on a platter. Good luck! 

[Passaloutre]

I only ever use PCBs for more complex circuits; for most simple builds (boost, fuzz, od) vero or perf is simple enough. I use PCBs seldom enough that it's not worth setting up to etch them myself when I can buy for <$10.

[EBK]

If you are completely new as in you haven't done much (or any) soldering and you don't know a lot about the different components you will likely encounter, I'd suggest starting with a kit build, which includes all the parts you need.  For example, smallbear has a kit with very detailed instructions suitable for a first build: http://smallbear-electronics.mybigcommerce.com/kit-the-tweak-o/

[Mark Hammer]

Hey guys. I'm completely new to this hobby, but extremely excited to start building amazing pedals in the future. I've already gathered all the supplies needed to build the beginner project and have done a lot of research, but I can't seem to find a lot of information about pcbs, which I know I will need in the future. I have a rough understanding of what they are, but do they have to be purchased or are they usually created? And if so, how do I print a printed circuit board?H

td;lr- How do you guys get/make your PCBs for projects

Compared to what we had to put up with during the 1970's and 1980's, these days making your own PCBs is like sticking a frozen meal in the microwave.

The biggest revolution has been the arrival of "toner transfer".  Etching boards has always been a matter of protecting the copper you wanted to keep, and exposing the copper you wanted removed.  The challenge was always how to get the "protection" on the copper to be preserved.  Those of us who have been at it awhile will remember using waterproof markers, rub-on transfers, fine paint brushes, and other things, to get the pattern onto the copper-clad board.  I used to use make my boards by taping the pattern from the magazine onto the copper board, popping "dimples" into the board with my spring-loaded center punch wherever there was a pad, rubbing on transfers of dots and pads where the dimples were, and then connecting the dots with a fine waterproof marker (Staedtler Lumocolor, please).

More professional boards would involve use of a precoated board (on top of the copper) that would be exposed and developed, almost like a film photo.  The pattern would be printed on something like an overheasd projector acetate sheet, placed on top of the board, and the board (which was protected up to this point) exposed to a bright white light.  This would produce very precise boards with every little detail preserved, and was MUCH better suited to complex layouts with thin traces.

Once personal laser printers arrived, someone had the bright idea that if a pattern could be laid down on an acetate sheet with a photocopier (and the pattern itself was printed with black toner), maybe it would be possible to use a personal laser printer, to print a pattern onto some sort of material that would be able to "release" the pattern onto another surface; that other surface being the copper side of the board.  Press-N-Peel technology arrived that permitted hobbyists to print a pattern onto a sheet, then use heat to adhere the toner side to the copper.  The attachment of the toner to the copper would be stronger than the attachment of the coating on the sheet to the acetate backing, such that only the pattern would peel off (once cooled), with the pattern adhering to the copper, and its "negative" on the acetate sheet.  We didn't have to draw anymore!! 

Press-N-Peel, while great, is pricey and needs to be ordered fro somewhere.  So folks began to explore other ways of putting a toner pattern onto a sheet that could be transferred via heat to copper board, and "pull away" from whatever the backing sheet was.  Because glossy printed materials are shiny because of a coating ("emulsion") on them, photographic paper was explored, and eventually shiny magazine stock.  Because paper of any kind is made of fibres, rather than being a continuous plastic sheet, like press-n-peel,  Shiny-coated paper of various kinds would certainly "do the trick" as far as transferring patterns printed with laser toner, but they didn't always have the sort of precision that P-n-P does.  My own rule of thumb is that I will happily use photo paper or other shiny stock for transferring patterns/layouts, but if the layout has traces running between adjacent IC pads, or more than two traces running between the two sides of a DIP, or uses any sort of surface-mount chips, I will opt for P-n-P to get the precision.

As for the etching itself, copper is copper is copper, and the chemicals used to remove the unwanted copper from the board have remained largely the same for a while.  The principle two chemicals are Ferric Chloride (FeCl) and Ammonium Persulfate.  FeCl can be used at room temperature but persulfate requires heating, from what I'm told.  Neither is more precise than the other, and both become less efficient (i.e., take longer to etch) with repeated use of the same batch.  FeCl is NOT the sort of thing you want to splash.  It stains things permanently.  I have shirts with FeCl stains from a decade ago.

There are also issues with proper disposal of etchant.  I use FeCl exclusively (because I have a lot of it), and proper disposal involves gradually mixing in baking soda, which will near-instantly foam up to something easily 10x the volume of the etchant.  So, you do not want to simply dump a big box of Arm & Hammer (no relation) into your etchant bath.  Once the foaming has subsided, though, and it turns kind of crusty, the etchant will be rendered into something that looks like a huge pile of rust, which can then be dumped into a garbage bag and put out with your other garbage.

[HumphreyJeffers]

Thank you all for your help

[Marcos - Munky]

You can buy a ready-to-solder board or can make your own, if you have the layout. Do a search for "tone transfer pcb" on Youtube, you'll get lots of videos showing and explaining how to do the transfer method. If you don't have the layout, you'll need to draw it.

[inktechpatrick]

The forum has many outstanding tutorials and mostly willing and able kit-meisters ready to help.  Never, ever be discouraged to ask for it on a platter, a charger or in a crock pot ✌👀

Sent from my LGMS330 using Tapatalk

[antonis]

.............................................

Another proof that you ARE an author, Mark..!! 

[duck_arse]

pick a circuit. if you just want to build, search for a pcb for that circuit, order, solder, done. if you want to learn about the circuit and how it works, and how to design your own variants thereof, buy in some perfboards or some veroboards, and make the board as you go. there are different computer programs to help with circuit drawing and layouts, as well as thousands of circuits with perf and vero layouts already done for you.

get to it.