PCB manufacturing?

[Gumby212]

Any tips on programs to use for PCB designing? Ive fooled around with eagle a bit but it seemed a bit over my head. Tutorials online for dip trace make it seem a bit easier. Im also curious how to go about getting boards manufactured, as i have no desire to etch myself. Do the programs walk you through that process? Any suggestions for what manufacturer/program makes the best quality boards? Do they come in a sheet and you have to break them apart individually? Do they come with the holes pre drilled or do you have to drill them yourself? As i ask this, im downloading dip trace. Just thought id get any info i can on the subject before i dive in. Any tips would be much appreciated. Thanks!

[Phoenix]

Check out this recent thread: Pcb design company store

On your questions not answered there, no, the EDA programs do not walk you through, though they do of course have manuals/reference documents. However there are a great many tutorials on Youtube and on various blogs if you prefer text and images to video.
If you want you can have your boards manufactured as a panel with V-scoring or routed with mouse-bites (good for automated manufacture), but that is typically an additional cost, at the hobbyist level you'd order them pre-cut.
You can order them without holes, but at hobbyist level there's no cost saving to this, so holes would be drilled by the fabricator. Also, you wouldn't be able to have plated through holes or vias without drilling, which is one of the biggest advantages to professional PCB fabrication, so that would be a massive downside if you opted for no holes. The typical cheap options are double sided boards, with soldermask, double sided silkscreen, and plated through holes, so take advantage of these features.

[vigilante397]

+1 to what Greg said. The quality of boards is between the designer and the fabrication house, has nothing to do with the program. Most people on here (that I'm aware of) go to one of the many Chinese fab houses (Elecrow, JLCPCB, etc) and they are all pretty comparable. They do not come in a sheet to be broken apart, and they certainly come pre-drilled. Could you imagine paying to have someone fab your board with fancy machines and still having to drill every hole by hand? 

For beginners and hobbyists I will recommend DipTrace every day of the week. It's extremely intuitive, I don't think I ever watched a tutorial or anything, it just felt natural. Also If you're interested you can get Rullywow's excellent pedal component library for DipTrace here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9622htc2f7ptq4d/rullywow%20diptrace%20library%203.25.15.zip?dl=1 Making your own library with your own components is cool, but it's really nice to have a place to start when you're still figuring things out.

Good luck!

[italianguy63]

Yeah, I didn't post earlier (on the other post either).. but I have evolved and do a lot of PCB design now.

I kind of bit the bullet, and through osmosis, and from help on this forum learned how to do Eagle.  I think I am pretty decent at it now.  The fab houses do great work, I have always tried to keep my costs as low as possible... I ended up at Elecrow.  They do a great job, with good turn around time and communication, and they have the lowest cost (I think).  They do a "small batch" job which is 5 boards at a low price.  And, if you buy "bulk" say 25-50 or 100 PCBs at a time, your cost per board goes down significantly.

I also like that Elecrow has black phenolic.  I do most of my boards in black.

MC

[phasetrans]

The fellow behind Rheingold Heavy has started a new website that reviews rapid turn PCB houses:

https://manufacturingreports.com/

If you are not familiar with the the various features of PCB board, and what qualifies as a good board, this site will be both informative and educational.

[cloudscapes]

I started with diptrace 11-12 years ago. I got sufficiently good at enough stuff that I'm sure I could have moved on to a better program, but stuck with diptrace to this day! Suits my needs perfectly (including 2-layer and SMD).

Most of these programs support autorouting (automatic generation and placement of traces assumign youv'e set things up correctly). But I would recommend at a certain point you learn to route manually, if you decide to stick with the hobby. Autorouting is fast but it's not always smart.

I would recommend oshpark.com for hobby-scale manufacturing. They're not the cheapest (since they're based in the US), but it's incredibly easy to have boards manufactured and shipped once you've uploaded your finished design. The boards are very high-quality too. oshpark is to pcb manufacturing like how smallbear is to buying electronic components.

[garcho]

oshpark is to pcb manufacturing like how smallbear is to buying electronic components.

+1. Hell, +1,000

I'm like Mike, bit the bullet and learned Eagle. I order 2 layer boards from OSH Park, so I can't speak to the complexity of multi layer boards on Eagle, but it really wasn't all that hard to learn enough to put a board together that worked just fine. Eagle has a few elements that are good to tackle one at a time. If you do that, you can hone your PCB design over time while still building working boards. All you have to do is draw the schematic, then do the layout, then upload the Eagle files to OSH Park. You can double check before ordering. It's that easy.

◘ The component library can be intimidating, and the search function frustrating, but for guitar pedals and most audio stuff, you'll end up using the same packages over and over. That means once you've found the few most important components and their packages, e.g. 5mm box caps, 7mm 1/4W resistors, generic DIP8 op amp, TO-92, etc., you're good to go for a long time. Add these to your favorites or write down their library names, or whatever, and always use those when you draw the schematic. By the time you're done with 1 or 2 projects, you'll have all the most common components already.
◘ Start with the schematic. Label everything how you want, all the values, names, etc. Basically, a connection in Eagle are called a "net". Make sure your nets make sense, e.g. all the grounds should be the same net. It's intuitive when you draw it by hand, but you need to understand what nets are if something goes wrong, which isn't uncommon. Make the schematic complete before switching over to the board.
◘ When you're ready to do the board, put the wired connections - pots, power supply, switching - on the edge of the board. Try to line things up cleanly, try to keep components that are close together in your schematic close together physically on your board, and then hit auto route. You heard me, auto route that shit. Yes, it's bad form. But watch what it does, it's amazing. You might need to tweak it some. Start with a very very simple circuit, fuzz face, blue clipper, etc. and it's really not difficult. Having two layers makes layouts way easier. After you've done that for a project or two, read up a little more and then start doing the layouts by hand, or the most important stuff by hand, then auto route what's left e.g. do the ground sewer by hand, keep digital traces short, etc.
Anyway, that's just off the top of my head.

What is most confusing about Eagle? Have you tried something and failed, or does it just (understandably) look like a can of worms? How far have you got with Eagle? I found it really was a "jump in the deep end" learning experience, and took way less time than I thought it would.

[Kevin Mitchell]

Kicad for sure.

I've used eagle for a few years. Autodesk seems to be ringing out their user base for every dime they can get and it's leaving an awful taste for many of us folks (are you on their payroll, garcho? lol)

A great thing about kicad is the 3D viewer, more interactive controls switching between schematic and pcb editor and way easier to edit or create parts on the fly.

For a fab house, I'm actually outsourcing my PCBs for the first time soon and would try OSHPARK due to their reputation all around.

I believe there's a website that gives you estimates from many reputable fab houses. Just can't bother to look it up right now 

-KM

[Amitay3333]

Im using EASYEDA and they are great!! They have everything for a guitar pedal build... and u can order from JLCPCB through them(:

[Ice-9]

+1 for what Nathan said, Diptrace PCB designer, the free version does double sided and 300 pins, export to gerber and send the file via email to JLCPCB. I have used many PCB fab houses but JLCPCB for me come out top simply because the deliver time has been so much quicker than others, the other PCB fabs may have speeded up now but I have not gone back to find out.

[cloudscapes]

I keep meaning to try JLCPCB's component populating service.. anyone try it?

[garcho]

I was just trying to celebrate the joy of working with layout software, not shilling for Autodesk. Sorry to hear "many of you folks" are paying for Eagle, not sure why, you make a lot of 4 layer boards that are bigger than 4" x 3" for guitar pedals? Those have been the same limitations for years, nothing new. Is there some new BS I haven't heard about yet? Wouldn't be surprised. Kicad looks cool, I'll check it out, sincere thanks for the tip.

[bushidov]

I eventually bit the bullet and went EAGLE as well, but stayed with the old versions that don't give the mob, ahem, I mean AutoDesk, any more of my money. I used to use OSHPark, but because price was a thing for me, I eventually learned about JLCPCB and have been using them since. They've done great for all the little things I've done.

I keep meaning to try JLCPCB's component populating service.. anyone try it?

I'm getting ready to try that with one of my day jobs' prototypes. I'll let you know what I find.

[soggybag]

Eagle is not easy to start with but sooner or later with practice you'll get it. Eagle OSHPark is the combo. There are a lot of Eagle Resources out there.

This thread has links to a series of videos using eagle to make a Rat PCB.

https://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=9661.0

[Nitefly182]

I keep meaning to try JLCPCB's component populating service.. anyone try it?

Most of the guys I know who have boards fabbed and stuffed use JLC. You have to work with the components they stock which can be a bit of a headache but they reportedly do great work. Could be a good way to get some Sonic Crayon stuff going!

[Gumby212]

Awesome info guys! Thanks so much. Has anyone heard of all Pedal? Turns out they are in my home state so that intrigued me. One more noob questions, what is a "gerber"?

[italianguy63]

A Gerber.. I will try to tackle this in layman's terms...

It is a set of files that the manufacturer uses to build your PCBs.  It is like a set of blueprints.

It has many layers for the different aspects of the PCBs.  Dimensions, drill hole placement, drill hole size, component size, printing, etc. etc. etc.

If you get into this.. you will want a "Gerber Viewer" too.. it lets you load your Gerber files and look at them as the manufacturer will build them (not as Eagle or whatever shows you).  It helps you verify everything looks right before you send your files off for production and can potentially save you money from dumb mistakes!

MC

[vigilante397]

you will want a "Gerber Viewer" too..

Altium has that built in Altium pulls it up right after you export the file, it shows you what you just did. Trying to remember if DipTrace did that too. OSHPark's GUI does a pretty good job of showing what each layer is going to look like. JLCPCB shows a quick look of what the top and bottom will look like, that's it. Elecrow shows nothing.

I've never had bad results from OSHPARK, and I like that they do ENIG finish by default, but they're always more expensive than the Chinese places, even with expedited shipping from the Chinese places, and the way OSHPARK does their "community panel" it can take anywhere from a day to a week to fill up, which means more time waiting on your order. Plus I color-code my PCBs by type, so while I like the look of the purple, I enjoy more options.

[italianguy63]

I use this one mostly:

https://www.zofzpcb.com/

You can also do a Google search for "Free Online Gerber Viewer"-- and there are some decent ones there if you don't want to download a program.

I like the one above because I can change the look of the rendering, export it to file, or print it...

MC

[cloudscapes]

I keep meaning to try JLCPCB's component populating service.. anyone try it?

I'm getting ready to try that with one of my day jobs' prototypes. I'll let you know what I find.

I went ahead and made/ordered a board tonight, so I guess I'll report back as well.

Nothing complex, a utility board for my synth with one ic and a couple dozen passives.