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Low cost PCB fabrication


Goblinz

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I found some info on getting lowcost PCBS produced in China and though that it may be of benefit to people on here...

Here's a round-up http://research.techkwondo.com/?p=337, giving details of the ordering process and here's the link to the company http://www.goldphoenixpcb.biz/quote2.php

Obviously this isn't going to be as cheap as producing the boards yourself.

They do a 1000Cmsq board, and you can send in a PCB design, and then they will replicate it and lay it out on the board as many times as possible. They can do more than one design on the board for an extra fee. It looks like they even cut them all out for you too. They do 4 layer boards too........please could somebody let me know how you can get 4 layers on to a board... do you have to sandwich layers?

Anyway, a board of 1000cmSQ, with the same design replicated, with a single side silk screen will cost just short of $110 which seems really good, especially if a few people got together to get some boards done. there's free shipping to the states or very reasonable shipping elsewhere.

      Hope this is of help.

                      G

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I used Gold Phoenix for the MB-6582 prototype and current run of PCBs. So does SparkFun (and BatchPCB which you might want to try for small one-offs).

Their prototyping service is good value, but pay attention to the extra fee for "multi-project" i.e. if you are combining more than one PCB design on the panel. They do route them all out for you. If you were just filling a panel with one design then you don't pay the "multi-project" cost.

Obviously this isn't going to be as cheap as producing the boards yourself.

Please tell me how to produce 2-layer plated through holes with solder mask yourself. Then tell me how to do it cheaper than $110.  ;D

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Well.. maybe not professionally finished0 boards of that quality.

How does this layer ing thing work, it's not a term we used in GCSE electronics. I thought double layered was the same as a double sided  board... How can you get 4 layers on a board?

    G

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How does this layer ing thing work, it's not a term we used in GCSE electronics. I thought double layered was the same as a double sided  board... How can you get 4 layers on a board?

Thye make several thin PCB's, laminate them together and then drill, and do the via's, (the inter-board connections), and through hole plating. For more exotic boards you cahave 'buried' via's where the join doesn't go right through.

Usually only used for very high density boards, especially when using chips in BGA (ball grid array) packages. Not home stuff - BGA's need soldering in a reflow oven (you can't get and iron under a chip).

This is why some of the higher end DSP and FPGA's aren't easy to use for one-off's.

If you want to get really mad, you could look at multi layer flexible....

Designing for these boards is a bit of a black art, often involving Radio frequency work, on high speed motherboards - face it, 1066MHz Front Side Bus is a higher frequency than early Radar. This is why you see those wiggly track on modern motherboards - to keep them all the same length, so that the signals arrive together.

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Great, thanks for the explanation, I thought it would be something like that, but could not get me head around the complexity of even thinking about designing an 8 layered board. I don't think I'll ever need to go beyone a dual sided board.

          G

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Great, thanks for the explanation, I thought it would be something like that, but could not get me head around the complexity of even thinking about designing an 8 layered board. I don't think I'll ever need to go beyone a dual sided board.

Another thing about layers -- The reason for four layers is almost always to have power and ground appear on their own layers.  Then wherever they're needed, a via is poked through.  This makes routing much easier with more complex boards.  Those two extra layers are entirely copper except where vias go through that aren't supposed to be connected to it.  Layers more than that are usually used to cut down on vias when things get even denser (like modern computer motherboards).

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