Anyone here into pcb layout and production?

N

nimbusgb

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A long way from my boat! :(
www.umfundi.com
Not quite yottie ( except that the end result is for boats! )

I am looking for someone to layout and produce a small pic processor board probably 1 or 1.5 square inches in total for a little project I have. Couldn't be bothered to get back into the whole process and reckoned there must be someone here familiar with the whole pcb shebang.
 
If you know a technology teacher at a secondary school you might be able to get one made up. Many of them use software called PCB Design and Make and Crocodile Clips to lay out the circuit and pcb, then use a Roland plotter to cut the circuit board from copper-clad board. Many schools will also know about PIC processors as well.
I used to work in a tech department that could be bribed with a suitable quantity of acrylic offcuts, sheets of birch faced ply or rolls of masking tape (all of which we used in large quantities).
 
Yes I can do that sort of thing.
Have access to Protel to do a proper job. I can get boards built in small quantitities or have them sub contract assembled. What kind of quantity? I have a local pcb house that is good for prototype work up to hundreds. Beyond that it pays to shop around.
Thru hole or SMT?
How many other components?
Your board sounds very small! Connectors etc often take up more space than budgeted for.
PM me for a phone number if you want to take this further.
 
Will the Open Source Arduino's not do what you want - there are a variety of through-hole and SMD variants for about £20 and the IDE/compiler and manual is free.

<ul type="square">
[*]Digital I/O
[*]Analogue I/O
[*]UART
[*]EEPROM
[*]20 MHz
[*]No Programmer needed due to built in bootloader
[*]Works out of the box - just add peripherals
[/list]
 
Lots of alternatives.

If you only need 1 or 2 off and want to make it yourself, see here Part 1 and Part 2. If you're careful with alignment, you could even do double sided. make sure the patterns have index marks. The easiest way is to pre-drill small holes through the board once you've printed one layer. Then you can align the other layer precisely with the holes.

If you want anything more, get them made professionally. If you just opt for a single layer with no plated holes, no silk screen or solder resist, it'll be cheaper although a proffessional build will need them.

There's planty of free CAD software around. It's normally a very restricted version of the full blown system. Alternatively, the old fashioned way is to use rub down patterns & lines on a bare copper board. Then etch that. This has to be for a one off. Any more & it becomes prohibitively time consuming. The rub down patters & lines can be expensive too.
 
It is usually more cost effective to get somebody like PCB Pool to professionally manufacture your board. You can design your pcb using free design tools as already mentioned and then send the gerber file for manufacture. Double sided is no problem, they can cater for multilayer too.
 
I know others have offered, but feel free to PM me with details of what you want. This is what I do all the time. However, it will be on a commercial basis (as, I guess, will be the other offers) - even if I do the CAD bit for next to nothing, there will be costs incurred in getting the PCBs made, that you must be prepared for. Cost depends greatly on quantity to make. One off is very expensive, 1000 off should be very cheap.

Unless you have an overriding reason to have something made to your exact requirements, you would be better off searching for a kit module from Maplin or similar. Depending on what's around it, you can get away with building PICs on "strip-board", but it helps if you know what you are doing.

Does it have to be PIC?
 
Like the others, I can layout a board and programme PICS. Eagle CAD is free and fantastic for small boards if you want to do it yourself.

I have used PCB Pool (Beta Layout) for small quantities of boards, but as they price in euro (Ireland based) they have got expensive recently - does anyone have any suggestions for a cheaper alternative? - single sided, conventional boards (sorry for thread drift).

Andy
 
To keep with the fred drift -
There's a couple of PCB manufactureres I've used over the years, that are cheap and reliable.

email sales@rak.co.uk for fairly cheap, fast, prototypes
or sales@deb-electronics.co.uk for bigger quantities
or sales@ablcircuits.demon.co.uk for good all-round service

I've stuck with these companies for years, without bothering to look for new suppliers. All have in-house plotting and tooling (DEB contract it out but makes no difference in practise) from artwork files.
 
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