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Circuit to PCB

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Gregory

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I have a circuit that I would like to be printed onto a circuit board.
I have read the post's in relation to circuit board manufacturers in China that has been suggested.
Can I send them the circuit and they will make the board.
I only require 2 boards.
 
You need a PCB CAD package to do the design such as Eagle and KiCAD; Some packages are free; others have limitations for their free versions.

You have to follow the "design rules" of the PCB house. They tell you what they will and won't do such as minimum trace width and separation and lots of other stuff.

The output from the PCB package is GERBER Files and a Drill file. That's the minimum that's needed.
 
I have tried different PCB Cad programs but I have trouble understanding the program.​
Is there a program that I can draw in the circuit and it changes to a board print and arranges the components.
The circuit I want to do , the Ic has been setup to give simple drawing but is not the correct confirigation . I have tried to draw it but with no luck.
Can some one help me
 
Is the circuit simple?
Please post the circuit and MAYBE some one will help you.
 
Yeah, KISS has nailed it. You'll need to send them gerbers, and I reckon, be prepared to pay them for their time and development as well as deal with the language barrier.

But you must be certain you want a professional PCB made. Regardless of your quantity, they will charge you a once off setup fee for origination and that can be steep. Also you'll pay a pretty steep amount for the low quantity as well.

How complex is the board? It may be cheaper to do it yourself if its super simple? Buy some etching fluid etc.
 
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For DIY boards that are not super detailed....Toner Transfer Method and etch with a mix of Hydrogen peroxide & muriatic acid from the hardware store.
You would need access to a small drill press though...such as a Dremel based unit. I still do prototyping like that.

There are lots of instructables online.
 
...I know it can be difficult to get this type of work done on a small scale...

....But you must be certain you want a professional PCB made. Regardless of your quantity, they will charge you a once off setup fee for origination and that can be steep. Also you'll pay a pretty steep amount for the low quantity as well....

Once upon a time, this was true, and can still be true with US fab houses. Chinese board fabs have changed this. If your board is 100mm x 100mm or smaller, a number of fab houses will produce your board for under US$20. Send them your Gerber files, and they'll send you TEN copies back. No setup or other charges beyond the $10 – $20 charge for 10 boards and shipping.

I have used iTead, Seeed and Elecrow with excellent results for many boards.
 
**broken link removed** including prices for 10 copies of boards 100mm x 100mm or smaller. Boards of 50mm x 50mm or smaller cost even less.
 
**broken link removed** including prices for 10 copies of boards 100mm x 100mm or smaller. Boards of 50mm x 50mm or smaller cost even less.
Wow, thats is super cheap. What kind of boards have you got? Is it $20 even for double sided, through hole plated vias etc?
 
That's for 2 layers, plated holes, soldermask and silkscreen on top and bottom. I think most of them claim <8 mil trace and space, but I wouldn't press the limits too much if you don't have to. They also route to whatever shape you'd like (rounded corners, a round board, whatever). Some of them offer colors other than green at no additional charge.

I've had excellent results. I did have one board that was mis-drilled (somehow, four 8mm non-plated holes from one board got copied to another) but they remade it without question.

Here's an example of a board that was $15 for 10 copies from Elecrow.

image.jpg
 
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No man, this is too good to be true :D.
One more possibly stupid question, are you saying $20 per board (so total is $200), or $20 all together for 10?
 
~$15 for TEN boards. $1.50 per board.

Most of these places require lots of 10; some will let you order 5 for the same price but you save a little on postage. Some of them have options for larger lots.

I just ordered two lots of 10 boards plus $10 in 7-segment displays from Smart Prototyping; the total including shipping by Deutsch Post was $54. They have some cheaper shipping options as well. I haven't said much about this company yet, as I haven't received any boards yet.
 
By the way, in the picture above, the holes for the header aren't in a straight line. This is by design – it's Sparkfun's "lock" pattern. The slight offsetting of the holes helps hold the header perpendicular to the board for soldering.
 
~$15 for TEN boards. $1.50 per board.

Most of these places require lots of 10; some will let you order 5 for the same price but you save a little on postage. Some of them have options for larger lots.

I just ordered two lots of 10 boards plus $10 in 7-segment displays from Smart Prototyping; the total including shipping by Deutsch Post was $54. They have some cheaper shipping options as well. I haven't said much about this company yet, as I haven't received any boards yet.
Nice, good to know. I'll definitely try it next time I have a few prototype boards to do.
 
That's for 2 layers, plated holes, soldermask and silkscreen on top and bottom. I think most of them claim <8 mil trace and space, but I wouldn't press the limits too much if you don't have to. They also route to whatever shape you'd like (rounded corners, a round board, whatever). Some of them offer colors other than green at no additional charge.

I've had excellent results. I did have one board that was mis-drilled (somehow, four 8mm non-plated holes from one board got copied to another) but they remade it without question.

Here's an example of a board that was $15 for 10 copies from Elecrow.

View attachment 89396
What you making there JonSea?
 
The picture I posted is an application board for 28 pin PIC18F-series chips. It's got a few LEDs and switches and connectors for I2C/SPI, UART, a couple ADC pins and a couple PWM pins. I call these Throw Away PIC" boards because they're cheap enough that you can dedicate one to a project and not worry much about the cost.

This one is a new design, with an I2C-driven interface to a character LCD. This board is the same size as 4x20 displays and will piggyback with them.

I developed the first "TAP-28" board several years ago, when the things Cicero said were true. Back then, the best deal I could find was about $75 for 3 boards. The only way to get cheaper boards was to make lots of them. I designed a board that was useful as a building block for most of my applications, had a hundred made and offered them at reasonable cost to members of the programming community. By sharing the boards, I got cheap boards, other people got reasonably-priced boards, and I made about enough to have a cheeseburger on the way to the post office to ship boards when somebody bought some. The second batch I had made was 250 boards and after a few years, those are about gone.

These days, it doesn't make much sense to do this. Anybody can order ten boards for around 20 bucks. There's no need to order a hundred or two hundred boards to get the price down.

There more information about the original TAP28 board here.
 
Anyone know of a Fab house that would do Scissors cut 'board'?
FR4 under .010" is fine. Single sided is fine.
 
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