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Fastest cheapest way to make quantities of PCBs?

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Mr RB

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Hi, I'm after suggestions on a cheap way to make decent production quantities of PCBs. The PCBs will be small, single sided, maybe 2" square, and for surface mount of larger components to reduce drilling to zero or near zero.

Price is important. Also so is versatility, being able to make some PCBs in different variations or make a change for the next batch of 50 PCBs made etc.

Looks are not important, as long as they are functional and reliable. They will be encapsulated in an industrial enclosure so they won't be seen.

I have ruled out PCB milling because of the slow speed, dust everywhere etc.

Etching is fine, I can setup a bubble tank and etch in panels which will be reasonably fast.

I don't like the idea of using pre-sensitised UV PCB as it is very expensive but it might be an option.

I really like the idea of screen printing the etch mask on the PCB then etching, this would be really cheap and fast but would mean buying screens for each design variation and its harder to make a small change.

If anyone has a fast cheap solution to make single sided SMD PCBs with large traces (fine detail is not really needed) then please speak up. :)
 
Tired screen printing PCBs nearly 30 years ago. Made the screens photographically with a photo sensitive emulsion. We used an enlarger to expose the screen but I expect one could do it contact print style. The per board cost may be small but the startup cost for equipment and chemicals will not be. They make an ink/resist for PCB work. Not sure if the standard screen emulsion has enough detail.

The pulsar toner transfer costs about 2.5 cents per square inch. Requires a laser printer and a laminator. Their site say some are using it for low count production runs. Once you get the process dialed in it is very fast. Resolution is limited by the printer. I would go with a 4up panel.
 
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Thanks for the info 3v0. Re the screen printing I know a local printer who makes screens to order, so I can get a screen made for about $50. That might still be a good option for larger runs.

I do some toner transfer PCBs every now and then (and I have a modified laminator) but I've been using press'n'peel blue which is more expensive than the pulsar stuff (apparently). It works out about 5.7 cents per sq inch and mgiht be as high as 8 cents by the time wastage is factored in. It's a bit more fiddly and time consuming than I would really like for a production system.

Has anyone here done direct to PCB injek printing? That would be an ideal solution, ie; just run the PCB through a printer, bake in oven and then etch it. It has the ability to do quite fine detail and probably lower consumable costs than toner transfer. Here's a link to one of the earlier sites, but there are a lot of injet printers now that will feed CDs (and probably PCBs);
Direct to PCB InkJet Resist Printing
 
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As far as the UV PCB method is concerned, you don't -have- to buy pre-sensitized PCB material; you can instead purchase regular PCB material, then purchase the sensitizer chemical separately (I can't remember if it is pre-mixed, or you mix with water or something), and apply to the board. Its cheaper than purchasing pre-sensitized PCB material, but it takes practice to get it working right (since you have to apply it yourself properly). Overall, though, it isn't as cheap as toner-transfer...

BTW - regarding direct ink-jet printing, IIRC there's a guy on the Arduino forums working on this; he supposedly has built prototypes from standard ink-jet printers, and then uses custom ink or something...
 
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Thanks cr0sh, I really didn't want the time consuming and fiddly process of doing photographic exposure and developing etc, I hated doing that 30 years ago. :)

The direct to PCB stuff looks pretty cool, here's an example of someone simply converting an inkjet printer to feed a 10mm thick long tray (instead of paper);
**broken link removed**
then it's baked for a few minutes in the oven to set the ink and etched. It look slike an ideal system once the printer has been modified. Or maybe for PCBs smaller than a CD I could just get a printer that has a CD print drawer built in...

Thanks Mosiac, that's an interesting little machine in that link. I'm not sure about dye sublimation printing, whether it can be used as an etch mask... And the consumables (special dye sublimation film) may be similar to toner transfer costs.
 
For quantity making, I feel ,screen printing is fastest, however cumbersome.
It works out cheaper, of course depending on volumes.
 
Thanks mvs_sarma. :) I still have not ruled out screen printing.

I know a laser guy that can cut stencils out of thin mylar sheet (like overhead transparancy sheet) for a couple of dollars. I wonder if that could be used for a cheap and fast screen printing setup? With a SMD PCB there won't be many long tracks, mainly small stumpy ones so it might be strong enough to work as a screen for paint and I can take the CAD file to his shop and walk out in 10 minutes with a stencil.

I've checked the bulk prices for press'n'peel blue and it's about $1.20 a sheet including postage, so that brings it down to about 1.7 cents per square inch so that now looks economical for production too.
 
Hi 3v0 wow a 18 month old thread? :eek:

I had even forgotton what product this was for. I think it was for a low cost automotive product that only needed a few big chunky semis and a few resistors.
 
funny this thread should pop up now, 3 days ago i met a guy from our nearest town that wanted to sell a large job lot of resistors so i went to pick them up. We got talking and he showed me some direct printing stuff he had been working on, he had a few typess of printer he's tried out the best one was a very old wax type printer! he got off ebay for £5 but he also had a cannon A3 size inkjet that he uses and he just uses normal inkjet ink thats been baked for a bit. the results looked pretty good,
 
To 3v0; I can't remember all the specific details but the project was scrapped. I dislike low cost products in general, everything has to be cut to the bone parts and production etc and even then you get forced into large quantities to meet the price breakpoints and have to make and sell the large quantities needed to be in profit. I much prefer to work on a product that puts quality and reliability first and sells at a premium so it's worth doing even at lowish quantity.

Re the PCBs these days prices have come down a lot and PCB places are being a lot more flexible ie don't mind doing smaller runs cheaply. I think there is a lot of competition in PCB houses now with new Asian PCB houses cropping up everywhere it seems. I haven't done a super low cost single sided PCB but I've heard small single sided PCBs can be made for a couple of cents each.

To Ghostman; thanks for the info. I think the photo I posted above was a standard bubblejet printer with a slightly different ink "refilled" into it, and yes he was baking the PCB to set the ink hard before etching. I've never heard of the wax printers but it sounds like real old technology?
 
yeah wax printers are very old they were for high quality printing before laser printers were common. all i can remember of them was the cost when new was horrific and they used wax coloured sticks that looked like crayons :D
 
as yet i have not used the CNC to do a pcb or to drill one come to that! anyone got an idea what size and type end mill i would need to etch a pcb? i should use the CNC way more than i am its just sitting there doing nothing :( so far has been a waste of cash
 
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as yet i have not used the CNC to do a pcb or to drill one come to that! anyone got an idea what size and type end mill i would need to etch a pcb? i should use the CNC way more than i am its just sitting there doing nothing :( so far has been a waste of cash

You might want to nip over to cnczone.com Jason and have a peek in the pcb milling section.

**broken link removed**

Regards.
 
i've seen PCB mill in action and I find them too touchy. when it works - it works, but the biggest problem is keeping board securely.
one i've watched in action (many times) does not have vacuum table - and it should have a really good one.
this should be the most expensive/sophisticated part of the mill.

they opted for sticky rubber as a contact surface, also there are two dowel pins to keep board from slipping.

the sticky surface is not exactly sticky since it has seen it's share of dust, and accidental cuts.
a replacement could help a bit perhaps but this a poor way to hold the board and even new surface was never good enough.
same method was used on some Rolland lamacoid engravers and I also never liked it.

result is that slightest warps in the board (often result of milling itself) affect extremely delicate Z-axis.
so you can have grooves cut too deep or not deep enough or both - even on a tiny board (1inch square).
milling time is slow, there is high failure rate, to reduce milling time, no rubouts are done so there are "islands" of free copper.
normally this is not an issue but on small pitch SMD ICs this can make soldering more complicated due accidental overflows.

i'll do etching over milling any time, besides that is what commercial PCB manufacturing uses too.
 
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i kind of agree with you and i do a fair bit of DIY board making with toner transfer, but i have a £5K cnc mill that dosnt get the work it should get! it was brought jointly by myself and a couple of mates for two projects one of the projects didnt get off the ground and the other was over pretty quickly so now i have a cnc mill sitting in my workshop taunting me every time i go in it.
I have used it for doing cut outs etc on project box's but i would like to use it for at least drilling and pref for doing boards with very tiny traces as i hate doing them with toner transfer
 
Got any photos? It sounds cool. There is a free plugin for Eagle that produces gcode for PCB routing, it cuts around the outside of each trace.

One problem with PCB stock is (judging from my stocks) it is always warped and buckled, and engraving needs very precise depth as PanicMode said. Maybe you could make like a frame that screws down on the PCB like a picture frame that holds all the edges down securely and forces a flat surface?

Some commercial engraving machines use a "cone" which is a floating engraving tool holder that gives exact depth, but they need good vacuum extraction as the cone slides around on the PCB as it engraves.
 
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