Printed Circuit Board
This page is focussed on making your own PCB's.
Related pages:
Books
Books:
Magazine
PCD (Printed Circuit board Design magazine)
www.pcdmag.com/
Subscription seems to be for free
Organizations
The Institute for Interconnecting and Packaging Electronic Circuits (IPC) is
a trade association representing over 2200 companies in the electronic
interconnection industry worldwide. This is the place for the latest
information on the design, fabrication, assembly, of printed wiring boards
(PWBs), and printed wiring assemblies (PWAs) as well as environmental,
regulatory and legislative aspects impacting these industries.
www.ipc.org/index.html
The IPC has several email lists. They are very specialized. Info about them:
www.ipc.org/html/framesetdestypes.html
Tips
Date: 19971119
From: Richard Mustakos
Organization: mrj.com
To: Jaap van Ganswijk
Subject: Home built PCB's
I don't remember where, but some time ago I read an article on
environmentally sound home manufacture of PCB's. The upshot is that you
can have as complex a design as you want, in terms of layers, but that
you need to make a through hole mask as well.
You Need:
- a sturdy piece of thin fiberglass (or some other insulator)
- a laser printer with a straight through paper path conductive paste,
I think it is silver based, but there may be a squeegee
The procedure is this:
- Make each lead mask layer,
- Make a through hole layer
- Invert all layers (traces white and open space black)
- print side 1 negative on the plate
- squeegee conductive paste into the places where there is no toner
- (I think you bake it to set the paste, but I'm not sure)
- print though hole layer negative on top of side 1
- squeegee conductive paste into the places where there is no toner
- bake, if needed
- print side 2 negative on the plate
- squeegee conductive paste into the places where there is no toner
- bake, if needed
- print though hole layer negative on top of side 2
- squeegee conductive paste into the places where there is no toner
- bake, if needed
- print side 3 negative on the plate
- squeegee conductive paste into the places where there is no toner
- bake, if needed
- print though hole layer negative on top of side 3
- squeegee conductive paste into the places where there is no toner
- bake, if needed
Good points:
- There are no chemical pollution as a result of this process
- It will make boards of arbitrary complexity
Bad points:
- your laser printer has to register fairly well
- you have to be good with a squeegee
- you have to be careful not to damage the existing traces
- it is labor intensive
- I think the conductive paste is expensive, but I'm not sure
- you can only solder to one side, so you can only have components on
one side unless you do surface mount for some and dips for others, then
the dips have to be on one side, and the surface mounts have to be on
the other.
I'd like to give credit, 'cause I kow this is someone elses idea, but
I'll be damned if I know whose.
Good luck
RM
Date: 19951211
From: Gilad Barak
To: homebuilt-l mailing list [gone]
Subject: Re: Wow, real homebuilt discussions...
On 19951208 RZH wrote:
My biggest technical challenge right now is converting my prototype
designs into printed circuit boards (I can't really afford to pay to
have it done, and they are complex enough that I feel it would be very
difficult to do myself). How do you guys do this....or do you? I'm
talking about several 40-pin dips, several 28-pin dips, and 2 dozen
or so glue chips (a single board computer, really) on a double-sided
board, maybe 8 x 10". I've played with Easytrax, but wonder about
etching and DRILLING something that big!
There is a Homebuilt FAQ (www.faqs.org/faqs/homebuilt-comp-FAQ/, Jaap)
dealing with PCB layout software and home production methods.
I just ordered from the UK a type of transperancies which were described in
Elektor magazine around last spring. They are fed into a laser printer or
a photo copier and then transfered (heat of an iron) to the copper clad to
create an etch resistant mask. Once I try it I will report how it is. There is
a similar product sold in the US (by a company in CA called Dyna-art if I am
not mistaken) which was described some years ago in Circuit Cellar Ink. I tried
once the same method with simple transperancies, but the results were less than
desirable.
Drilling is a pain. You must obtain the drills used in the PCB industry. If
you have access to a PCB plant they may give their used ones for free. They
have o discard them after such and such drills, but they are still perfect for
home use. The main problem with these is that although they are very thin
sometimes their shank is a bit thick (because they have to fit into these huge
automatic drillers) and not always fit a Dremmel chuck.
8 x 10 for a homebuilt seems a bit big and difficult to handle. A typical
microcontroller SBC (Micro, RAM, ROM, address ecoding and some I/O) should
fit easily in a 4 x 6 or so when using double sided. I don't know your design
but 24 chips for glue logic seem a bit high, but even this should fit in
something around 6 x 8.
Easytrax is nice because it is the only package I know which has a simple router
(a track at a time) and has no restrictions. Recently on Simtel appeared a
windows based package called PIA* which looks good. It has an autorouter good
enough for home use, it is very simple to operate and registration is about
$50 which seems a good deal for what it gives (The unregistered versin has no
saving capabilities). There are two commercial packages from the UK which have
an entry level version of less than $100 but I have not had the chance to
evaluate them (one of them has a demo version available through FTP). Don't
have their names with me bu I can check if you wish (or check recent issues of
Elektor).
Hope this helped a bit,
Gilad
ftp.cdrom.com/pub/simtelnet/msdos/cad/ - Simtel's CAD* stuff (also for PCB's) in the USA
mic5.hensa.ac.uk/mirrors/simtelnet/msdos/cad/ - Simtel's CAD* stuff (also for PCB's) in the UK
bj@headwaters.com
Date: 19951211
From: Brad Rodriguez
To: homebuilt-l mailing list [gone]
Subject: Re: Wow, real homebuilt discussions...
On 19951208 RZH wrote:
I also have a strong interest in languages (C, FORTH) for these little
systems, as well as operating systems.
Have you a copy of my ANSI Standard CamelForth for the Z80? (Easily ported
to other 8-bit CPUs.)
My biggest technical challenge right now is converting my prototype
designs into printed circuit boards (I can't really afford to pay to
have it done, and they are complex enough that I feel it would be very
difficult to do myself). How do you guys do this....or do you? I'm
talking about several 40-pin dips, several 28-pin dips, and 2 dozen
or so glue chips (a single board computer, really) on a double-sided
board, maybe 8 x 10". I've played with Easytrax, but wonder about
etching and DRILLING something that big!
I've been _really_ pleased with AP Circuits' prototyping service. I saw them
advertised in Nuts & Volts; they'll do double-sided boards with
plated-through holes (!), as few as two (2) boards, with next-day service
(!), for something like Cdn$0.85 per square inch plus a Cdn$85 setup fee.
(Last time I checked, that is. A recent ad says US$90 for two 5"x6"
boards.) The limitations: no solder mask or silkscreen; rectangular boards
only; no gold-plating (e.g. for edge connectors). They'll take an output
file from Easytrax, via modem or FTP. Email staff@apcircuits.com, or
www.apcircuits.com/.
I've used them for a couple of projects now....believe me, it's worth
the money.
Regards,
Brad Rodriguez Computers on the Small Scale
Contributing Editor, The Computer Journal... www.psyber.com/~tcj
Director, Forth Interest Group......... www.taygeta.com/fig.html
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