Circuit to PCB

JonSea, where could I find that footprint for the staggered pin headers? That seems quite handy for larger batches.

you might find them at sparkfun.com. Look for a eagle library. OR Modify an existing part, change the name and offset the location on some of the pins.

Elecrow does, as part of their premium service. Don't know what the cost is. Others that I've listed may also do flex.

I have a drawing for 0.1" pitch square pin headers. I'll post it after I get home. The holes are the usual size, just offset from the base line. Depending on the plating thickness of the holes, it works anywhere from "good enough to hold the connector perpendicular to the board" to finding I forgot to even solder a header until it came free from the board when I tried pulling off the connector.

Here is the Sparkfun's "lock" pattern for square headers. The offset between adjacent holes is 0.01" – I usually make one hole 0.005" above the centerline and the next 0.005" below the centerline so there's no offset of the header center.

Oops, in the note below the illustration, it should be: Drill: 0.04" diameter.

This is the circuit that I am describing but am not sure weather it will do the job . If some won could advise me. The circuit I require is one that will drive a led light and can be dimmed .
Led is max 36 volts @ 9 amps The power supply is battery.

Gregory said:

This is the circuit that I am describing but am not sure weather it will do the job . If some won could advise me. The circuit I require is one that will drive a led light and can be dimmed .
Led is max 36 volts @ 9 amps The power supply is battery.

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That is not a circuit, try again.

JonSea said:

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.

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Hi guys,

I have Itead Studio too, and I am pretty happy with them. Cheap, fast enough, good quality board. About USD40 ( if paid AUD 58, shipping to Oz included)
for 10 BLUE two layer 100*150mm, hard to beat really.

They also have a basic range of standard components at good prices, so you can also cut down on shipping costs if you need spare parts.

Really happy with the 2 orders I placed with them.

Just thought you might want to know.

Cheers,

Jack

I tried ITEAD (aka iMall). Price was good. Gerbers were sent at 4PM EST (USA) on March 4, 2015. They passed and were accepted at 9PM on the same day. Processing took a week. I was notified they had shipped on March 11, 2015. Shipping was to be by registered air mail. Still have not received them, and the USPS tracking claims it has not received hand-off of the package yet.

Will update when received, but so far, the turnaround time seems to be considerably slower than OSHPark.

John

jpanhalt said:

I tried ITEAD (aka iMall). Price was good. Gerbers were sent at 4PM EST (USA) on March 4, 2015. They passed and were accepted at 9PM on the same day. Processing took a week. I was notified they had shipped on March 11, 2015. Shipping was to be by registered air mail. Still have not received them, and the USPS tracking claims it has not received hand-off of the package yet.

Will update when received, but so far, the turnaround time seems to be considerably slower than OSHPark.

John

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Hi John,

Yes they are good and quick to process but I think to achieve their low costpoint they had to choose the public post service which takes a while.
My batches took a good three weeks to arrive in Australia. I would expect the same lead time to ship to Cleveland if that's where you are.
So you'd probably have them some time next week.

I would use OSHPark for boards that require higher quality production. Itead are very good but from what I read, OSHPark's quality is remarkable.
All spacings, trace widths and silkscreen sizes are within tight tolerances. They are dearer but for everything a bit fancy, they are probably the right choice.

Any one who has experience with OSHPark, feel free to speak up !

Jack

The board in question has tight tolerances, but is relatively small and cheap. That is why I chose ITEAD for it. If it isn't right, I don't have much invested in the trial.

I thought that by specifying air mail, shipping would be faster. I can wait. The other very cheap vendor I am tempted to try is Dirty PCB (https://dirtypcbs.com/).

I have had experience with OshPark and was very happy with it. The boards are shipped in bulk to Oshpark, which then breaks them apart and ships by local post. Total TAT was about 10 days. The only down side is you have to like dark purple.

John

Jack Thonet said:

I would use OSHPark for boards that require higher quality production. Itead are very good but from what I read, OSHPark's quality is remarkable.
All spacings, trace widths and silkscreen sizes are within tight tolerances. They are dearer but for everything a bit fancy, they are probably the right choice.

Any one who has experience with OSHPark, feel free to speak up !

Jack

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Hi Jack,

I just had a dozen boards made by OSHPark, cost me under $20 including shipping. Seems to be good quality, though I find it a bit annoying that they only manufacture boards with purple solder mask, as John said. That's really my only complaint though. I love that their site will take a zip file of the gerbers, then show you what the finished board will look like, all before you order it. It's a very easy process.

Regards,
Matt

I turned a friend who has a embedded design business to iMall and he had only one problem which was their fault. They fixed at NC.

They could not do a 4 layer 10 inch x18 inch mostly thru hole and barely has any components on it.

Hi all,

From your comments it seems I should give OSHPark a try.

With iMall (Itead Studio), they also accept a ZIP file for the Gerber files. I think they only take a Gerber actually.

Even though they say they check, I think there is not much of an engineer's sanity check. Probably only a machine compliance test.
My first boards had a big obvious flaw in them which they didn't spot.
All holes which were not linked (obviously ground, some where even labelled ground) were supposed to connect to the ground plane.
The big error that I made was that, I am not sure when and how this happened, the insulation ring for all these ground holes still had the insulation ring on them.
They were isolated from the ground plane. About sixty of them. It was clearly my fault as the Gerber files were not correct.
But I would have thought it could have been picked up before production.

I am surprised they couldn't do a 4-layer. That option was available. But may be not this particular size. It sounds disappointing indeed.

I think my next order will be with OSHPark.

Cheerios,
Jack

Jack Thonet said:

Hi all,

From your comments it seems I should give OSHPark a try.

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I agree. OSHPark was the very first commercial board house I used. The interface was very easy. I had a question about a DRC failure (via on a pad) and a technical person there corresponded promptly with me about it. It was not a problem for them. Viewing the Gerbers is a plus. OSHPark also takes Eagle files directly. You can upload, see what things look like, get a price, and then pay when you order.

With iMall (Itead Studio), they also accept a ZIP file for the Gerber files. I think they only take a Gerber actually.

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That appears to be the case. You also pay first, then upload. I was a little uneasy with that, but it went smoothly.

Even though they say they check, I think there is not much of an engineer's sanity check. Probably only a machine compliance test.
My first boards had a big obvious flaw in them which they didn't spot.

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At the low cost end, I don't suspect any place will offer a sanity check. OSHPark will address questions you have. However, I don't think it will review the design either. That would add a lot to its cost.

All holes which were not linked (obviously ground, some where even labelled ground) were supposed to connect to the ground plane.

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Unless you are paying for design help, I don't think any of the places we have mentioned will fix that error. Using Eagle, if you do a copper pour, you will quickly spot such holes that are not connected to ground.

I think my next order will be with OSHPark.

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Good choice, based on my limited experience. Your boards will come with little sharp protrusions from where the routed panel was broken into pieces. They are easily sanded off.

John

You really don’t need to send your design to chine just to print on board because there is free software in market. Eagle, Dip-trace, kiCAD, OSH Park etc. are the free software to print your designs on board. You can find it from Google.

4pyros said:

That is not a circuit, try again.

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If you type into Google
Liner LT379 this is the circuit that I have tried to draw on cad but no luck .
I had given up but received this post and it has inspired me again as I need help with this project.
Thank you Greg for getting back into this project .
Hope you can help me out.