Hippogriff
Member
I downloaded and started playing with Fritzing earlier. I've really only just noticed that the time is nearly 02:00 now and I'm about to go to bed, finally. I've really enjoyed learning today. The software is pretty cool (I'm a first time user of something like this) but there are a couple of "gotchas" - for example, I didn't want to use the Breadboard layout, but it seems that is where all the wires (nets) are stored, and how it sychnronises the other views (Schematic and PCB), you can't delete these in the Schematic or PCB view.
Anyway, once I got that into my head it was all good fun.
I've been messing around with RGB LED strip projects a lot recently, I've always been using Veroboard to get the final output... works fine for me, I thought PCBs would be outside my limits, but it seems that may not be the case... everyone can get in on this these days.
So, I've done my schematic... power 2-way header (no DC socket yet), MAX667, capacitor, a 14-pin PIC and then 2 x ULN2003ANs, before heading out to a 10-way header... it might not be perfect, but - hey - I'm pretty pleased with it.
Then I went into the PCB view and I've finally got all that stuff onto a 61mm by 52mm rectangle - I think (actually I'm pretty sure) that I could do better with the layout and still save some space, but this was achieved with the Fritzing auto-routing function successfully coming back with everything connected fine.
Now I'm almost too excited to say, I want to find out how to save these as Gerber (I assume?) files and then send them off somewhere to do me a short run - say 10 or so.
So, after all that... bearing in mind I'm in the UK and this is my first ever time of trying this... is there someone out there who can recommend where I should go for this... maybe a place that can handle newbies like me?
Cheap would be good. Quick would be great. Mutual-exclusivity ignored of course!
I would love to hear from anyone who has first-hand experience of doing this from the UK - small PCB, short run, er... simple stuff (single-sided, nothing clever here)... I saw https://www.pcbtrain.co.uk/ and I've heard of BatchPCB (US, I think?)... nothing like a personal recommendation, though.
Anyway, once I got that into my head it was all good fun.
I've been messing around with RGB LED strip projects a lot recently, I've always been using Veroboard to get the final output... works fine for me, I thought PCBs would be outside my limits, but it seems that may not be the case... everyone can get in on this these days.
So, I've done my schematic... power 2-way header (no DC socket yet), MAX667, capacitor, a 14-pin PIC and then 2 x ULN2003ANs, before heading out to a 10-way header... it might not be perfect, but - hey - I'm pretty pleased with it.
Then I went into the PCB view and I've finally got all that stuff onto a 61mm by 52mm rectangle - I think (actually I'm pretty sure) that I could do better with the layout and still save some space, but this was achieved with the Fritzing auto-routing function successfully coming back with everything connected fine.
Now I'm almost too excited to say, I want to find out how to save these as Gerber (I assume?) files and then send them off somewhere to do me a short run - say 10 or so.
So, after all that... bearing in mind I'm in the UK and this is my first ever time of trying this... is there someone out there who can recommend where I should go for this... maybe a place that can handle newbies like me?
I would love to hear from anyone who has first-hand experience of doing this from the UK - small PCB, short run, er... simple stuff (single-sided, nothing clever here)... I saw https://www.pcbtrain.co.uk/ and I've heard of BatchPCB (US, I think?)... nothing like a personal recommendation, though.
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