Fritzing, Gerber and UK PCB Houses

[Hippogriff]

That's cool, no worries at all - I've made good progress today, with your help.

Now, pcb-pool.com has a unit price of €10.47 for 5 in 8 working days, and pcbtrain.co.uk has a unit price of £12.60 in 15 working days. I think, probably 'cos this will go wrong in so many ways, that I'll just jump in and go for the cheapest and quickest (not often you can say that).

Whoops! Delivery charge is €20 with pcb-pool.com! A bit steep for shipping some boards. Going to stick with it. Ah, found out it's only €10 by normal post instead of courier.

Also, pcb-pool.com tells me it takes Fritzing as the file format on the first page, not sure if pcbtrain.co.uk does, but certainly not on the first page.

...anyway... created an account, paid by credit card, uploaded the .fz file... job done.

Let's see how this goes.

P.S. - went for no solder resist and no silkscreen this time.

 

[colin mac]

Just thinking actually, if you made this PCB double sided, how small you could make it and how many you'd get for the same price. Because there doesn't seem to be much of a price difference between SS and DS. Maybe something you might want to check yourself..

 

[Hippogriff]

I reckon if this works I'll be jumping for joy, regardless. I expect something to go wrong, or there to be something I've missed. We shall see soon enough. I never minded soldering components in to Veroboard, but doing the wires always did my nut in... this is loads more expensive, but it really needed to be tried, I think. Part of the journey...

Double-sided is the return trip.

 

[alec_t]

In reply to post #10, yup that looks better. Should be easier to hand-solder. Nice touch with the copyright text!

 

[Hippogriff]

Darn.

Seems that my Fritzing save file got to the PCB House and two of the ICs had "disappeared" leaving a load of unconnected tracks. I've gone and loaded the project back into Fritzing and I can clearly see that everything is fully connected (green pins, not red) as expected.

**broken link removed**

So I had to export to Extended Gerber and ship back across. I've been told that the issue now seems to have disappeared, but obviously there is some question over the PCB House's ability to handle Fritzing files, or the Fritzing file itself.

I knew it wouldn't be straightforward... but it's all fun.

 

[colin mac]

They started accepting fritzing lately and must be using a different version than you. I'd guess the software doesn't give a warning that the file is from a different version because
some PCB softwares can be dangerous like that and do strange things between versions.

 

[jonathan.c]

Hi, I'm one of the people on the Fritzing team. I wanted to add the following. Services that handle Fritzing files should accept ".fzz" files, because .fzz files will include any custom parts you've created. By contrast, ".fz" files only contain references to parts which are actually stored elsewhere. As long as all the parts in a sketch come from the core, then it's OK to send that sketch (.fz) file to a service, since the core comes with Fritzing. But in that case, the service should be using a version of Fritzing that is the same or more recent than yours. If their version of Fritzing is older than yours, then they will not have the newest additions to the core, and references to those new parts will fail.

To save a sketch as an .fzz file, use the "Save as shareable..." option under the File menu.

I should let you know that we are days away from opening a Fritzing Fab service, to which you can upload .fzz files. And I can assure you that we will be using the latest version of Fritzing.

Cheers,

- j

 

[Hippogriff]

Jonathan - hi (again).

That is very interesting... of course, you're 100% correct, I did create the MAX667and 14-pin PIC from custom components in Fritzing's palette.

As you probably know, I only downloaded Fritzing a few days ago - and I love working with it. The question I have is - how the heck am I supposed to know that that behaviour (you describe above) exists and is the norm?

Did I miss something in a "readme" or something?

P.S. - still love Fritzing.

 

[jonathan.c]

Hi Hippo,

I don't think there's an easy way for you to have known. You (or the service) would have to have done some digging, for example, finding your way to **broken link removed**. But on the other hand, you are a pioneer--you are the first person I know of who has tried to go the route of directly sending an .fz file to a service rather than exporting to Gerber and sending that. So lucky you, smoothing the path for those that follow.

Cheers,

- j

- j

 

[Hippogriff]

Cool.

Gold stars for me!

I will update the thread when my first PCBs come back... so very much hoping they just work.

 

[Hippogriff]

I have collected my PCBs from the Post Office DO after a failed delivery the other day and now they are in my hands. I will post a picture later. I am quite surprised because I thought the option of silkscreen was what enabled the white writing on the PCB itself and I do have that on the PCB, but I didn't select that option when ordering.

I haven't gone for soldermask... obviously it'd look more funky with that... but people aren't going to be staring at the PCB itself.

 

[Hippogriff]

OK, I've managed to solder-up and test one of my PCBs and it works a treat. I am well happy because I have made it so much smaller than I've ever managed on veroboard.

**broken link removed**

What did I learn?

Export Fritzing files as "shareable" or just go for Gerbers. Silkscreen is worth having - I was lucky, I didn't ask for it, but I got it from pcb-pool.com by mistake - and, therefore, for free. The prongs of my headers did not fit into the PCB board holes, so I had to do some drilling. I'll make the holes for headers slightly larger next time. Also, the area taken up in Fritzing by the "Screw Terminal" is somewhat larger than my actual headers, so I would address that in the next design and save some extra space.

Sure, it's simple... but I genuinely figure I've made good progress now. I've learned how to program PICs, how to code in a new language, how to assemble things on breadboard, how to put things on veroboard (inc. how to solder) and, finally, how to take something through to a form of manufacture... it all feels very "end-to-end".

Dragons' Den here I come!