pcb-updates

The electroplater is back! See “Training” for details on how to get trained (hint: it's the same as the other ones, but a single 30 minute video).
The reflow oven is better! See “How to use to reflow oven” for details. No training required.
The laser has updated materials:
- “_THE HIVE_FR4-1.55mm_Cu-0.5oz_standard” - standard 0.5-oz copper on FR4, traces and pitches of a “reasonable” size.
- “_THE HIVE_FR4-1.55mm_Cu-0.5oz_finePitch” - 0.5-oz copper on FR4 with traces or pitches smaller than 5 mil. Seems to go down to 1 mil traces and 1 mil pitches reasonably reliably, though definitely YMMV.
- “_THE HIVE_FR4-1.55mm_Cu-0.5oz_plated” - if you started with 0.5-oz FR4 substrate and then plated it.
- “_THE HIVE_FR4-1.55mm_Cu-1oz” - standard 1-oz copper on FR4
- “_THE HIVE_FR4-1.55mm_Cu-1oz_plated” - if you started with 1-oz
We have a stencil process - see “Processing stencils” for how. We also provide standard polyamide, free of charge.
We've got a process for making a pseudo-soldermask with Kapton tape. It's not perfect, but it seems to do okay. See “Kapton masking”.
We've learned that there's a trick to working with super tiny (i.e. 0.15mm) drills in the ProtoMat. The ProtoMat also works most reliably with drills down to 0.4mm; if you want to use smaller, see the plotter's Q&A.