pcb-design

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So you want to design a PCB, eh? This will be a good resource and place to start!

Better PCBs In Eagle

Kicad tutorial

Is there a recommended DRC/CAM file I can use?
Yes!

Do you have any recommendations for professional fabrication houses?
We don’t officially recommend a specific fabrication houses. All of them have positives and negatives. The following is a very incomplete list of fab houses that we've used with varying levels of success.

  • You can use PCB Shopper to compare prices across a number of different fab houses.
  • JLC and AllPCB are two Chinese companies that offer super fast turnaround and super low prices with a wide range of capabilities and good results. But since they're made in China, there may be shipping and IP issues.
  • OshPark is the cheapest USA-based fabrication house because they aren't actually a fab house - they're a middleman to another fab house. Basically, they collect a bunch of designs, and when they have enough, they all get sent off. They're well-known for their purple PBCs, and their capabilities are growing all the time. They also can make solderpaste stencils through their affiliates at OshStencils.
  • Advanced Circuits is another American-made fab facility that has a much more extensive list of capabilities than OshPark. It's more expensive, but the quality is higher, and the turn-around times can be same- or next-day, if you're willing to pay for it. They also have deals on rectangular 2- or 4-layer boards, and deals for students.
  • Epec Engineered Technologies is the most expensive of this list, but also the highest reliability and widest range of fabrication options. If you need a 16 layer board with super-fine pitches and tolerances and varying copper weights for the internal stack with specialized prepreg, and you need 1000 pieces assembled tomorrow, these are your people. (Okay, that's an exaggeration, but seriously, for non-standard work, or precision standard work, Epec is great.)
  • pcb-design.1610732085.txt.gz
  • Last modified: 2021/01/15 12:34
  • by benh