[sdiy] drilling pcb boards...

[Mike Beauchamp]

I know this question is a few months old, but I just thought I'd
suggest a few things...

I also spent about 6 months designing a board in ExpressPCB. It was
the easiest I found at the time (I had tried Eagle as well), and I
didn't want to be bothered with making a schematic.

Over the christmas break, I gave Kicad
(http://www.lis.inpg.fr/realise_au_lis/kicad/) a try because it was
free and a few people had mentioned it. After 2 weeks, I had a
schematic designed and a PCB all routed and ready to go.

I did run into a few things that were counter-intuitive (being used to
expressPCB), but reading the Help pages and some examples.. I was able
to figure it out and now I'd consider myself pretty competent in
Kicad. After investing the time in making the schematic, routing the
PCB is way easier than ExpressPCB. This is obvious to most people, but
not to me... I'm not used to the software knowing to check for
clearances and telling me what pin goes to where, etc, etc.

The idea of having the stuff I make in formats that everyone can
understand (gerber files) means a lot to me, and the 10-15 hours time
investment in learning the software seems worth it.

Mike

On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 6:48 AM, Dan Snazelle <subjectivity at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> that is one big question...can you get pcb boards made professionally THAT cheap....selling boards to other people might be possible for some projects but maybe not others..remember this summer on the list i was asking people if i SHOULD get the boards for my project made professionally and in the end , at least before summer told me about pcbcart  it just seemed REAL expensive. so i put what i could onto the asm2 board and made the rest on three etched boards and one perfboard board.
>
> thing is with press and peel i already have all the chemicals, boards, etc and it doesnt take THAT much time. i seem to be able to design a small board, print,make drill and solder it in one to two days. not bad for a weekend. BUT there are the problems and hazards we have been discussing.
>
> this pcb cart concept sounds awesome but dont you still end up paying about 30 bucks a board (i might be way way off on that) AND you have to submit in non-proprietary files..which sucks for those of us who learned to do schematics AND boards using express pcb.....however..if its a BIG board for 30, you could split it up into smaller projects all on one scored board.
>
> so that is the main stopping point for me is learning to use something like (GASP) eagle...unless there is something way easier and free.
>
>
> thanks for the advice as usual....i am seriously considering it for the future.
>
>
>
>
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Mike Beauchamp
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