[sdiy] SMD experiences

[Matthew Smith]

Quoth Ian Smith at 09/09/11 10:58...
...
> I may have to look into them. $5psi is not bad.
And that's three copies of the board for that, too. So it's actually 
cheaper, but you can't just order one.

> Oh hey, what about SMD and double sided boards?
Just turn the board over ;-)

I do absolutely everything double-sided. One little trick I've been 
doing recently is to put decoupling caps, pullup resistors and the like 
on the bottom - saving space on the "chip" side.

I have yet to do a 4-layer board, but it's really no big deal, as I just 
have two extra planes on which I can route signals (but not place 
components!) - all the clever stuff gets sorted out at the fab :-)  I 
came close to going 4-layer for my digital ADSR/LFO board, as I was 
finding that power traces kept getting in the way.  But price is double 
for the extra layers. The MIDI router/processor I'm designing will 
likely go to 4 layers.


-- 
Matthew Smith

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