Homebrew PCBs

> >andrewm wrote:
> >Even if I am doing a board with only SM
> >components I often have too drill many
> >holes (vias).  As soon as things get
> >much more complex than some kind of
> >oscillator flashing some leds - you
> >need (or should) go 2 sided.

> Alan wrote:
> <snip>
> taking wires out to the edge of the board
> and soldering a wire around, take several
> to a single area and drill a larger hole
> and wrap wires around,. etc etc.
> <snip>

I personaly would prefer to drill lots of
itsy bitsy little holes and rivit in a via
than wrap a wire around the edge fo the
board. I'm sure the drilling/riviting
would not take that much longer.  Plus it
addresses the short path to GND issues
better which is probably a big reason for
going 2 sided in the first place.

> <snip>
> with the huge amount of time needed most
> would be better off simply buying that
> occasional board from a cheap prototype
> maker..

I get a shop to make a lot of boards for
me.  However it ends up being more often
than not someone comes to me screaming on
a friday afternoon that they need
something done by monday morning.

The time taken to drill and rivit say 30
holes for one prototype board is probably
under 5 minutes.  That would be less than
the amount of extra time it takes to
layout a complex board 1 sided.
Especially if your paying attention to
where the power rails are.


Hopefully one day I will set up a PTH
process and I can just let an autorouter
do all my unimportant work and put 3000
vias in the things.

Also once PTH is done - the next step
multi-layer is not that big.