Homebrew PCBs

I don't remember who it was, but there was a company that made smd to pth
"conversion" boards.  They were one component per board, and the most
expensive was a $1.50.  We used them for prototyping at work all the time.
On May 1, 2011 2:18 PM, "Aaron Turner" <synfinatic@...> wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
>
> I'm building my first project which consists of two AA battery powered
> modules- a transmitter & receiver. I've been looking at
> various step up/buck power circuits and trying to find something that
> was relatively efficient for decent battery life, simple, cheap and
> doesn't take a lot of PCB space. It seems that the only way to meet
> all those requirements is using SMD parts as all the PTH parts tend to
> have higher part counts (inductors for example), higher costs and
> obviously take up a lot more space.
>
> I've done a fair bit of research on the web about soldering SMD parts
> and looks like this should be quite doable by hand. The only issue of
> course is that I don't yet have a board to solder them to for testing.
> I'm planning on designing my own boards for this project, but one
> really nice thing about PTH parts is being able to go from breadboard
> to perfboard to PCB and test/learn/tweak along the way.
>
> Anyways, I was hoping to get some insight on how to proceed in way to
> keep my costs down (ie: avoid costly mistakes).
>
> I was thinking perhaps of initially designing a small board which
> would have the 4 components and have standard 0.1in pins for testing
> on a bread/perf board and have them done by BatchPCB or the like. I'd
> be in for about $10 in components + 3 small PCB's for testing purposes
> and when I was done I'd have some
> nice little power modules left over for other future projects. Once I
> know I've got everything working, I'd be able to transfer that design
> to the final design for my project.
>
> The other idea I had was to just design the transmitter PCB which is a
> lot smaller/less complex then the receiver. I suppose my chances of
> getting a small PCB with even just PTH parts right the first time is
> slim to nil, so perhaps it's just better to get it over with? That
> way I could test/debug/learn on a bit more involved board rather then
> just 4 small components which may have limited learning opportunity.
>
> Any suggestions on how to prototype/test SMD based circuits without
> spending lots of time, effort and money making mistakes? I've never
> designed a board before, but with PTH parts at least I have a chance
> to test the circuit ahead of time. With SMD parts, I feel like I'm
> sorta guessing what will and won't work.
>
> Thanks!
>
> --
> Aaron Turner
> http://synfin.net/         Twitter: @synfinatic
> http://tcpreplay.synfin.net/ - Pcap editing and replay tools for Unix &
Windows
> Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary
> Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
>     -- Benjamin Franklin
> "carpe diem quam minimum credula postero"


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