Inexpensive PCB custom boards

[elecplus]

Another list I belong to has members that make a number of small batch runs of PCB boards. They use pcbway.com from China. Several years ago they had mixed reviews online, but the more recent reviews seem to be pretty good. http://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/pc ... review/30/

[Muirium]

What matters most: how much for a single PCB? And at a common keyboard size like TKL or 60%. That's where we get burned. Keyboards are quite large, and we want prototypes! Not whole production runs that need ditched during trial and error.

[Stabilized]

I have very little experience when it comes to designing PCBs, but is there any easy way for someone with little to no experience design and prototype a PCB before submitting an order to somewhere like this?
I always look at the designs of the Korean makers or Hasu and think that I would really like to give that a try, but I really don't know where to start.

[Engicoder]

I have very little experience when it comes to designing PCBs, but is there any easy way for someone with little to no experience design and prototype a PCB before submitting an order to somewhere like this?
I always look at the designs of the Korean makers or Hasu and think that I would really like to give that a try, but I really don't know where to start.

Keyboards are pretty simple compared to many PCB designs, but they are far from trivial. Fortunately, there are a lot of examples out there to learn from. Most people are using the open source KiCad EDA package. That is a good place to start. Its not the most intuitive work flow, but there are plenty of tutorials, including This one in the wiki and this one from bpiphany that is geared towards keyboard design.

Some other resources:
Geekhack-Living PCB Design Thread
http://blog.komar.be/how-to-make-a-keyboard-the-matrix/
https://github.com/geekhack-org/kicad-l ... er/modules
https://github.com/stormbard/Keyboard.pretty

[Stabilized]

Thanks for the reply and suggestions. I will have a look into the KiCad program and tutorials, they look interesting.

[Muirium]

If you get good at it, you'll have no shortage of interested people here, including me! I've several projects that are waiting on PCBs, of various different sizes, switches, and interfaces.

[pcaro]

I am very interested in PCBs now. Usually you must buy a lot (minimum 5 or 10). An idea I am interested in is making a 75% using 2 symmetrical halfs. Joins can be simple glued and soldered (the 5 or 6 rows lines). With that "half pcbs" in your lot of 5 you can make 2 keyboards and have a spare half for errors, keypad, etc.

[HuBandiT]

If you get good at it, you'll have no shortage of interested people here, including me! I've several projects that are waiting on PCBs, of various different sizes, switches, and interfaces.

What would be competitive rates?

Also, what typical sizes and configurations (layers, masks, number of holes, etc.) would we be talking about?

If you guys give me 5-6 typical setups, I can look into prices locally, and then we can see how they compare.

[rea5245]

There is a price comparison site for PCB manufacturers at http://PCBShopper.com. You enter your board's specs and it shows you prices and delivery times from 25 different PCB manufacturers, including the best known companies in Asia, North America and Europe. It also lets you read and write Amazon-style reviews of the manufacturers.

- Bob

[rea5245]

Most people are using the open source KiCad EDA package. That is a good place to start.

The web site I mentioned in my previous post also maintains a list of free PCB CAD software at http://PCBShopper.com/cad. There are many such lists on the web, but PCBShopper's is unique (as far as I know) because it tells you the limitations imposed on the free versions of commercial software.

For example, Eagle Lite is the free version of Eagle. It may well be the most widely used PCB CAD software, but it would be unacceptable for keyboard design because it's limited to 100mm x 80mm boards; if you want to make a bigger board, you need to pay thousands of dollars for the full version of Eagle.

KiCad, mentioned by Engicoder, is probably the most popular open source CAD program, but many people find its UI to be quirky. I've used it and the UI didn't bother me. My current favorite, though, is the free version of DipTrace. It's "crippled" in that it limits designs to 300 pins. I haven't run up against that limitation yet, and I like the fact that it does not limit the physical size of the board. Based on its reviews at PCBShopper, it seems to be well-liked.

If you look at PCBShopper's list of CAD software, you should avoid any program that does not output Gerbers, which are the industry standard files for PCB designs. When a program does not output Gerbers, it means that you can only use it with a specific company's manufacturing service. That service is typically expensive compared to the cheap Chinese manufacturers.

Hope this helps.

- Bob

[Matt_]

For example, Eagle Lite is the free version of Eagle. It may well be the most widely used PCB CAD software, but it would be unacceptable for keyboard design because it's limited to 100mm x 80mm boards; if you want to make a bigger board, you need to pay thousands of dollars for the full version of Eagle.

Actually, there is a workaround: the free version of Eagle limits the size of the space in which you can place component pads (from a library), but you can still freely place vias and route traces anywhere you want. Silkscreen and drills are OK too. So you can use pad-less variations of components (to have a footprint for each on them) and build your design from here.

What you can do is place critical components (namely, the microcontroller) in the allowed space, and manually build the rest of the keyboard around it. Sure, you will have to place each pad for each switch, diode and whatnot, and SMT components are pretty much out of the question outside the 8x10 area, but it is not that hard, it just takes more time (and needs a bit more of checking since you can't automatically compare it to the schematic, unless you thoroughly name nets and vias, which is not hard either).

Here is a (very) crude example of an unfinished board:



Exporting gerbers works as expected — you get the full board, not just the limited area.

Of course, if you know nothing about Eagle, it makes more sense to leard KiCad directly, but if you have been using the free version of Eagle for a long time, it can be a fun way to experiment with designs without shelling out hundreds of $s.

[Ratfink]

So in other words, you can use Eagle to lay out keyboard PCBs if you give up all EDA features and essentially use it as a vector graphics application. I think the sane option is to not use Eagle then.

[Matt_]

It is still much more than a vector graphics application — and for something as basic as a matrix, placing pads freehand is not difficult (and you can still use most EDA features if you name your parts correctly). I gave KiCad an earnest try for a few hours but found it much more frustrating than laying out a PCB manually in Eagle

This being said, I am not disputing the fact that people with no experience with Eagle should go with KiCad in the first place, obviously. I was merely sharing my experience for fellow Eagle users who want to have fun with larger PCBs without having to use another cumbersone piece of software.