Back when I was self employed, I at first was stone broke and so I had to use freeware to layout the pcb artwork. The freeware only allowed a specific number of components. And of course I always needed more than the limited number. But it did also allow you to design your own components. So what I did was take several of the components that I had already used and arranged in a certain positioning, and combined them into being just one new component, thus say what was once 10 components could now be just one component. That fooled the software and I got the job done. LOL
Fascinating to see the process of PCB manufacturing from start to finish. It's one of those things that most of us take for granted until you see all the steps involved.
WOW. I had no idea how “manually from scratch” boards were made. So many analog steps! And so much artistic skill. Interesting to see classic darkroom concepts combined with CNC machines combined with jeweler skills. There’s definitely an underrated beauty and craft to it all.
I think you read that wrong.. pretty sure Hannah was simply saying that most people don't amaze her but Fran always does. So Hannah is then only "easily amazable" concerning Fran.
Wow that was a fantastic tour of the process! I can’t imagine how much time it took you by hand but I know how fun it is creating something from scratch!
almost any mechanical system is a huge upgrade..... ill never use a rubber dome style, by choose, again i just have a keyboard with cherry red switches.....i thought the reds would be quieter than blues.... but i press every key to its stop like some kinda degenerate.... im still faster to type.....i can really get some speed up....wish i had this in high school when we had computer typing class
I, too, bottom out every stroke. I find I have to slow way down if I want to avoid that. However, if you want, you can find rubber O-rings that fit on the stems of the Cherry key tops, to take a couple of millimeters out of their travel. They also have the side-effect of quieting my blue switches to the point that they are acceptable for office use.
This feels like a lot of different things I'm familiar with - laser cutting, printing lithography plates, registering prints for litho or silkscreen, etching plates for intaglio plates, etc., just to name a few.
ah found you again. started watching one of your videos for the first time and had to go out. two weeks later i could not find your channel till today.
I used to do circuit board design in the mid eighties while working with a Marine Research Organisation. Protel was our tool of choice. It was a good, reliable Tasmanian product written by our buddies up the road and we made many damn fine boards with it. My finest skills were learnt in those times...
Impressed the PCB makers plant continues to have actual functioning CRT monitors! It looks like a timewarp back to the early 80s! I'm a studio maint/repair engineer in a TV Station and the only CRT screens for video left still alive would be the viewfinders on the aged News cameras while the 1000s of computers in use have a flatscreen LCD and for Grade 1 video monitoring a 17" OLED panel......
Yeah, you could see it romantically as a craft with antique tools. Or you could see it as a business in decline with too small margins for necessary investments. In any case, the result is that PCB designers are stuck with file formats from the 80's (Echelon/Gerber) that is a real nuisance.
Modern Gerber (ekhm, it's already a decade+ old now!) is a wonderful file format. Sure, some old tools need it preprocessed since they don't understand the high-level primitives. But it's not a nuisance at all. It's easy to understand and process. There's literally no need for anything better for that sort of data.
If you compare it to old Gerber, X-gerber is definitely an improvement (and X2 is probably even better). But if you compare it to every other "modern" file format, no. You need to collect 10-20 different, arbitrarily named files that don't contain info about what they describe or (for drill files) what units they use or even where the decimal points are. Imagine if, for instance, PDF used the same concept. One file for every document page, but you can't tell from the file name or the file itself which page number it describes. A separate file for the illustrations, and you have to guess where to put them because there is no guarantee that they have the same coordinate origin or scale. If all this handling and guesswork would be required for saving and opening PDF files, would they have become the de facto standard?
It's awfully manual-labor intensive. For every minute of manual labor is where the Chinese can undercut you 95%. More if they automate it and you don't. Fascinating process though.
I've just come across your videos for the first time and this is definitely the best video I've seen covering the whole process of making a batch of printed circuit boards. When I manufactured battery powered wireless, security equipment in the 1990s, because of the small numbers of boards required, I used a manual PCB track programme which worked on Win 3.1. No Gerber output - just printed onto acetate sheet and develop. All holes were drilled by hand.
I remember working in a school as a technician and being the only person with any electronics experience I was asked to produce PCB for projects. Being Apple Mac based and having very little experience I used a bit of software called pagemaker and illustrator which were actually a desktop publishing applications Found that I could get a simple circuit and some components and translate all the lines in holes into a PCB and then print the design out on a laser printer. I would then use light sensitive glass fibre board and put the board and PCB under a light box. Then I would have to expose the board. Then I would have to etch the board and drill all the holes by hand. It got so arduous that I used to do boards in large batches witch could take a week to finish. When you look at PCB production today things have moved on considerably and I'm not sure that people even produce conventional boards any more. Certainly not for things like iPhones anyway. It good to always add to knowledge but I don't do these sorts of things anymore because you can just send off a design to a company and they will do it all for you including one offs. Thanks for the insight though Fran.
Interesting video, but I am amazed of the old equipment. I were involved with PCB ordering 25 years ago and then the photoresist illumination were done with CNC photo plotting. Thanks for your nice videos, Fran :-)
I have done hundreds of one off boards over the last 40 years and really empathize with the manual drilling process, can't imagine doing it for manufacturing. for one off boards nowadays I use point to point where wire count is less than 200
Very interesting video, quite sophisticated methods. I like new technology, but sometimes I'm impressed at how well some of the older stuff worked, think of the old auto type voltage regulators with staged coils and chattering contacts, (and a solenoid to stop back discharge when motor not running) amazing how well electro-mechanical did the job. Love your stuff Fran.
Thanks Fran - love seeing how that's done. Quite a complex process and, as you say, one where automation is very welcomed. I thought the testing machine was particularly cool. All in all a great insight into how the boards we use are made. I shall look at my pcbs with renewed respect from now on!
I made several (maybe 100 +-) by hand. Used sharpie marker for resist and "Radio Shack" etchant. I build small very low power amateur radio transceivers just as a hobby. I tried stacking boards but didn't use the dowel pins: it was a real mistake. Thank you for an interesting video and thanks from the USA. We need more companies that make hiring workers possible. Maybe not so many at your location but look at all the equipment and special set ups. Greg
Kicad is a good option for layout. It is not cloud based. It is free to use. The down side is that it is aimed at more complex boards so it has a lot of features that can initially be confusing. ExpressPCB is an option for making experimental boards. They supply the software and you have to have them make the boards. This is ok for small quantities. Their software is very easy to use.
Yeah, but back to what Fran said, it is CLOUD based and proprietary. Once you check in you can never leave. Sounds like Hotel California. You were doing great at KiCad. Now that Cern has joined in to enhance KiCad it is even better than ever and it ain't CLOUD based. It is free to own and use. As for what it is aimed at is a way that hardware people can share electronic designs like the software people share software with GNU compilers. I find it quite friendly and easy to learn. The output files are human readable. No keys to load to unlock the software either. One feature that I love is when you have a schematic and a PCB open at the same time when you mouse click in either the schematic or the PCB it highlights what you clicked in the other.
I think I need to upgrade. I am some versions back on Kicad. There are a few other features that can get you out of a jam. If you have a gerber file, you can convert it to a PCB layout file. This can save you if you need to make a small change to something that was designed on a program you no longer have. It can spit out a spice netlist. You then can edit the file. This means you can use Kicad to make subcircuits for spice that are well documented. You can make a picture into a component so you can put a very nice company logo on your work or use the PCB as the "front panel" for a design. You can do soldered in connectors and label them with nice icons.
My first job when I left school in 1977 was in a factory making PCBs Did all processes apart from the track layout, we did the etch resist either by uv developing or by screen printing, I made all the jugs and fixtures to cut drill and rout, and we had a little gold plating bath for the plug in board contacts, ahh the memories, I bet you could tell us why the Marshall jcm 200 amplifiers have PCBs that become conductive over time causing the infamous bias drifting problem...Marshall haven't
I'm with you on the push towards "cloud" based software... I loathe it! Even software than needs to call home from time to time makes me wary. Being quite old school... I love my physical media, CDs, DVDs, BDs. I'm guessing there will soon be a generation that ONLY knows about Netflix and online delivery of content.
I like online content delivery personally. But I like it when I can download it too! It's nice to be able to get stuff easily without having to go ahead and get it in real life, but I like being able to keep it permanently if I so desire. And cloud backups aren't bad, as long as said backups are backing up to my physical device as well! Internet connectivity is great for diversifying and simplifying, but having a physical backup is always a great idea.
DEEREMEYER1 ever lost internet ? Service or have been in some were there is nun ? and still had work to do ? I’m with them I hate paying for an expensive useless brick but I like the option to buy it as Digital copy and store it on my hardware and not worry about someone snooping in my stuff or holding it at ransom
Its monetization. Just like how dealerships are pushing for you to buy their service instead of buying a product. Lease this vehicle! Buy our extended warranty! Its a business model that works, unfortunately.
I still photoetch from transparencies from macromedia Flash MX for a quick proto, still way faster than the PCB manufacturers, good thing to know how to do! Way to go Fran this is great to see! Thanks!
Watching this older video but still felt compelled to comment. I used P-CAD to design my boards so long ago. It was an expensive package at the time and I guess it no longer exists. Interesting to see how little has changed. Of course you are using through-hole technology so so there’s not a lot different. I mostly used 10 mil lines, 30 mil pads and 100 mil centers. Gave me plenty of room for what I was doing which was 25 MHz clocked microprocessor boards. Fun stuff. Where did the time go?
I really like these kind of videos! :) Edit: And I love this kind of manufacturing boards by hand, just the way I have been doing it for the past years.
When I was a kid, to make my circuit boards, I used a plain copper covered epoxy boards, a drill, decals lines and circles, and iron perchloride to dissolve the copper ! Yours look MUCH better than mine !
You might want to look at Dip Trace, I really like it. (By way of qualification, I started doing PCB's with Tango and Highwire.) Using nets and the DFM features in Dip Trace really help speed up the design/verification process. It is an inexpensive and robust program that runs in the newer Windows OS very well.
This reminds me of when the children's television show Mr. Rogers Neighborhood would visit a factory to showcase a manufacturing process, but in this case, for adults. Thank you Fran.
so nice to see some one making circuit boards in the us yet, i used to make the developer machines they would be as long as 10' to 50' its sad that that industry has moved to china , i took pics of my last machine we built it was about 25', we built for fed engraving , hp
I go back far enough to when you used Bishop Graphic tap, pads, IC patterns, etc. And multiple Mylar artwork sheets for multiple layers. I slaved over a light table doing some of these with as many as 60 digital IC's. Then they got the bright idea to have red and blue translucent tape for the two layers that you could put on a single Mylar sheet. You used the usual black pads. Then the art was photographed with blue and red filters to get the two layers and the black pads showed up on both. While this solved any registration issues, you ended up with the two color tapes crossing each other all over the place. If you had to make a change, you invariably had to remove a piece of tape that was UNDER the other color in many places. So this scheme went out of favor pretty fast. Then all manner of electronic schematic and PC layout software were developed. I used software from "Tango" which I think came from Australia of all places. Laying out PC boards is solving a puzzle and a little bit art. It is SO much easier today where you do the art on your computer, send the file, and often get boards back in a miraculously short time.
I started with a permanent marker, then with Letraset & Positiv 20. Then in 90's BoardMaker was used where I worked (on HP Vectra 286 computer and VGA color monitor). Then I worked with Tango PCB for a long long time, until DOS was not supported enough in Windows. Now I use S-print layout from ABACOM, Germany. I really recommend it, since it is simple and efficient, export gerbers, drilling and milling files, SMT stencils and more. But this is only my personal opinion.
At 10:00 the lady lays down the mask, by hand! Isn't it amazing that when you work with more advanced machinery, you can be more relaxed than being actually stricter!
Awesome!...It's wonderful to see the process involved in the creation of the circuit board, which is the backbone of a functioning device. Having made many handmade boards myself, the speed and accuracy automation yields really shows how "drugerous" hand creation is for multiple board production.
At my day gig I design a lot of flex circuits and rigid pcb's. I like your designs and how they have evolved from using breadboard. As a guitarist, I might just have to get one of your pedals. Cheers! Rick
I think I’m virtually in love with you. I started my electronics career with DEC as a field service engineer fixing DECsystem 20’s. You’re amazing. P.S. I’m happily married
Thanks Fran. I've had circuit boards made by many fabricators over the years and this is the first time I've seen in detail how it's all done. A great video. All the best!
it's not that windows has gotten slower, it's that new computers are so much faster, that computers can just do more, so they design windows around that fact, that's why you need a new computer every 5 years or so, to keep up with the fact that current software usually scales with current hardware...
Oh yeah, the original 1985 laser marking machines my previous company made, running on DOS 6.22 are *still* running in various places around the world. There is a little cottage "industry" keeping those old machines and software alive.
lol, I was looking that up too, and an interesting side note came up. Searched for Probot QC-2000 and found an auction that had that on the list. It was from an liquidation auction of R Squared Circuits in CA. Evidently they didn't dispose of their waste correctly, train correctly etc, and got fined $75,000 putting them out of business.
You are right about the cloud. New subscriber. I Love you. Period.thank you for your dedication to this content. Bless everything you dream of.. big hugs!!!
You're probably not interested but you can get perpetual licence of Circuit Studio for $1000. It's basically just cut down version of Altium. Still very useful though. It's missing the FPGA stuff, rigidflex pcb, and other advanced modes of some of the tools.
I worked for a company that made PC boards for ICBM's. We had a gold plating tank where we gold plated the tabs. I got a little sneaky and gold plated $20.00 worth of Kennedy half dollars.
I think the process changed then settled down 40 years ago when I visited a PCB maker in then. But I stopped using tape and sculple 25 - 30 years ago going over to cad . I do use netlists but not too much design rule testing it tends to make the tracks messy and I don't set up lots of design rules but look by eye. Lastly my cads licence does not expire. But of cause the support does expire in not paid annually.
I noticed the silkscreen partially covered some of the pads. Does that software not subtract the solder mask from it? Surprised the fab didn't. Still, looks okay, nice week routing it by hand, old school!
Beautiful - There is something to be said about the time taken to make a PCB - it's so easy, even when learning how to etch in school to get the traces completely wrong and end up having to botch a component to make it work. QC is so important, and you cover it well.
Back when I was self employed, I at first was stone broke and so I had to use freeware to layout the pcb artwork. The freeware only allowed a specific number of components. And of course I always needed more than the limited number. But it did also allow you to design your own components. So what I did was take several of the components that I had already used and arranged in a certain positioning, and combined them into being just one new component, thus say what was once 10 components could now be just one component. That fooled the software and I got the job done. LOL
Fascinating to see the process of PCB manufacturing from start to finish. It's one of those things that most of us take for granted until you see all the steps involved.
WOW. I had no idea how “manually from scratch” boards were made. So many analog steps! And so much artistic skill. Interesting to see classic darkroom concepts combined with CNC machines combined with jeweler skills. There’s definitely an underrated beauty and craft to it all.
You never cease to amaze me. I don't amaze easily.
I think you read that wrong.. pretty sure Hannah was simply saying that most people don't amaze her but Fran always does. So Hannah is then only "easily amazable" concerning Fran.
Wow that was a fantastic tour of the process! I can’t imagine how much time it took you by hand but I know how fun it is creating something from scratch!
It literally took me until the end of the video to realize you're the Fran behind the Pedals!!! Mind Blown
You certainly have a gentle voice. Thanks for the great video fran. I really appreciate it.
Got this suggested to me in my feed after not seeing your older videos in a while, love it!
Sounds like I'm not the only one who loves their REAL IBM spring-click keyboard!
almost any mechanical system is a huge upgrade..... ill never use a rubber dome style, by choose, again
i just have a keyboard with cherry red switches.....i thought the reds would be quieter than blues....
but i press every key to its stop like some kinda degenerate....
im still faster to type.....i can really get some speed up....wish i had this in high school when we had computer typing class
I, too, bottom out every stroke. I find I have to slow way down if I want to avoid that. However, if you want, you can find rubber O-rings that fit on the stems of the Cherry key tops, to take a couple of millimeters out of their travel. They also have the side-effect of quieting my blue switches to the point that they are acceptable for office use.
I use one w/my Mac. that how much I like the spring-click keyboard & it has 2 USB ports that's a ++.
Whahaha! that's exactly what I thought as well
@@kainhall I like the cherry brown most for typing, these use a tactile click as a feedback; cherry red is more focused on gaming purposes, AFAIK.
This feels like a lot of different things I'm familiar with - laser cutting, printing lithography plates, registering prints for litho or silkscreen, etching plates for intaglio plates, etc., just to name a few.
ah found you again. started watching one of your videos for the first time and had to go out. two weeks later i could not find your channel till today.
What I think is amazing is that they are using such old equipment. Just because its old, doesn't mean you need to upgrade.
amen Fran the value of reliability of core software that is owned and not rented
I used to do circuit board design in the mid eighties while working with a Marine Research Organisation. Protel was our tool of choice. It was a good, reliable Tasmanian product written by our buddies up the road and we made many damn fine boards with it.
My finest skills were learnt in those times...
Impressed the PCB makers plant continues to have actual functioning CRT monitors! It looks like a timewarp back to the early 80s! I'm a studio maint/repair engineer in a TV Station and the only CRT screens for video left still alive would be the viewfinders on the aged News cameras while the 1000s of computers in use have a flatscreen LCD and for Grade 1 video monitoring a 17" OLED panel......
I love how delightfully retro their facility is, if it's not broke, don't fix it.
Yeah, you could see it romantically as a craft with antique tools. Or you could see it as a business in decline with too small margins for necessary investments. In any case, the result is that PCB designers are stuck with file formats from the 80's (Echelon/Gerber) that is a real nuisance.
Modern Gerber (ekhm, it's already a decade+ old now!) is a wonderful file format. Sure, some old tools need it preprocessed since they don't understand the high-level primitives. But it's not a nuisance at all. It's easy to understand and process. There's literally no need for anything better for that sort of data.
If you compare it to old Gerber, X-gerber is definitely an improvement (and X2 is probably even better). But if you compare it to every other "modern" file format, no. You need to collect 10-20 different, arbitrarily named files that don't contain info about what they describe or (for drill files) what units they use or even where the decimal points are. Imagine if, for instance, PDF used the same concept. One file for every document page, but you can't tell from the file name or the file itself which page number it describes. A separate file for the illustrations, and you have to guess where to put them because there is no guarantee that they have the same coordinate origin or scale. If all this handling and guesswork would be required for saving and opening PDF files, would they have become the de facto standard?
It's awfully manual-labor intensive. For every minute of manual labor is where the Chinese can undercut you 95%. More if they automate it and you don't. Fascinating process though.
I've just come across your videos for the first time and this is definitely the best video I've seen covering the whole process of making a batch of printed circuit boards. When I manufactured battery powered wireless, security equipment in the 1990s, because of the small numbers of boards required, I used a manual PCB track programme which worked on Win 3.1. No Gerber output - just printed onto acetate sheet and develop. All holes were drilled by hand.
Fran, you're such an inspiration.
I remember working in a school as a technician and being the only person with any electronics experience I was asked to produce PCB for projects.
Being Apple Mac based and having very little experience I used a bit of software called pagemaker and illustrator which were actually a desktop publishing applications
Found that I could get a simple circuit and some components and translate all the lines in holes into a PCB and then print the design out on a laser printer.
I would then use light sensitive glass fibre board and put the board and PCB under a light box. Then I would have to expose the board. Then I would have to etch the board and drill all the holes by hand. It got so arduous that I used to do boards in large batches witch could take a week to finish.
When you look at PCB production today things have moved on considerably and I'm not sure that people even produce conventional boards any more. Certainly not for things like iPhones anyway. It good to always add to knowledge but I don't do these sorts of things anymore because you can just send off a design to a company and they will do it all for you including one offs.
Thanks for the insight though Fran.
Interesting video, but I am amazed of the old equipment. I were involved with PCB ordering 25 years ago and then the
photoresist illumination were done with CNC photo plotting.
Thanks for your nice videos, Fran :-)
I have done hundreds of one off boards over the last 40 years and really empathize with the manual drilling process, can't imagine doing it for manufacturing. for one off boards nowadays I use point to point where wire count is less than 200
Very interesting video, quite sophisticated methods. I like new technology, but sometimes I'm impressed at how well some of the older stuff worked, think of the old auto type voltage regulators with staged coils and chattering contacts, (and a solenoid to stop back discharge when motor not running) amazing how well electro-mechanical did the job. Love your stuff Fran.
Hey Fran, I still use Protel 99SE myself. It works fine for what I do, why change. Enjoy your videos! Thanks!
Thanks Fran - love seeing how that's done. Quite a complex process and, as you say, one where automation is very welcomed. I thought the testing machine was particularly cool. All in all a great insight into how the boards we use are made. I shall look at my pcbs with renewed respect from now on!
Wow I have built a few pedals and had no idea how interesting the PCB fab process is. Thx.
I made several (maybe 100 +-) by hand. Used sharpie marker for resist and "Radio Shack" etchant. I build small very low power amateur radio transceivers just as a hobby. I tried stacking boards but didn't use the dowel pins: it was a real mistake. Thank you for an interesting video and thanks from the USA. We need more companies that make hiring workers possible. Maybe not so many at your location but look at all the equipment and special set ups. Greg
So glad to see you back with such a nice video
really interesting. it's such an intricate process. we completely take this kind of thing for granted.
Kicad is a good option for layout. It is not cloud based. It is free to use. The down side is that it is aimed at more complex boards so it has a lot of features that can initially be confusing.
ExpressPCB is an option for making experimental boards. They supply the software and you have to have them make the boards. This is ok for small quantities. Their software is very easy to use.
Yeah, but back to what Fran said, it is CLOUD based and proprietary. Once you check in you can never leave. Sounds like Hotel California. You were doing great at KiCad. Now that Cern has joined in to enhance KiCad it is even better than ever and it ain't CLOUD based. It is free to own and use. As for what it is aimed at is a way that hardware people can share electronic designs like the software people share software with GNU compilers. I find it quite friendly and easy to learn. The output files are human readable. No keys to load to unlock the software either. One feature that I love is when you have a schematic and a PCB open at the same time when you mouse click in either the schematic or the PCB it highlights what you clicked in the other.
I think I need to upgrade. I am some versions back on Kicad. There are a few other features that can get you out of a jam.
If you have a gerber file, you can convert it to a PCB layout file. This can save you if you need to make a small change to something that was designed on a program you no longer have.
It can spit out a spice netlist. You then can edit the file. This means you can use Kicad to make subcircuits for spice that are well documented.
You can make a picture into a component so you can put a very nice company logo on your work or use the PCB as the "front panel" for a design. You can do soldered in connectors and label them with nice icons.
That was amazing. Felt like I was watching Mr. Roger's Neighborhood.
I resisted this video for quite some time but it turned out to be the most interesting video I have ever seen. Almost.
My first job when I left school in 1977 was in a factory making PCBs
Did all processes apart from the track layout, we did the etch resist either by uv developing or by screen printing, I made all the jugs and fixtures to cut drill and rout, and we had a little gold plating bath for the plug in board contacts, ahh the memories, I bet you could tell us why the Marshall jcm 200 amplifiers have PCBs that become conductive over time causing the infamous bias drifting problem...Marshall haven't
Compared to the PCB's I made as a kid, with Letraset systems or the Dalo pen, this is another world!
This takes me back 50 years, when we started production on multilayer at Crown Tool & Circuits in Baltimore, mind you way before we had CAD.
I'm with you on the push towards "cloud" based software... I loathe it! Even software than needs to call home from time to time makes me wary.
Being quite old school... I love my physical media, CDs, DVDs, BDs. I'm guessing there will soon be a generation that ONLY knows about Netflix and online delivery of content.
I just bought a Waves plugin bundle & it's licenses is "Cloud" based I don't like that not at all.
I like online content delivery personally. But I like it when I can download it too! It's nice to be able to get stuff easily without having to go ahead and get it in real life, but I like being able to keep it permanently if I so desire. And cloud backups aren't bad, as long as said backups are backing up to my physical device as well! Internet connectivity is great for diversifying and simplifying, but having a physical backup is always a great idea.
DEEREMEYER1 ever lost internet ? Service or have been in some were there is nun ? and still had work to do ? I’m with them I hate paying for an expensive useless brick but I like the option to buy it as Digital copy and store it on my hardware and not worry about someone snooping in my stuff or holding it at ransom
Its monetization. Just like how dealerships are pushing for you to buy their service instead of buying a product. Lease this vehicle! Buy our extended warranty! Its a business model that works, unfortunately.
I still photoetch from transparencies from macromedia Flash MX for a quick proto, still way faster than the PCB manufacturers, good thing to know how to do! Way to go Fran this is great to see! Thanks!
Wow that's so cool! That's cool that you used to do it all yourself.
I did through hole until 2000 but switched to surface mount. I built bed of nails test stands for later projects.
Way better than what I do at home.
I really enjoyed that. It reminded me of the Mister Rogers segments where he'd show you how they make pencils or something.
you are awesome, don't know how I ran into this vid but I like your designs
Watching this older video but still felt compelled to comment. I used P-CAD to design my boards so long ago. It was an expensive package at the time and I guess it no longer exists. Interesting to see how little has changed. Of course you are using through-hole technology so so there’s not a lot different. I mostly used 10 mil lines, 30 mil pads and 100 mil centers. Gave me plenty of room for what I was doing which was 25 MHz clocked microprocessor boards. Fun stuff. Where did the time go?
Always interesting and worth watching
I met the owner and got a tour of the two offices 2 years ago. My cousin is a good friend of his.
Thanks for explaining the process, nice to know all the work that goes into electronics.
I really like these kind of videos! :)
Edit: And I love this kind of manufacturing boards by hand, just the way I have been doing it for the past years.
Thanks for the tour. Great stuff!
Nice workshop interior. Always interesting to see new environments.
When I was a kid, to make my circuit boards, I used a plain copper covered epoxy boards, a drill, decals lines and circles, and iron perchloride to dissolve the copper !
Yours look MUCH better than mine !
You might want to look at Dip Trace, I really like it. (By way of qualification, I started doing PCB's with Tango and Highwire.) Using nets and the DFM features in Dip Trace really help speed up the design/verification process. It is an inexpensive and robust program that runs in the newer Windows OS very well.
Brings back memories of back in the days when I was working for Electropac .
This reminds me of when the children's television show Mr. Rogers Neighborhood would visit a factory to showcase a manufacturing process, but in this case, for adults. Thank you Fran.
Nice camera work and narration for a cool documentary.
History Channel - "Modern Marvels" eat your heart out!
so nice to see some one making circuit boards in the us yet, i used to make the developer machines they would be as long as 10' to 50' its sad that that industry has moved to china , i took pics of my last machine we built it was about 25', we built for fed engraving , hp
Incredibly cool video! So neat to see such old hardware and software still in use too :D
a pleasure to watch and listen to you chat, you have this very attractive smile
You ROCK Fran!
Big Fan!
Very cool, glad I found your feed.
I go back far enough to when you used Bishop Graphic tap, pads, IC patterns, etc. And multiple Mylar artwork sheets for multiple layers. I slaved over a light table doing some of these with as many as 60 digital IC's. Then they got the bright idea to have red and blue translucent tape for the two layers that you could put on a single Mylar sheet. You used the usual black pads. Then the art was photographed with blue and red filters to get the two layers and the black pads showed up on both. While this solved any registration issues, you ended up with the two color tapes crossing each other all over the place. If you had to make a change, you invariably had to remove a piece of tape that was UNDER the other color in many places. So this scheme went out of favor pretty fast. Then all manner of electronic schematic and PC layout software were developed. I used software from "Tango" which I think came from Australia of all places. Laying out PC boards is solving a puzzle and a little bit art. It is SO much easier today where you do the art on your computer, send the file, and often get boards back in a miraculously short time.
Thanks for the video, Fran! (:
So much time and money to arrive to this result congratulation and good continuation
I started with a permanent marker, then with Letraset & Positiv 20. Then in 90's BoardMaker was used where I worked (on HP Vectra 286 computer and VGA color monitor). Then I worked with Tango PCB for a long long time, until DOS was not supported enough in Windows. Now I use S-print layout from ABACOM, Germany. I really recommend it, since it is simple and efficient, export gerbers, drilling and milling files, SMT stencils and more. But this is only my personal opinion.
This brings back memories when I used to Homebrew my PC boards and test them with a Pogo pin jig
At 10:00 the lady lays down the mask, by hand! Isn't it amazing that when you work with more advanced machinery, you can be more relaxed than being actually stricter!
Awesome!...It's wonderful to see the process involved in the creation of the circuit board, which is the backbone of a functioning device. Having made many handmade boards myself, the speed and accuracy automation yields really shows how "drugerous" hand creation is for multiple board production.
Drudgerous™! ☺
At my day gig I design a lot of flex circuits and rigid pcb's. I like your designs and how they have evolved from using breadboard. As a guitarist, I might just have to get one of your pedals.
Cheers! Rick
Pretty amazing. Thanks Fran aaGain !!..... :-)
I think I’m virtually in love with you. I started my electronics career with DEC as a field service engineer fixing DECsystem 20’s. You’re amazing. P.S. I’m happily married
This is a really cool video, Fran. Thanks!
What a cool video, thanks Fran.
Totally with you on hand drilling P.C.Bs, horrible job! Very interesting video.
not to mention the dust
You are a freaking genius.
Thanks Fran. I've had circuit boards made by many fabricators over the years and this is the first time I've seen in detail how it's all done. A great video. All the best!
The Probot still runs on Windows 3.1 (or Windows NT 3.51)!
If it ain't broke - Don't fix it! ☺
I wish I could still run Win 3.1.1 on my primary PC - much better utilities management in a much simpler time.
it's not that windows has gotten slower, it's that new computers are so much faster, that computers can just do more, so they design windows around that fact, that's why you need a new computer every 5 years or so, to keep up with the fact that current software usually scales with current hardware...
Oh yeah, the original 1985 laser marking machines my previous company made, running on DOS 6.22 are *still* running in various places around the world. There is a little cottage "industry" keeping those old machines and software alive.
lol, I was looking that up too, and an interesting side note came up. Searched for Probot QC-2000 and found an auction that had that on the list. It was from an liquidation auction of R Squared Circuits in CA. Evidently they didn't dispose of their waste correctly, train correctly etc, and got fined $75,000 putting them out of business.
Fran, you are great! I love your videos! You have such a lovely voice! Peace and love to you!
Do you make up a few boards yourself for verifying the layout and debugging?
Seems you found your way back to the recommended section of the RUclips page.... :-)
Thank you very much, Fran, great video. Very interesting process.
Nice. keep manufacturing those printed boards.
You are right about the cloud. New subscriber. I Love you. Period.thank you for your dedication to this content. Bless everything you dream of.. big hugs!!!
Very detailed information. Thank you for posting this.
That was interesting and fun to watch.
glad i found your channel, you are an inspiration. i want to make money doing what i love!
You're probably not interested but you can get perpetual licence of Circuit Studio for $1000. It's basically just cut down version of Altium. Still very useful though. It's missing the FPGA stuff, rigidflex pcb, and other advanced modes of some of the tools.
I think you are a nice person. Thanks for sharing.
Amazing they kept that ancient terminal and PC with 5.25 floppy running
Just found your channel mate....sweet stuff
What an amazing process!
I worked for a company that made PC boards for ICBM's. We had a gold plating tank where we gold plated the tabs. I got a little sneaky and gold plated $20.00 worth of Kennedy half dollars.
I think the process changed then settled down 40 years ago when I visited a PCB maker in then. But I stopped using tape and sculple 25 - 30 years ago going over to cad . I do use netlists but not too much design rule testing it tends to make the tracks messy and I don't set up lots of design rules but look by eye.
Lastly my cads licence does not expire. But of cause the support does expire in not paid annually.
Very nice to see classic PCB process done properly by skilled people. :-) Thank You for Keeping it Real ! :-)
I noticed the silkscreen partially covered some of the pads. Does that software not subtract the solder mask from it? Surprised the fab didn't. Still, looks okay, nice week routing it by hand, old school!
Thanks Fran. That was very insightful. Appreciate the video!
Such nice designs!!!
I love this video! Thanks Fran.
Beautiful - There is something to be said about the time taken to make a PCB - it's so easy, even when learning how to etch in school to get the traces completely wrong and end up having to botch a component to make it work. QC is so important, and you cover it well.
great video thank you for sharing the process with us
Super cool, like you Fran.
The Probot had an old Rolodex card on it. :-) Kids today never heard of Rolodex.
Fascinating. This is the first time I have seen all the processes linked together with an easy to follow explanation. Nice one.