For small PCBs I learned to tile them together with breakaway connections (aka "mouse bites") to get a lot more production value. For one project in particular with a tiny 23x12mm PCB I manually tiled 18 of them together and was still easily within the 100x100mm prototype PCB size. So instead of 10 PCBs I got 180 of them for the same cost, just requiring some manual work to separate them and trim the edges.
I'm from Brazil and it's more difficult to buy here because of the value of the dollar, import taxes that have increased a lot lately. But I won't give up
Dont forget to check your design rules!!! I stopped breadboarding about 15 years ago, because it's a lot of extra work, time, and money. Instead, I run simulations, both analog (ngspice), and digital (Verilog) to ensure my design is correct, and when I build my boards, I rarely have to do any debugging because the bugs were already found and fixed during simulation. The few bugs I do find are caused by soldering issues (my fault), and those are always with surface-mount parts. Most of my boards go to PCBWay, but the really small ones (less than 2 square inches) are sent to OSHPark, which is just across town from me.
I want to learn how to do the simulations so I don't waste money on a PCB that doesn't allow me to do the job I want to do. Do you have any advice or resources I could use to learn that?
I use the gEDA tools (free), which have a schematic editor (gschem), PCB layout (pcb), and netlister (gnetlist). The netlist for the entire PCB is extracted in Verilog format, and I run a full set of logic simulations using the Modelsim verilog/VHDL simulator that it also free, thru Altera (now Intel). It is possible to do very basic verilog (digital) simulations on analog parts, but it's a bit of a pain to create the models. I've made models for LEDs, electrolytic caps, transistors, resistors, connectors, and even transformers. The goal is to verify connectivity is correct between everything on the PCB, and also to exhaustively test all of the digital logic, which sometimes includes an FPGA. All of the analog schematics are netlisted out in SPICE format, and I run simulations using ngspice. So far, I have not found a free simulator that can run verilog AMS, and I'm not going to use any digital extensions to ngspice, because the performance is probably horrible with large digital designs.
@@gregebert5544 yeah thanks for the advice. im working on a long term project. so as for constraints on time and trouble shooting, i have around 3 months.
@@JM-nv5dt PCBWay will do assembly for you at additional cost, though I dont know how they manage having all the parts you need. I suggest you order extra boards and practice soldering on those. There are a lot of useful tips on youtube. It's critical that you have a good soldering iron, such as a Weller, and keep the tip clean, preferably one that looks like a small tumbleweed of brass shavings. I prefer 60/40 tin lead solder (I know, I know, lead is bad.....but it's easier to solder with it). For surface mount, a cheap air reflow gun (mine was 40 USD on Amazon) works very well if you use a good quality paste, such as ChipQuick.
When you do the breadboarding, do you use the actual packages? The thing is, my project is miniature so a lot of the packages will be smd and very tiny, specially capacitors and resistors. Should I use an equivalent but bigger package? When it comes to other IC should I stick to esp32/arduino modules as much as possible while prototyping or should I buy the individuals to stick to the closest final representation?
Thanks for watching! I agree, turnaround is a pain with debugging, I’d like to make a more in depth video on engraving copper blanks, when I can find some free time 😩
bro! you really know how to teach! i have not watched any of your videos but this one was interactive, fast, and clear. I am definitely sharing your video to anyone starting with PCBs!
I'm a little confused, can you order the PCB with the components already installed? Like at the end you soldered the Arduino on there, but can you order the PCB with buck converters, mosfet switches and Arduino and resistors and all that integrated into a single PCB with connectors? I have an idea that I want to mass produce but want to drop ship them to customers and have them just install the Arduino code (unless that can also be done by PCBWay?) and mount to a 3D printed enclosure that they print themselves from a file I send them. When I say integrated, I mean integrated. Not a board with the Arduino and components soldered on top. I mean the board itself has those components built into it.
Good video , I like the step by step. I found that the delivery and time element negated the effort. Also, why do these videos blast you with very irritating digital sound tracks. At least turn it down.
NO. The cost of commercial PCB services, including shipping in a reasonable amount of time, IS HORRIFYINGLY EXPENSIVE when all you need is ONE SINGLE PCB, compared to any other method of making one. NOT a viable option.
PCBWay has several shipping options starting at $5, and while it might be a little bit more of a wait, I wouldn't call it unreasonable for a shipment from China. I find the quality and convenience totally worth it 🤷♂️
@@ModernHobbyist The $5 shipping option quotes 11-33 days for me, which in my experience, from China, is never less that those 33 days. That's exactly what I call unreasonable; a month from now I won't even know why I designed that PCB - I need it this week at latest, and that's multiple dozens of $ in shipping. Whereas I can have my "crappy" single-sided, milled-at-home version TODAY, done on my tiny desktop CNC. Double sided if I really HAVE to stretch it. Is that adequate for designing a PC motherboard? Hell no. Adequate for 99% of anything a hobbyist might design? Hell yeah, and the cost is that of bare copper-clad, a.k.a. zero $.
@@AttilaAsztalos On my earlier projects, I was impatient and paid about 25 USD for shipping thru DHL. PCBWay has standard 24 hour fab time, and one board I did was ordered Thursday evening and arrived Monday afternoon. I've started using standard shipping for 8 USD and get boards in about 3 weeks.
I feel as though this is a great Video but I have Absolutely zero Experience in this field so I need the basics if anyone knows a good book or apps for beginners I’ll take all the info I can get thanks
I have a project in mind. Started a year ago but lost interest because I couldn't find a way to make it happen. I have a good idea on what I want the PCB to do but don't know how to make it happen. I have KiCad but don't know how to use it. Even if I did I still don't know where to start. Would anyone be able to help me out. Is there a place to go to learn about PCB's? All I want is a Round PCB that has a button on the side that turns on a LED. It needs a battery so that the LED will turn on. The PCB will be going into a watch. Any help will be greatly appreciated. I would like to learn it myself if possible but don't know where to go to learn. Thank you.
check out "Phil's Lab" channel, he has extensive tutorials on designing pcb's in Kicad. There is pcb design playlist, check phil's lab #2 or #65, he goes from schematic and component selection to pcb layout and routing. He also has free udemy course covering the same topics. I started not knowing anything, to this year designing and ordering my drone flight computer.
Hey can you guide, like how to make own pcb like for example, a drone, and like do i need programming knowledge, like for example, I want to add camera to it, Like any guide, my background is civil engineering. So I want guide for laymen first, programming to making a pcb work and then designing a pcb like how to know what components do it need to work etc...... Like you made here God etc, like to know what resistor etc does it need and then
It’s not profitable for the company to just sell a single PCB, otherwise they would have to charge you a similar amount anyways. Would you rather have the ability to get PCBa printed or not?
Because of your idea is worth building a custom pcb it should be marketable enough to sell a few 1 to use 1 to test on 3 to sell and pay for the whole thing
If I am an electronics hobbyist why would I contract a company to make boards for me? That's just dumb. That's like hiring an athlete to go to the gym to exercise for you. I want to hold something up and say, I made this. Some of the boards I've made are pretty janky but heck I made them myself.
Depends on the level of complexity of the circuit and most importantly if you're making something that NEEDS to be portable and small. Recently I started looking into pcb manufacturers because of a 5ghz wireless audio project that I want to incorporate into my beyerdynamics headband.
@@ModernHobbyist I don't have Keebler elves chained up in my basement doing design work here. Mostly though if I can find a circuit that does what I need it to I'll use that. Why reinvent the wheel? Although I have completely designed some circuits for whatever reasons. There's certainly enough schematics available though to keep anyone busy.
You are aware that most companies do this even big ones. Just because they get to produce the PCB it doesn't mean they own the produced products or will get credit at their own work. In fact end user usually don't care much about stuff like the manufacture of their PCB or inside components but rather who made the product.
it's not designing the circuit, it's getting the circuit on a pc board looking professional. If you want to old school direct wire your blank boards that's fine. I prefer to have pcb way send me some boards cheap and I can rebuild my old amps with new components, while keeping the old board alone. There'snothing wrong in doing it anyway you choose. Some circuits work better with pcb then homemade ones. @@1pcfred
For small PCBs I learned to tile them together with breakaway connections (aka "mouse bites") to get a lot more production value. For one project in particular with a tiny 23x12mm PCB I manually tiled 18 of them together and was still easily within the 100x100mm prototype PCB size. So instead of 10 PCBs I got 180 of them for the same cost, just requiring some manual work to separate them and trim the edges.
Oh true, I haven't thought about that much
I'm from Brazil and it's more difficult to buy here because of the value of the dollar, import taxes that have increased a lot lately. But I won't give up
Well I was thinking of going to brasil open an account there to do this process because in argentina the price goes even higher than in brasil :(
Dont forget to check your design rules!!! I stopped breadboarding about 15 years ago, because it's a lot of extra work, time, and money. Instead, I run simulations, both analog (ngspice), and digital (Verilog) to ensure my design is correct, and when I build my boards, I rarely have to do any debugging because the bugs were already found and fixed during simulation. The few bugs I do find are caused by soldering issues (my fault), and those are always with surface-mount parts. Most of my boards go to PCBWay, but the really small ones (less than 2 square inches) are sent to OSHPark, which is just across town from me.
I want to learn how to do the simulations so I don't waste money on a PCB that doesn't allow me to do the job I want to do. Do you have any advice or resources I could use to learn that?
I use the gEDA tools (free), which have a schematic editor (gschem), PCB layout (pcb), and netlister (gnetlist). The netlist for the entire PCB is extracted in Verilog format, and I run a full set of logic simulations using the Modelsim verilog/VHDL simulator that it also free, thru Altera (now Intel). It is possible to do very basic verilog (digital) simulations on analog parts, but it's a bit of a pain to create the models. I've made models for LEDs, electrolytic caps, transistors, resistors, connectors, and even transformers. The goal is to verify connectivity is correct between everything on the PCB, and also to exhaustively test all of the digital logic, which sometimes includes an FPGA.
All of the analog schematics are netlisted out in SPICE format, and I run simulations using ngspice. So far, I have not found a free simulator that can run verilog AMS, and I'm not going to use any digital extensions to ngspice, because the performance is probably horrible with large digital designs.
@@gregebert5544 yeah thanks for the advice. im working on a long term project. so as for constraints on time and trouble shooting, i have around 3 months.
Do you know of a place I can send parts to be soldered for me?
I have had a nightmarish time soldering and could use some help on that front Lol
@@JM-nv5dt PCBWay will do assembly for you at additional cost, though I dont know how they manage having all the parts you need.
I suggest you order extra boards and practice soldering on those. There are a lot of useful tips on youtube. It's critical that you have a good soldering iron, such as a Weller, and keep the tip clean, preferably one that looks like a small tumbleweed of brass shavings. I prefer 60/40 tin lead solder (I know, I know, lead is bad.....but it's easier to solder with it). For surface mount, a cheap air reflow gun (mine was 40 USD on Amazon) works very well if you use a good quality paste, such as ChipQuick.
When you do the breadboarding, do you use the actual packages? The thing is, my project is miniature so a lot of the packages will be smd and very tiny, specially capacitors and resistors. Should I use an equivalent but bigger package? When it comes to other IC should I stick to esp32/arduino modules as much as possible while prototyping or should I buy the individuals to stick to the closest final representation?
Thanks for the suggestions and pointers. I'll definitely keep all this in mind once I start this hobby.
Great work with this video, but I feel like fellow engineers might get frustrated at the 20+ day turnaround. Sucks to debug!
Thanks for watching! I agree, turnaround is a pain with debugging, I’d like to make a more in depth video on engraving copper blanks, when I can find some free time 😩
Distracting background music. Immediate thumbs down.
I disagree, it's at a totally fine level.
It’s ok, my wife says the same thing about my voice 🤷🏻♂️
Nothing of substance in this video.
bro! you really know how to teach! i have not watched any of your videos but this one was interactive, fast, and clear. I am definitely sharing your video to anyone starting with PCBs!
Thank you! Glad you found it helpful!
Nah, too costly, the board price might be low but shipping kicks in the balls.
PCB Way is gonna get you a full service PCB for 25 total. 2 layer PCBs are flat rate $5, then 20 for DHL. There are opamps that cost more than that!
I'm a little confused, can you order the PCB with the components already installed? Like at the end you soldered the Arduino on there, but can you order the PCB with buck converters, mosfet switches and Arduino and resistors and all that integrated into a single PCB with connectors? I have an idea that I want to mass produce but want to drop ship them to customers and have them just install the Arduino code (unless that can also be done by PCBWay?) and mount to a 3D printed enclosure that they print themselves from a file I send them.
When I say integrated, I mean integrated. Not a board with the Arduino and components soldered on top. I mean the board itself has those components built into it.
Good video , I like the step by step. I found that the delivery and time element negated the effort. Also, why do these videos blast you with very irritating digital sound tracks. At least turn it down.
NO. The cost of commercial PCB services, including shipping in a reasonable amount of time, IS HORRIFYINGLY EXPENSIVE when all you need is ONE SINGLE PCB, compared to any other method of making one. NOT a viable option.
PCBWay has several shipping options starting at $5, and while it might be a little bit more of a wait, I wouldn't call it unreasonable for a shipment from China. I find the quality and convenience totally worth it 🤷♂️
@@ModernHobbyist The $5 shipping option quotes 11-33 days for me, which in my experience, from China, is never less that those 33 days. That's exactly what I call unreasonable; a month from now I won't even know why I designed that PCB - I need it this week at latest, and that's multiple dozens of $ in shipping. Whereas I can have my "crappy" single-sided, milled-at-home version TODAY, done on my tiny desktop CNC. Double sided if I really HAVE to stretch it. Is that adequate for designing a PC motherboard? Hell no. Adequate for 99% of anything a hobbyist might design? Hell yeah, and the cost is that of bare copper-clad, a.k.a. zero $.
@@AttilaAsztalos On my earlier projects, I was impatient and paid about 25 USD for shipping thru DHL. PCBWay has standard 24 hour fab time, and one board I did was ordered Thursday evening and arrived Monday afternoon. I've started using standard shipping for 8 USD and get boards in about 3 weeks.
Is it really was hard to write down software name. Gosh.
YOU HAVE COMBINED EDUCATION AND MEMERY. TEACH ME MORE
Really enjoyed watching this!
Glad you enjoyed it!
The ending part was the best part of the entire video 😂😂😂.
The shipping costs are insane
I feel as though this is a great Video but I have Absolutely zero Experience in this field so I need the basics if anyone knows a good book or apps for beginners I’ll take all the info I can get thanks
I have a project in mind. Started a year ago but lost interest because I couldn't find a way to make it happen. I have a good idea on what I want the PCB to do but don't know how to make it happen. I have KiCad but don't know how to use it. Even if I did I still don't know where to start. Would anyone be able to help me out. Is there a place to go to learn about PCB's? All I want is a Round PCB that has a button on the side that turns on a LED. It needs a battery so that the LED will turn on. The PCB will be going into a watch.
Any help will be greatly appreciated. I would like to learn it myself if possible but don't know where to go to learn. Thank you.
check out "Phil's Lab" channel, he has extensive tutorials on designing pcb's in Kicad. There is pcb design playlist, check phil's lab #2 or #65, he goes from schematic and component selection to pcb layout and routing. He also has free udemy course covering the same topics.
I started not knowing anything, to this year designing and ordering my drone flight computer.
Excellent video.
I didn't know anything about circuits, but your tutorial made me understood all. I made some PCB's waiting to arrive. Can you give us some promo code?
Yup! There is a link in the description for $5 off your first order! Thanks for watching!
@@ModernHobbyist Thanks☀☀
Hey can you guide, like how to make own pcb like for example, a drone, and like do i need programming knowledge, like for example, I want to add camera to it,
Like any guide, my background is civil engineering. So I want guide for laymen first, programming to making a pcb work and then designing a pcb like how to know what components do it need to work etc......
Like you made here God etc, like to know what resistor etc does it need and then
vvvv INFORMATIVE
is that ur dog, so cool
Actually they are my very first employees, but all they do is lay around and try to steal food off my plate 🤦🏻
@@ModernHobbyistHahaha, LOL, U are a Legend
@@ModernHobbyist I thought this was some ordinary channel, but this is cool. So I am subscribing, Cheers from Hellfire
Dumb, why would I need 5 PCB’s?
Why not
It’s not profitable for the company to just sell a single PCB, otherwise they would have to charge you a similar amount anyways. Would you rather have the ability to get PCBa printed or not?
@@crazyphantom15Charlie liking the reply but not the original comment is crazy LOL. Good on him.
Because of your idea is worth building a custom pcb it should be marketable enough to sell a few 1 to use 1 to test on 3 to sell and pay for the whole thing
Sir I would like to place my order what do I do ? am so interested
Just a giant ad, waste of time.
i had the craziest idea, a circuit board in stone like granite or marble
If I am an electronics hobbyist why would I contract a company to make boards for me? That's just dumb. That's like hiring an athlete to go to the gym to exercise for you. I want to hold something up and say, I made this. Some of the boards I've made are pretty janky but heck I made them myself.
Personally, I’m even more proud of my PCB’s, because I still designed them from scratch and I even get to put my logo on them.
Depends on the level of complexity of the circuit and most importantly if you're making something that NEEDS to be portable and small. Recently I started looking into pcb manufacturers because of a 5ghz wireless audio project that I want to incorporate into my beyerdynamics headband.
@@ModernHobbyist I don't have Keebler elves chained up in my basement doing design work here. Mostly though if I can find a circuit that does what I need it to I'll use that. Why reinvent the wheel? Although I have completely designed some circuits for whatever reasons. There's certainly enough schematics available though to keep anyone busy.
You are aware that most companies do this even big ones. Just because they get to produce the PCB it doesn't mean they own the produced products or will get credit at their own work. In fact end user usually don't care much about stuff like the manufacture of their PCB or inside components but rather who made the product.
it's not designing the circuit, it's getting the circuit on a pc board looking professional. If you want to old school direct wire your blank boards that's fine. I prefer to have pcb way send me some boards cheap and I can rebuild my old amps with new components, while keeping the old board alone. There'snothing wrong in doing it anyway you choose. Some circuits work better with pcb then homemade ones. @@1pcfred
Ew hes using mac os