Ask HN: Making PCB from home best option? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Making PCB from home best option?

6 pointstaf210 comments

I’m thinking about https://www.voltera.io/. I’ve tried a mill at home but had issues with alignment. Id like to avoid chemicals… I’ve had great success with jlcpcb - but it takes to long… any recommendations?

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Here is an interesting project. Milling PCBs though may not get the fine pitch required for some SMD parts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7gI6XYmP2o&t=0s https://bitbucket.org/compactpcbmaker/cpcbm/src/master/

This works great for single and potentially two later boards, the problem is when scale up to 4 layer and beyond boards. For quick turn production level boards I have used https://www.allpcb.com, JLPCB takes a day or so longer than ALLPCB in my experience.

For one-off pieces with 2.54 or bigger spacing there is always the handmade old school tech - drawing the traces on copper laminate with marker pen, drilling holes yourself and etching the board in ferric chloride. There is also a good old method using photo transfers and a laser printer if you not feeling like drawing it by hand. Still need to drill the holes yourself. You can re-use ferric chloride for many boards.

What are your requirements in terms of capabilities (how many layers, tolerances, etc) and how fast you need a given board once designed?

Smaller PCB mills and other similar things tend to be more limited in terms of their capabilities. Additionally, you typically do the setup and troubleshooting (which it seems you've already had a taste of) which potentially eats into the time you're trying to save.

Depending on how price sensitive you are, I would definitely consider domestic manufacturers with rapid turnaround services and do a cost analysis vs. buying and running a solution such as the mentioned Voltera.

2 layer and 5mil boards

I've been dreaming of being able to fab PCBs at home. I still haven't found anything in my price range with the reliability desired.

Great Scott did a video on the Voltera, if you haven't seen it yet. https://odysee.com/@GreatScott:a/you-can-now-print-pcbs-crea... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8u4izLA-SC

I am pretty sure I’ve seen that video but interesting to note from my vacation in the Bahamas- that video is being censored…

[edit] just the YouTube version

If you mill at home, avoid FR-4 (bad for your lungs). I think you're supposed to use FR-1. But better to just outsource it.

1. Did you try JLCPCB with DHL Shipping? Price is worth it.

2. OSH Park has "Super-Swift" option: https://docs.oshpark.com/services/super-swift/

Yes use jlcpcb regularly but it’s about 2 weeks turn around with shipping…

the super swift option to me seems slower the jlcpcb… 5 business days compared to 2 ? Also 10x cost

This is why I’m thinking something like voltera one - since it’s supposed to take 30 minutes… thank you for advice about lungs

OSH Park has slower turn-around but ships from Portland area, so may get to you faster. It's not cheap for big boards, but if your board is small, it's ok. Also, all their boards are ENIG (JLCPCB has ENIG but as an option).

LPKF is the premium brand for in-house PCB prototyping systems. They even have ones that can do vias. However, they're probably more for industry than home. Not sure where you live, but I think there's a makerspace in the Seattle area that has one.

I’m on the east coast but checking out LPKF seems pretty good thanks!

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