A beginner tries PCB assembly (2020) | Hacker News Reader

A beginner tries PCB assembly (2020)

earth.li

76 pointsTomte13 comments

If you don't fancy soldering, their assembly service is astonishingly cheap even just a few boards.

If you choose your parts carefully (https://jlcpcb.com/parts) so JCCPCB has them in stock and charges their low (reel quantity) prices, assembly can be cheaper than purchasing the parts and assembling yourself.

https://www.electro-tech-online.com/threads/jlcpcb-assembly-...

JCCPCB is amazing, and spooky fast. It's cheaper to use their service than by pre-built breakout boards from sparkfun even in many cases.

The design looks fine and professional.

Some hopefully helpful comments: One trace is too close to board edge. Try not to run traces between 0.1" header holes if you don't have to. The vias might be a bit small for a simple board with plenty of room.

We don't use slots for the power jacks, just holes and fill the whole thing in with solder. Slots are a bit difficult for some pcb houses. That's just a preference though.

We also use ENIG because the unleaded HASL builds up a film after ~6 months. But if you aren't going to store the bare boards, HASL is just fine.

Overall looks great!

We use lead HASL because gold plating can hide defects in the nickel plating that can create poor solder joints because solder won't stick to corroded nickel. The gold also can embrittle solder joints which is bad for applications where lots of vibration is a concern.

I didn't think you could use lead for anything but military stuff? We have RoHS requirements everywhere.

The gold is so thin I would think you could see a nickel problem, but IDK.

Most of our problems come from lead-free solder, it is very brittle. I didn't know the gold could make it worse.

I use JLCPCB assembly service for a very minor side project.

It is absolutely amazing that someone like me without a formal domain education in anything embedded, that taught themselves PCB design on youtube, can have a factory in China make a viable product.

While I sometimes run into issues with parts availability, it is genuinely an incredible world we live in.

How much does that cost you per board?

There’s some pricing breakdown and a short additional commentary in the link from this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32566561

Tl;dr: less than $2/board.

I made some PCBs for Halloween costumes a few years ago. I installed KiCad on Sunday, ordered boards on Monday, had them in my hand in US east coast on Friday (paying for fast shipping, of course). Even with the fast shipping, it was around $4/board times 10 boards.

Depending on order volume (5-30) about $2CAD per board to have them made and assembled.

Just looking at my last order I paid $30CAD for 30 boards to be manufactured. Assembly was $140CAD, of which $115 was component costs. So the various assembly fees end up being about $25

So manufacturing and assembly costs for 30 boards came to about $55CAD.

The big hitch is that this is using THEIR component library. I think the assembly costs go up a bit if you want to provide your own components.

As of August they'll even do assembly on both sides even with beveled edge connectors etc.

It's crazy what is available cheaply to hobbyists now!

Kicad is a fantastic tool. I've used it for several projects ranging from microwave RF to ESP32 embedded. I usually use PCBWay (since before they had ads everywhere) but have also used JLCPCB with no complaints. Although in my experience, PCBWay has a slight capability advantage.

> Total cost for 10 boards, parts, assembly, shipping + customs fees was just under $29

This is absolutely fantastic.

Wow, earth.li! I'm an ex-housemate of huggie.

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