Saturday, August 24, 2013

PCB Design Goofs and fixing them

As mentioned in a previous blog, the PCB I designed and ordered from Itead arrived and I started assembling it. Once I got going, I discovered a few problems. Itead did its job immaculately but I managed to make quite a few mistakes - some big, some small. Some involved just fixing the design, some involved tweaking the KiCAD library. I am continuing to test the board and am likely to find a few more. Once all the circuit bugs are ironed out, I can order a fresh set.
One of the great things about KiCAD is all its files are in text format. This allows me to look at and fix things without trying to find a parameter in a dialog box.

Thursday, August 22, 2013

A Plastic Sanga Case for my PCB

Soon after ordering the PCB, I came across Seeed Studio’s acrylic laser cutting service. Once the PCB is assembled and tested, it would be nice to have an acrylic case for it.

The current trend for acrylic cases is the plastic sanga. The other option is the case put together with slots and screws. I don’t much like this look so I opted for the plastic sanga.

Ordering PCBs from Itead Studio

The last time I designed and got a PCB ordered was in 2010 and it cost $125 for 5 pieces. As expected, there were a few mistakes in the PCB design and a second batch never got designed.

This time around I found that there were other sources more suitable for hobbyists. The widely mentioned ones were Seeed and Itead. They offered what appeared to be a 50x50mm PCB for $10 which seemed reasonable. But, no, it turned out it was $10 for 10 PCBs! That is like a buck a PCB. This changed the entire way I looked at PCBs.