Does It Make Sense To Hand Make Printed Circuit Boards?

An anonymous reader writes: A Hackaday author told the hackers that it isn't worth making your own PC boards anymore. Good tools, fast shipping, and cheap manufacturing capacity means that spending a day making a board that is much worse than a 'pro' board just isn't worthwhile anymore. The reaction was worse than when Kirk told the Star Trek fans to get a life. Although there have been some who agree, many of the readers have taken it as an affront to their very way of life.

Comments

He has got some points

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, he has got some points... i too hate making my own PCBs (i'm not a young enthusiast anymore).
Most of what i make are only prototypes useful to me only and it is a huge waste of time to:
1) create the layout via software (maybe i also need to create my own components before because i can't find a library with all the ICs/components that i need)
2) go through all the lengthy steps to make a real PCB out of it
3) get rid of the chemicals once done paying attention to not ruin anything (i ruined a whole wall one day when i was a teen at my first attempts...)

There is a good, although a little bit forgot, alternative though... it is called "wire-wrapping".
Yes, it is not as beautiful as a specialized PCB, but if you have the correct wires and tools it becomes quite a fast process.
You don't need to use any software for the layout. Did you f*ck something up? No worries... just unwrap and fix the mistake! It is strong enough to be usable in real-world scenarios.

Of course, if you need to make several copies of your board... then the PCB is the way to go. But if you only need one damn copy or you are just prototyping... then wire-wrapping makes a lot of sense.

Re:He has got some points

[stooo]

a good modern alternative to wire wrap for SMD components :

http://elm-chan.org/docs/wire/...

Used that for some very fine pitch, nice results for one-offs.

I recommend experimenting with different wire thickness and insulations (some enameling is made to be burned off when soldering, and there's an optimal diameter around 0,3mm)

Re:Yes

[TheRaven64]

How often do you need it within an hour? If you're prototyping, then breadboards are usually fine. I'm a bit surprised that this is news: it was the advice almost ten years ago last time I did anything that required producing circuit boards. If you actually need a PCB, they're cheap to get professionally made and delivery is often next-day (or longer if you want to pay even less). Only make your own if speed is far more important than quality, and your time is cheap.

Of course, that assumes that you're making a thing because you want thing. If you want to hand-print PCBs because you want to learn a craft as a hobby, then by all means, do so and have fun!

Jay Leno and the American motor cycles.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Jay Leno is more widely known as the stand up show host and less widely known for his motor/motor cycle collection.

But he also wrote a more serious column for Car and Driver. He once talked about the decline of American motor cycle industry. Famous names like Indian Chief etc and how they all foundered. Basically they produced machines which were difficult to maintain at good condition. Every three thousand miles people had to disassemble the cylinder head and decarbonize them and reset the valves and timing etc etc. The honchos in the companies were proud their customers like to get their hands dirty, they like working on these engines. Jay Leno said, "no, we don't like messing with these engines. We want to ride and have fun. But it was impossible to get good performance without doing all these things. We were forced to do it because your engines were crappy". When Honda and Yamaha started making reliable machines that delivered good performance for long times without these messy requirements, they just ate the lunch of the old style American motorcycle manufacturers. Only Harley survived, but it was touch and go for even for them.

People like making things that work. Ages ago the only way to do it was to make your own PCB. Now a days with one day turn around, most people would like to outsource making the pcb to make sure there are no accidental contacts, no mistakenly erased and redrawn line not making full contact, making sure all the holes are drilled all the way through and there is no delamination etc. Hand made PCBs are the equivalent of your motorcycle rider decarbonizing the engine head instead of riding fast on the wide open highways of America.

Re:Yes

[thegarbz]

How often do you need it within an hour?

Who is the target market? Think about who they were talking to and where it was posted. This is hack-a-day. A site for people who build things often because they need something now or put together items they have at home instead of buying something from the store.

There's no doubt that a professional board house is a great thing, and I have no problem ordering something 3 weeks out for a project where I carefully build and select parts, but not all my projects were like that. Just the other day I made a board for someone who needed something the following week, except all the suitable components in my parts bin were surfacemount. I couldn't breadboard that, at least not in a way where it would last more than a few days.

The problem was not the fact that the HaD author pointed out that PCBs can be manufactured at great cost and quality. It's the elitist way the article was written telling people off for daring to hack something together themselves. "I don't make my own PCBs anymore and neither should you."

I just typed this on my Surface. I don't use a desktop or a mac and neither should you. What kind of result do you think that comment would get on Slashdot?

Darkrooms

[jrumney]

Making your own PCBs makes as much sense as developing your own photos ever did. People do it because they like doing it, to learn, or to mess around with the results for fun/art. No one makes their own PCBs out of necessity or efficiency.

Wrong Writer Attitude

[thegarbz]

I'm one of the people who reacted negatively to that article and you draw the entire thing in the wrong light. I don't react negatively to someone pointing out the great cost and quality of pre-fab PCB houses. I use them a lot for many projects. However I lost it when I got to the bit which said:

But I never do that anymore. It simply isn’t worth it. You shouldn’t either.

What the heck does this self-important know it all know about my projects and what I should be doing with them? He doesn't know how soon I need them, how big they are. He doesn't know if it's a 1x1" board where the cost of manufacture is dwarfed by shipping costs. He doesn't know if I live in Shenzhen right next to the manufacturer or on a small Pacific island which only gets mail every 2 months.

It is even worse considering the crowd he is pandering to. Hack a day is filled with people who do things because they need something fast, now, just something quick that will work, or need something they can make out of the crap they have lying at home because they couldn't be stuffed going to the store. He even knew this:

Don’t get me wrong. No one that reads Hackaday needs to be told why someone wants to build something even though they could buy it somewhere else. I

.

There is nothing wrong with buying PCB houses if you have a project where it makes financial sense to do so and you're happy to wait 2-6 weeks to get the resulting board. I hate making circuit boards. Yet I still make them myself because the conditions of what I'm doing call for it.

By the way I am writing this from a Surface tablet. I'm not using a desktop right now, and neither should you. What would you think of a Slashdot article like that? Praise the author for his ability to chose something that suits him?

Re:Totally not worth the trouble

[serviscope_minor]

I don't make my own PCBs. I do surface mount stuff and I like going for small sized. Lots of tiny vias, tiny component pitches, double sided, and of course a solder mask.

I know people who do make PCBs and they of course use it for big fat coarse things. You can do coarse pitch surface mount without a solder mask. That removes the need for holes, too and if you're size is large you can get away with single sided + a few jumpers too.

- Drilling the holes dead center

Etch a dot out of the middle of the pad. The drills self-align.

- No plated through holes.

Use rivets, or chemical plating:
http://www.instructables.com/i...
or electroplating:
http://www.thinktink.com/stack...

- No solder mask.

There's spray, but apparently film is easier to use:

http://www.instructables.com/i...

Here's what a home made PCB can look like if you take it to the max:

http://kavionic.com/blog/Makin...

So it's actually amazing what you can do at home, and the top-end PCB home brewers can actually produce some pretty professional PCBs. No way I'm investing the time and money into that proess though.

Re: Yes

[Khyber]

"If you're prototyping, why in hell not use "hole-mounted stuff"?"

Because the capacitors with the uF ratings I require are SUB MILLIMETER and SURFACE MOUNT *ONLY.*

Because the ceramic high-wattage resistors I use are SURFACE MOUNT ONLY.

Because the LEDs I use are SURFACE MOUNT ONLY.

Because you can't hole-mount a BGA package without adding in another component and thus forcing you to redo all your damned math to take into account the added resistance of a connection adapter.

Because most breadboard designs are garbage.

Because breadboards aren't made of metal like MCPCBs and are thus useless for my high-heat design work.

Because it's 2015.

Re: Yes

[Khyber]

All you need is a good printer with high-DPI for mask printing, and a proper technique that involves pre-tinning the BGA pads on the PCB, then setting your BGA part on the board and heating up the board to reflow the solder. The component will align itself without shorts due to surface tension from the solder.

I've done plenty of memory stick and GPU mounting/re-mounting work.

I work with traces in the single-digit micron range working on repairing LCD screens.

It's not that difficult.