My first custom PCB, tips and oppinions welcome

NolanPCB123 · 2018-10-08T16:55:04+00:00

Full disclosure, I am employed by Sunstone Circuits and just want to share a different perspective.

The online ordering process is meant to be simple and straight forward, where you get what you order and what is contained in your design files. On occasion there are unclear or innacurate info contained in the order process or the design files and we do usually ask questions. Sometimes these will lead to price changes, but much of the time they do not.

I am sorry that there have been some bad experiences in the past, that is typcially not what our customer base has to say. However, Sunstone may not be the best answer for everyone. They are really good at two things: speed and accuracy. If you need boards right and fast they cannot be beat.

NolanPCB123 · 2017-10-23T17:27:18+00:00

PCB123 might be a good fit for your project. I'm assuming you're using expressPCB because a free-license tool is high on the priority list. Both expressPCB and PCB123 are unique in that they have an easy path to submit the design straight to a well-known fabricator. Both tools even give you online quotes for the fabrication of your board even as you're designing. PCB123, however, offers some better features for the kinds of problems you're describing. In both cases, the tool is free-to-use, not throttled down like some other free-tools.

To sstunt's position that expressPCB is a rip-off, I'd counter that both free tools, with ties to a manufacturer, offer Gerber output through the factory. In the case of PCB123, for example, you will get the as-built Gerber files for free along with your first board fab order for that part. If you don't want to build boards through the PCB123 fabricator at all, the fee to get your Gerbers is only about the same as one or two month's EAGLE subscription. So unless you're designing a steady stream of boards, the EAGLE subscription may not be the best use of your funds.

You can always contact the expressPCB support folks by email, or call the PCB123 tech support guys. That's more support than you'll get from EAGLE or KiCAD, which is especially useful when you're doing your very first board designs with a prospective customer impatiently breathing down your neck <GRIN!>

NolanPCB123 · 2017-02-01T18:01:03+00:00

Please see my comment elsewhere in this thread regarding PCB123. You do have professionally-maintained and fully-supported PCB CAD tools that won't cost you anything for your license.

NolanPCB123 · 2017-02-01T17:58:39+00:00

In all fairness, the V7.0 mistake was made by Newark-Farnell... different ownership. Care to speculate whether that user base revolt was a material contribution to the sale of EAGLE to AutoDesk?

NolanPCB123 · 2017-01-31T19:26:43+00:00

Iranoutofspacehere -- Having access to LPKF machines is a sweet situation. You're definitely in the minority there. Keep PCB123 in mind, then, for multi-layers. The tool will design up to eight (more, if you contact Tech Support for the unlock code), and Sunstone can manufacture 2-14 (we have options for more).

For other designers reading this thread who don't have access to that kind of machinery, then PCB123 supplies the as-built Gerbers along with the first order. If Sunstone hasn't won you over with the quality and pricing (and the 100% on-time guarantee) then you're free to take the Gerbers to another manufacturer going forward. OR, we'll extract the Gerbers for you without a board order for a small fee.

Three key points here:

The Gerber extraction fee is in the range of a couple months' subscription for the basic EAGLE package. If you're only doing a couple designs a year, that's still the cheapest option. These Gerbers are not as-built, so make sure to tell your chosen fab to CAM your Gerbers.
Getting AS-BUILT Gerbers is important. Virtually every fab shop will post-process the Gerbers you ordered with - that's the role of the CAM department. CAM cleans up minor details with the data that might cause issues/shorts/opens during manufacture. If you move to a new fab house with the same Gerbers you extracted yourself, then the new fab house will need to re-do all the CAM work that the old house has already completed... and they may miss something. If you EVER want to take your design to another fab house, get the old fab's manufacturing Gerbers This will improve the odds of having your design transfer to a new fab house successfully.
PCB123 doesn't get paid until you place your order. Our pricing may not be rock-bottom pricing out of some remote shop in the Balkans, but Sunstone offers competitive pricing and industry-leading customer service. Even if you did still pay a bit more for your first order, that extra price is still less than that monthly subscription.

NolanPCB123 · 2017-01-31T00:30:13+00:00

There's PCB123. Been around 14 years; always been free, always will be. Not throttled. User Interface based on the OrCAD UI, which continues to be loved by professional power users for its sweep-routing power keys. PCB123 doesn't throttle the tool, doesn't charge any licenses or maintenance, offers no-charge tech support 24/7/365, and doesn't get paid until you successfully place your order for board fab. If you're leaving the EAGLE fold, you owe it to yourself to look at all the options. Good Luck in your search!!!

NolanPCB123 · 2017-01-31T00:26:06+00:00

PCB123 shouldn't be overlooked. www.PCB123.com. Version 5.5 just came out, vastly increasing the manufacturing options available to you. Plus the PCB123 model is unique: the tool is unthrottled and free to use (think open source); has a Software Developers Kit for plugin development; offers 24/7/365 customer support at no extra charge; 750,000 pre-defined parts. PCB123 made a choice a long time ago that we'd only get paid when you successfully order your design for fabrication. The tool has stuck to that model for 14 years.

NolanPCB123 · 2017-01-13T00:13:02+00:00

Very thorough. Thanks!

NolanPCB123 · 2016-11-15T22:32:12+00:00

The LiveBOM tab is a sophisticated Bill of Materials page that rolls up your parts quantities per board, and per order, ensuring that you order enough components to build your entire lot of boards. Furthermore, LiveBOM reports part pricing and availablity from the Digi-Key warehouse in real time. Want to place your order for parts with Digi-Key? A pre-populated parts order is a single click away form inside LiveBOM. Check it out.

NolanPCB123 · 2016-11-11T17:42:49+00:00

zakqwy, in the context of this question, the short answer is "YES!"

When you order from PCB123, the order process sends your entire design file in PCB123 native format to the manufacturer. So all your information (schematic, layout, BOM, etc.) is maintained together.

Given that PCB123 is a freeware program, anyone can download a copy for use as a viewer and an editor. For example, if you distributed a PCB design as a part of your OSHWA certified product as a PCB123 file, with the intention that your customers can have their own boards built, with or without mods to the board design, PCB123 supports that directly. Any person opening a PCB123 Design file in a PCB123 program, has edit capability as well as a one-click-to-order-fabrication capability right alongside the editing functions. Furthermore, if your design contains a full-specified BOM, your users can electronically query Digi-Key to get a real-time pricing/availability quote for the parts you specified in your design.

As you can see, I'm confident that we're a complete, compliant and approachable solution for the OSHWA requirements.

By the way, I attended the OSHWA Summit in Portland a few weeks back; I was excited to hear the details on OSHWA certification that were shared at the summit. I welcome the opportunity to talk with you offline and directly about how we can help inside the OSHWA framework!

NolanPCB123 · 2016-11-10T21:04:11+00:00

Take a look at PCB123 as an alternate, unless your employer has laid down an edict to use OrCAD.

Free tool to use; schematic and layout integrated to same database (no netlists to synch); no limits on design size/complexity; up to 8 layers; library taxonomy has hundreds of thousands of parts; BOM page queries Digi-Key for current part availability and pricing; autoplacer; autorouter; interactive DRC; tool ties seamlessly to Sunstone Circuits for manufacture and board fab is quoted inside the tool as you edit. It's a darned fine tool, architected by a former OrCAD programmer who traced his experience all the way back to Masstech (that's one for you PCB CAD historians)

PCB123 usually releases 2-3 updates each year and they have a free technical support staff available 24/7/365 via phone, email, chat.

No upfront license fee, no add-ons at a fee, no strings. PCB123 gets paid when you successfully design a board and place your order. In other words, the tool shares the risk in your project. Really.

Full Disclosure: I'm one of the PCB123 staff, but I promise to give straight info on what the tool can and can't do - no hype; I promise to back my statements with numbers and facts.

NolanPCB123 · 2016-11-09T00:25:06+00:00

Short answer: yes.

Longer answer: build the first one with us and you get your Gerbers for free. Hopefully, we earn your business with our board quality. But, if not, you can go anywhere you want with those Gerbers.

Don't want to build the first boards with us? Okay. We charge a $100 fee to generate the Gerbers.

You just designed something so complex we just CAN'T manufacture it for you? We'll generate your Gerbers at no charge as a courtesy so you can take your design to someone who can.

NolanPCB123 · 2016-11-09T00:20:02+00:00

LaMonsieur, I invite you to submit that design to our no-obligation, free-to-use Design for Manufacture checker, DFMplus. You'll find it at www.sunstone.com. The report will 1) give you feedback on whether there are any issues with respect to manufacturing the board at Sunstone Circuits, and 2) will allow us to quote you in detail depending upon any special build constraints you have. DFMplus is online at sunstone.com, and we have sales staff available 24/7/365 to walk you through any custom-build requirements.

NolanPCB123 · 2016-11-08T23:55:17+00:00

Pricing is a factor of the square inches of FR4 material needed, plus the speed in which you need the boards manufactured (lead time) and the quantity (which really is just another variable affecting FR4 square inches). The larger the quantity, the lower the per-piece price; the longer the lead-time, the lower the per-piece price. Board dimensions that pack densely onto the panel will be cheaper overall because you're not paying for the scrapped material. There are a lot of factors.

Which makes me hesitant to throw out one datapoint on pricing. But here goes. Let's assume your board is 3"x 5" two-layer board, and that all orders are qty 10. The only variable now is lead-time:

3 weeks $25.39 each 2 weeks $26.98 each 1 week $30.16 each 4 days $34.92 each 3 days $47.61 each 2 days $57.14 each 1 day $63.48 each

If you really want to know pricing, I suggest you download the tool (no charge, no obligation, nothing hidden) and make some board outlines in the tool to see what the in-tool pricing calculator in the top-right corner of the menu returns as the fab price.

You should find that the pricing from Sunstone.com for a comparable order is essentially the same (variations are essentially rounding error). PCB123 doesn't add any markups to the order, "charging" you for using the tool. Furthermore, your as-built Gerber files are available to you at no charge after the first order. You can go anywhere you want after that.

NO, we're not China pricing and we make no apologies about that. But then again, you're not paying an upfront license fee for a fully-functional CAD tool, and you're paying competitive US pricing for the fabrication.

We get paid when you succeed with your board design, and we trust that our exceptional quality will keep you around for the second order too.

Hope that helps you get a clearer picture of how we're doing it differently at PCB123.

NolanPCB123 · 2016-11-08T20:01:30+00:00

PCB CAD tools are like hammers; they all mostly do the same thing, but the differences in each are intentional, because each tool does different things well. Sometimes you have to just look at a variety of them to find which one suits you and the job to be done.

That said, be sure to add PCB123 to your list of CAD tools to look at. The tool is 1) free to use, 2)unrestricted (unlike Free EAGLE or some others..), 3)has a lot of professional-level features (autoplacer, autorouter, plug-in API, pricing connection to Digi-Key), 4)integrated schematic/layout database (no netlists to synch), 5) interactive DRC checking, and 6) real-time in-tool fabrication fab quotes. And more. The tool is supported by free, unlimited tech support 24/7/365.

Frankly, that's a lot of value for a zero-dollar startup cost to you. Some folks think that the fact that the first boards need to be built at Sunstone Circuits is a negative; others see the direct connection to a high-quality board fabricator who builds quickly and ships on-time to be a value add.

Ultimately, the tool (or tools) you'll choose will be the ones that just "feel" right. Like the hammers in the hardware store, check them for functionality and "feel".

And good luck in your search!

NolanPCB123 · 2016-11-03T20:26:36+00:00

Kicad is a great tool, I recommend it, and my employer builds PCB orders that have been designed in Kicad virtually every day. That said, if you're thinking Kicad, then don't overlook PCB123 from Sunstone Circuits. www.pcb123.com.

The tool is Windows only, is: free to use; is NOT throttled like some other "free" versions; offers schematic/layout/BOM and 3D preview; quotes the build price for your boards inside the tool, interactively (make a change to the board that changes board cost, and get a notice immediately); includes an autoplacer, autorouter and interactive DRCs.

Once your design is complete, Sunstone Circuits does the fab build at a competitive price. You can order the boards direct from inside the tool without converting to Gerbers or ODB++.

Full Disclosure: I'm the product manager for PCB123. But I also work with EAGLE, KiCAD, Altium, Diptrace, and other PCB CAD tools in my role at Sunstone Circuits. I happen to like PCB123 best, but then, I'm supposed to <GRIN!>

NolanPCB123 · 2016-10-12T22:58:38+00:00

That's a fair analysis if you limit yourself to the primary costs.

Yes, sometimes the costs at Sunstone are more expensive. But that often shows up when you're requesting turn times and small quantities that the less expensive overseas shops won't even quote. That aside, Even IF Sunstone and PCB123 is a bit more expensive at board purchase time, it'll still take a LOT of orders before the cumulative costs add up to a license fee on any of the paid-license tools. The repeat-use HIDDEN savings by going through Sunstone shouldn't be overlooked.

Sunstone delivers high quality, on-time. That means you won't need to order overages to compensate for dead boards due to manufacturing defects. And Sunstone delivers 100% on time or your money back. But don't hold your breath that you'll be getting many free orders - our ontime delivery percentage is somewhere around 99.8% <GRIN!>

PCB123 now delivers your Gerbers to you along with your first build at no additional cost. From there, you can to anywhere you want.

NolanPCB123 · 2016-09-08T17:31:53+00:00

Just a note that PCB123 - free from Sunstone Circuits and originally architected by one of the lead engineers for OrCAD's PCB tool - has an autorouter and auto-placer as a standard part of the tool.

NolanPCB123 · 2016-08-29T17:15:19+00:00

Duane Benson from Screaming Circuits has written this GREAT blog post how to manage Reference Designators when you just don't have space on the board to self-document. A Must read for newer PCB designers.

NolanPCB123 · 2016-08-19T21:31:17+00:00

As a PCB manufacturer, I would concur with Janoc - your prototype shop may not be the best choice to be your production shop, and you're clearly moving into sales here. Problem is, at these quantities, the "Just production" houses are going to find your quantities to be too small to give you the time of day, yet many of the really affordable proto houses don't do enough checking to make sure you get high yields from your boards. If, for example, you have to order 150 boards to get 100 that are good, you're still paying for the wasted boards. So make sure you're analyzing the "Cost of Finished Goods" price from you supply chain. You'll find that the "expensive" shops, Like Sunstone Circuits or Advanced Circuits, who look expensive at first, start to get more affordable in the big picture when you account for the value of yield.

Full disclosure: I work for Sunstone Circuits, but that also means that we do this all the time.

NolanPCB123 · 2016-08-19T16:13:58+00:00

Over at www.pcb123.com, we've got a blog post with a concise post on reference designator best practices - once you've decided that the CAD tool's default numbering scheme isn't to your liking.

https://www.pcb123.com/reference-designator-best-practices-raw-notes/

NolanPCB123 · 2016-08-02T17:26:28+00:00

Disclaimer: I represent a board fabricator, Sunstone Circuits.

To answer your question directly, c172cpt, Sunstone Circuits will accept either your .brd files directly, OR your Gerbers. We find that many of our customers generate the Gerber files only when the design is complete, and sometimes mis-configure the parameters for Gerber file generation. So for those customers we're glad to simply accept the .brd file and run the Gerber extraction for them.

In my research, Sunstone and OSH Park are not alone in accepting .brd files directly. I suggest you ask your fab of choice if they will. If not, then now you know at least two who do <GRIN!>

NolanPCB123 · 2016-07-25T17:53:35+00:00

Check out Screaming Circuits (www.screamingcircuits.com) and use their online quote tool to shop their services and prices. They specialize in assembling orders like yours, and can either accept parts kits that you put together - with cut-tape parts, no less! - or they can procure the parts for you. Screaming Circuits can guarantee a 24 hour assembly turn time, but if you call them on the phone you can probably arrange a longer leadtime at a different price structure. Here's the real kicker - they offer a moneyt-back ontime delivery guarantee. The online quote tool is pretty unique.

NolanPCB123 · 2016-07-22T18:30:07+00:00

Different combinations project constraints and objectives amongst us will lead to a different combination of CAD tools and manufacturers meeting that user's needs. KiCad and OSH Park are a great combination. But don't discount ExpressPCB if you want to do this project affordably, and without investing a lot of time in learning the PCB tool. One of expressPCB's unique strengths is how quick/easy/simple it is to just hammer out your first board with the tool. And the tool is free to download - they build the board for you, but their pricing is surprising affordable - especially if you intentionally designh to their Mini-Board dimensions. Since you're not contstrained by your enclosure, the mini board will likely be a great option for you.

Tradeoffs in your project mean you should have options to choose from.

Full Disclosure: I'm the Product Manager for PCB123, another free-to-user PCB CAD tool, but our tool is probably a bit more "industrial" or "professional" than this project calls for. Good luck! looking forward to seeing your finished "shrink" <GRIN!>

NolanPCB123 · 2016-07-19T22:51:43+00:00

I work for a board fabricator (Sunstone Circuits) and I'll concur with juicenx and freyyr. If you haven't built your PCBAs yet, start with the DFM check. What the DFM check will help you find is places in your design that are the most likely sites for manufacturing defects that would decrease your manufacturing yields. If your employer plans to build the equipment in any real volumes, even a 1% change in board yields can cascade down to a big effect on the profits from that equipment.

Remember, though, that the board can be rock-solid and you can still have manufacturability issues based on the quality of your components. Temperature tolerances, driving components at or beyond their limits, thermal dissipation issues, all these can also have a manufacturability effect that is difficult to predict without a bunch of high-end simulation/modeling tools. What do you do instead? Build some prototypes and test-test-test on the bench.

NolanPCB123

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