Fwd: RepRap Board Buy

just got this in an email... it would make sense to use these guys to
get some prototype boards made up for testing, then to do a production
run with one of the other guys once we know our gerber files are ready
to rock.

if we get our boards down to 9"^2 it would only be $22 / board. not a
great deal, but pretty cheap for prototype boards for testing. we'd
only need 3 boards: comms, stepper, and extruder.

comments?

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Bruce Wattendorf
Date: Mar 12, 2007 7:58 PM
Subject: Re: RepRap Board Buy
To: Zach Hoeken


Hay Zach,
I found this company for pc boards when checking out the fab@home site.

[www.batchpcb.com] they are charging $2.50 sq inch.
and a 10.00 setup fee/shipping..

Bruce Wattendorf


Zach Hoeken wrote:
Hey Bruce,

We haven't ordered any boards yet, but we will be doing it here ASAP.
I need to wrap a couple things up and then go ahead and order it.
I'll then figure out the final cost of the order and post it on the
forums along w/ payment info. just keep checking back on the forums
=)

~Zach



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Zach Hoeken wrote:
> just got this in an email... it would make sense to use these guys to
> get some prototype boards made up for testing, then to do a production
> run with one of the other guys once we know our gerber files are ready
> to rock.
>
> if we get our boards down to 9"^2 it would only be $22 / board. not a
> great deal, but pretty cheap for prototype boards for testing. we'd
> only need 3 boards: comms, stepper, and extruder.

Only two - stepper and extruder are the same. But 3"x3" would be pushing it,
though achievable if we left off the breadboard area.

Yours

Adrian

[staff.bath.ac.uk]
[reprap.org]
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so do you guys think its a good idea to test it from one supplier and
then do a production run from the other supplier? its going to be
pretty expensive to do a one-off prototype board from the suppliers
we've looked at, but they would be very good for bulk runs.

this new place on the other hand is perfect for one-offs but crappy
for bulk boards. i know we definitely want to do bulk boards in the
near future so it might be best just to bite the bullet, pay $300 for
some prototype boards and then get a good deal down the road.

i just want to make this happen.

On 3/13/07, Adrian Bowyer wrote:
> Zach Hoeken wrote:
> > just got this in an email... it would make sense to use these guys to
> > get some prototype boards made up for testing, then to do a production
> > run with one of the other guys once we know our gerber files are ready
> > to rock.
> >
> > if we get our boards down to 9"^2 it would only be $22 / board. not a
> > great deal, but pretty cheap for prototype boards for testing. we'd
> > only need 3 boards: comms, stepper, and extruder.
>
> Only two - stepper and extruder are the same. But 3"x3" would be pushing it,
> though achievable if we left off the breadboard area.
>
> Yours
>
> Adrian
>
> [staff.bath.ac.uk]
> [reprap.org]
> _______________________________________________
> Developers mailing list
> Developers@reprap.org
> [reprap.org]
>
_______________________________________________
Developers mailing list
Developers@reprap.org
[reprap.org]

Zach Hoeken wrote:
> so do you guys think its a good idea to test it from one supplier and
> then do a production run from the other supplier? its going to be
> pretty expensive to do a one-off prototype board from the suppliers
> we've looked at, but they would be very good for bulk runs.
>
> this new place on the other hand is perfect for one-offs but crappy
> for bulk boards. i know we definitely want to do bulk boards in the
> near future so it might be best just to bite the bullet, pay $300 for
> some prototype boards and then get a good deal down the road.
>
> i just want to make this happen.

If we make our own test board to a design, and it works, we can then go to a
supplier with that pretty confident that it is OK. Commercial boards with
through-plating make the whole soldering/via problem go away, of course.

Yours

Adrian

[staff.bath.ac.uk]
[reprap.org]



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great. i'll try re-arranging the board tonight to try and squeeze
everything onto a smaller board. since we are getting them
manufactured, we can use kicads autorouter feature. that will make it
a very simple task.... just place the components and route. we will
still want things all to be soldered on the copper side, but thats
fairly easy to do manually before/after the autoroute.

On 3/13/07, Adrian Bowyer wrote:
> Zach Hoeken wrote:
> > so do you guys think its a good idea to test it from one supplier and
> > then do a production run from the other supplier? its going to be
> > pretty expensive to do a one-off prototype board from the suppliers
> > we've looked at, but they would be very good for bulk runs.
> >
> > this new place on the other hand is perfect for one-offs but crappy
> > for bulk boards. i know we definitely want to do bulk boards in the
> > near future so it might be best just to bite the bullet, pay $300 for
> > some prototype boards and then get a good deal down the road.
> >
> > i just want to make this happen.
>
> If we make our own test board to a design, and it works, we can then go to a
> supplier with that pretty confident that it is OK. Commercial boards with
> through-plating make the whole soldering/via problem go away, of course.
>
> Yours
>
> Adrian
>
> [staff.bath.ac.uk]
> [reprap.org]
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Developers mailing list
> Developers@reprap.org
> [reprap.org]
>
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Developers@reprap.org
[reprap.org]

[www.batchpcb.com]
is run by sparkfun. They wait till they have have enough boards for a group
run, and then they send it to
[www.goldphoenixpcb.biz]

goldphoenix has a good reputation, according to the web hivemind. (I believe
someone recommended them to me, but I'm not sure.) If we happen to go through
them for our final order, it's USD$89.99/155inch^2, or $0.58/inch^2. Also,
they don't cut up their boards. They score them, but you need to hand
separate them, or preferably, use a shear. I know a guy with a shear in NY,
I'll ask him if he's interested.

That said, any of the popular big board houses with good reputation should be
acceptable.

-Sebastien

On Tuesday 13 March 2007 13:18, Zach Hoeken wrote:
> so do you guys think its a good idea to test it from one supplier and
> then do a production run from the other supplier? its going to be
> pretty expensive to do a one-off prototype board from the suppliers
> we've looked at, but they would be very good for bulk runs.
>
> this new place on the other hand is perfect for one-offs but crappy
> for bulk boards. i know we definitely want to do bulk boards in the
> near future so it might be best just to bite the bullet, pay $300 for
> some prototype boards and then get a good deal down the road.
>
> i just want to make this happen.
>
> On 3/13/07, Adrian Bowyer wrote:
> > Zach Hoeken wrote:
> > > just got this in an email... it would make sense to use these guys to
> > > get some prototype boards made up for testing, then to do a production
> > > run with one of the other guys once we know our gerber files are ready
> > > to rock.
> > >
> > > if we get our boards down to 9"^2 it would only be $22 / board. not a
> > > great deal, but pretty cheap for prototype boards for testing. we'd
> > > only need 3 boards: comms, stepper, and extruder.
> >
> > Only two - stepper and extruder are the same. But 3"x3" would be pushing
> > it, though achievable if we left off the breadboard area.
> >
> > Yours
> >
> > Adrian
> >
> > [staff.bath.ac.uk]
> > [reprap.org]
> > _______________________________________________
> > Developers mailing list
> > Developers@reprap.org
> > [reprap.org]
>
> _______________________________________________
> Developers mailing list
> Developers@reprap.org
> [reprap.org]
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Quoting Zach Hoeken :

> great. i'll try re-arranging the board tonight to try and squeeze
> everything onto a smaller board. since we are getting them
> manufactured, we can use kicads autorouter feature. that will make it
> a very simple task.... just place the components and route. we will
> still want things all to be soldered on the copper side, but thats
> fairly easy to do manually before/after the autoroute.

Zach - I just built your Comms PCB design; it's really sweet - whole
thing took me 2 hours from cutting the bag round the virgin PCB to
finishing testing (plus a 30 minute etching break when I ate supper).
Tested out A OK first time (well, second, but that's just cos I got the
Transmit and Receive wires crossed...).

I've put the pix for the wiki in a tarball called comms-bd-pix.tgz in the
attachments at:

[reprap.org]

The image names in the file should be self-explanatory, but if
anything's unclear get back to me of course.

I've also updated the Kicad image of the PCB on that page.

Best wishes

Adrian

Dr Adrian Bowyer
[staff.bath.ac.uk]
[reprap.org]
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very nice. i'll try and upload those to flickr, then put the new
images up on the wiki. as for the universal board... right now i'm
trying to reduce the size of it small enough where we could get it
manufactured easily. i'm basically just moving around components and
smooshing everything closer together while maintaining the trace size.
it looks like i'll be able to get the board to around 12-15 in^2.
its not the 9" that was thrown around... tried that and nearly went
insane. it should be a good blend between being easy to construct and
small enough to manufacture.

dont worry about reprap text on the boards... sometimes i take it off
for development, but it definitely goes back in once i'm done =)


On 3/15/07, Adrian Bowyer wrote:
> Quoting Zach Hoeken :
>
> > great. i'll try re-arranging the board tonight to try and squeeze
> > everything onto a smaller board. since we are getting them
> > manufactured, we can use kicads autorouter feature. that will make it
> > a very simple task.... just place the components and route. we will
> > still want things all to be soldered on the copper side, but thats
> > fairly easy to do manually before/after the autoroute.
>
> Zach - I just built your Comms PCB design; it's really sweet - whole
> thing took me 2 hours from cutting the bag round the virgin PCB to
> finishing testing (plus a 30 minute etching break when I ate supper).
> Tested out A OK first time (well, second, but that's just cos I got the
> Transmit and Receive wires crossed...).
>
> I've put the pix for the wiki in a tarball called comms-bd-pix.tgz in the
> attachments at:
>
> [reprap.org]
>
> The image names in the file should be self-explanatory, but if
> anything's unclear get back to me of course.
>
> I've also updated the Kicad image of the PCB on that page.
>
> Best wishes
>
> Adrian
>
> Dr Adrian Bowyer
> [staff.bath.ac.uk]
> [reprap.org]
>
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Awesome!

I check it out, made the final routing links, fixed any DRC errors,
and tidied it up. I think this board is ready to rock and roll. I
figure I'll give it til Sunday night, for anyone to make / suggest
changes and then I'll put in an order for prototype boards. The final
design for the universal controller came out to be 10^2 inches. its
4" by 2.5". I think it looks pretty good. =)

Also, I think I may revisit the PowerComms board and make it smaller.
The production board was basically a copy of the etching style
board... it would be super simple to tighten it up and make it
smaller. This will save lots of us money down the road.

As far as the prototype boards go... its looking like $25 / ea for the
universal controllers and something less (depending on the final size)
for the powercomms.

Once we get to production, we're definitely looking in the area or
$30-40 for all the boards (5 x Universal, 1 x powercomms.) It will
then probably be around $60 total for the electronics. This is
looking mighty cheap! I'm very excited.

Zach

ps. the design for the universal is in my user directory in subversion.





On 3/17/07, Adrian Bowyer wrote:
> Morning Zach :-)
>
> Here's the latest. It's a bit radical: I've replaced the breadboard by
> a connector so people can run wires to their own extra board if they
> want. And boy does it have vias. But it is compact, and all the
> important soldering is copper side.
>
> Best wishes
>
> Adrian
>
> Dr Adrian Bowyer
> [staff.bath.ac.uk]
> [reprap.org]
>
>
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Quoting Zach Hoeken :

> i like your board layout, but it is a bit larger than i'd like. board
> places charge by the square inch, and we're at 12 right now. i'll try
> and get that under 11 and we should be good to go... i'll make it say
> RepRap.org and Universal v1.1 and we should be able to get it nice and
> tight.

I agree - the smaller the better. There are still a couple of places
on yours where there are thin tracks where they ought to be thick, but
I think we can cram them in without over-expanding. It's evening here,
so I'm about to sit down by the fire in the drawing room with a dry
martini, which probably means I should stop board layout till the
morning. If you can wait till you get up on Sunday, I should have the
thickening done on your design.

The mounting holes in the corners are a bit easier to drill if you
actually make them isolated vias, rather than drawn circles,
incidentally - the drill centres better.

> i did a test run on the board ordering website and unfortunately we
> failed DRC... however it was just on the text only, so its super easy
> to fix.

Excellent! Also, we mustn't forget that
win-our-interesting-PCB-competition-and-get-your-board-made-free site
that Vik found. I think we go there when we've really proved it all
works.

Best wishes

Adrian

Dr Adrian Bowyer
[staff.bath.ac.uk]
[reprap.org]
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