PCB fabrication

Good point :slight_smile:
I may try that whenever I need more k25s than I ordered from @CTorp

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I’ve never tried it myself. However:

A 25 x 120 mm board is $5.20.

A 125 by 120 mm board (five times as wide) is only $9.80, if you tell them there is only one design. If you say there are 5 “Different Designs” it’s $25.50, or virtually the same price as if you’d ordered the five boards separately.

The impression I get is that if you don’t tell them there are 5 designs, but they look at it and say “that’s totally 5 designs”, they’ll bump the price up to the $25.50 level. I’ve heard stories of people disguising multiple designs as a single one, e.g. by adding superfluous traces between designs, and that sometimes works.

Their language-challenged statement:

What will be regarded as different designs? Basically, if the traces/ silkscreen in your PCB is different, as long as it can be separated, no matter by v-cut, millings, or drill holes, it will be regarded as different designs. One more thing, sometimes, even all your pcbs look the same, but if there is no any connection to make them into one panel, and it needs to be sent as single piece, it will be also considered as different designs.

I just haven’t bothered. I haven’t had a situation where it would have saved that much. I mean, this is pretty cheap stuff anyway. Last night’s order was 7 boards for about $35 — plus shipping, which you won’t reduce by panelizing.

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Good point :slight_smile:
I may NOT try that whenever I need more k25s than I ordered from @CTorp

I’m wondering if you could slightly change the circuit designs to only use a single power connector, so it’s technically all one circuit. Of course, they’d all have to sit together in the rack, which may or may not be a problem.

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You could absolutely do that. Drop all the 10ufs 10rs except the main pair and run wires

I thank that’s a great idea. Especially when you consider modules that work well together or may need later expansion. Adding in a simple 5v regulated supply or an adjustable reference voltage etc may be of use to other designs or circuit boards. No reason why modular can’t just refer to the position of the panels.

With AO.

the only thing I changeis the Colour, and specify the location of the batch number using JLCJLCJLCJLC or the B.SilkS.

I have got away with my “Split” boards by just having a pin header on each section and runnign a GND trace right round.

Learning this over the last 9 months has been inspiring, knowing you can potentialy make a easy to build reliable circuit is a boon over stripbordem faultfinding.

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Oh how soon they forget… stripboard may be the frustrating and fault ridden first wife of prototyping but as the years pass you start to remember she let you do anything that popped into your imagination and was ready even before your iron was hot.

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I think your reminiscing on a different topic :wink:

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I guess my proto approach ( no bread board, no strip board ) does lead to a few . awww f…k moments leadig to re-order delay . But i am slowely weeding out the gotchas… having a verified schematic helps, having a verified and available Kicad helps even more, although I often redoo stuff.

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For years I’ve been looking for a good virtual breadboard that would let me try stuff out. There are many virtual schematic programs but I’ve never found one that helps me “see” the components and test the output. I guess you could export a schematic from eda into something maybe. I did find a few useful patches in pure data that was useful for mock ups. But until I get a virtual, testable breadboard I’ll use the real thing. Because there are some things you can do with your breadboard you just dont do with your final circuit … but I digress.

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Do you mean like KiCad’s 3D view? I use KiCad for stripboard layouts because I hate wiring myself into a corner with stripboard. It lets me see where all the parts will be and I can use rats nest to see if I have placed the parts in good locations before I start soldering. Mechanical parts can all be placed and checked for fit. The 3D view looks nice too. Turn off ray tracing if you want it fast and turn in on for beauty shots.

Then, if it all works well and you want to make an actual layout, it is about 3/4 of the way done already. And it is tested.

I think I posted about using KiCad for stripboard layout in a different thread. My memory is crap these days.

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It is here: Stripboard maker software
but I did not include the 3D view.

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Ah yes I do remember your post. I’d mentally filed it under DIY protoboard and totally missed the opportunity for play. Many thanks.

Added the 3D view to the other post. KiCad does a nice job with the high quality 3D renders.

I just add the link to your post for 3D vew

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Hi All,

This is my first post, so I thought I’d share how I got started with KiCad and stripboard layouts:

First, I drew the outline of my board on Edge.Cuts and placed some mounting holes. I set my grid to 2.54mm and used back copper to model horizontal tracks on the stripboard. Front copper for jumpers - vias to connect them. Edge cut markers show me where I need to cut stripboard tracks. Most components are mounted on end, but some are layed horizontally to jump over tracks when needed.
And - then you can print out both sides (get the mirroring right), tape em together and hold it up to the light to help figure things out.

This is what my end result ended up looking like - an Analog saw core VCO with waveshaping for Tri, PWM-able pulse and sine:

Cheers,
Jared

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Good work, it surprises me there’s not a freely available strip board designer.

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Not sure what you mean by that, certainly there are multiple apps for laying out stripboards — none, though, that I know of that connect stripboard layout with schematic.

that is what i was meaning,