Ordering a PCB

Other Hardware General Electronics
1

Good morning,

Although I am new to this board, I don't want to bother you with a long introduction. So just shortly: I am interested in programming and using computers and I would like to start teaching building some projects from the arduino community, although I don't have a lot of experience with electronics.

I have found this project on the internet, where some cool guy has uploaded the whole instructions and it seems to be very easy to follow them to build a basic robot. I would like to do it, but there is only one step, which I would like to have your advise on: ordering a PCB.

He has created and uploaded the necessary files and I have found a website where I can order PCBs in a low scale (1-5 PCBs). Since the original company where he recommends us to order the PCB is taken down, I would like to ask you to have a quick look at the project and my order, to tell me if everything is set up correctly. There are so many options and I don't know what is important there :frowning:

For that, I have arranged a screenshot with all the option in the configurator (see attachement). The instructions can be found at http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-a-wall-avoiding-Robot!/step4/Adding-the-electrical-brain/

I'm sorry if this is not the kind of question that your are usually asked here, but I'm really not sure about this step and it is not only my money, that I am burning when I get this wrong...

Thank you in advance!

TobWes

PCB_info.png
PCB_info.png1883×1144 442 KB

2

What you need to do is get the files as gerbers, or some format you can convert to gerbers. After that's it's easy - any manufacturer will take em.

I recommend OSHpark.com or Dirtypcbs.com

OSHpark is US based, boards are all enig, fabulous purple solder mask, charged by inch. You get boards in batches of 3, $5/square inch.

DirtyPCBs is china-based, boards are HASL by default (enig is extra), you choice of r/g/b/y/w/black soldermask, boards in batches of ~10 (8 to 12, usually closer to 12) for $14 for 50mmx50mm, $25 for 100mmx100mm. No discount for smaller boards.

Both prices listed include shipping. OSH is ~2 weeks, dirtypcbs is 3~4 with the free shipping, ~2 if you pay extra for DHL.

This is a perfectly appropriate question for this section.

3

Thank you for your reply.

I have a Gerber zip containing 7 files (GBL, GBS, GBO, GTL, GTS, GTO and TXT), but OSHpark doesn't recognize it, because there is no board outline file.

The site that I have posted works fine and it looks alright in the configurator (see attached png), but there are still a few options to choose from, which i am not sure about, if they are important (again, see png).

4

Hi tobwes, welcome.

Why aren't you asking about these things over there at that great site (cough) ?

5

So you're missing a key gerber....
Nobody will make you a board without the board outline layer (at least the places I've dealt with. Dirtypcbs will let you omit every file if you want - except the board outline layer), because that tells them where the edges of the board go... kind of important.

You might be able to draw the outline of the PCB in eagle or something, export that, and check in an online gerber viewer, until you got an outline that contained the board.

6

Actually, yeah... that's a very simple board, and kinda shoddy in general. I suspect what he needs is the awkward pinout in the middle, which you can't easily do on protoboard because the second row is offset.

Pity he didn't know about the trace width option in eagle when he was designing that... nor post the eagle files.

7

Aaah, yeah, now that I see the part, yeah, that's very possible.