Original source: Arduino Forum. Published: May 27, 2019.
I am getting ready to graduate my Arduino prototype to its own custom board; however, I'll still be using Arduino to program it. My PCB has around 47 total components (mostly resistors, caps, and some other passives) with the nRF52840. I am trying to find places that can assemble my PCB for reasonable costs in batches of 10 (low volumes).
I can source all of my components from Digi-Key. I was wondering if anyone had suggestions on where I can have this work performed? I was looking into ScreamCircuits and Seeed. I live in TX, USA. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you!
pcbng.com does good work, and their assembly is done in the US. Pricing is also very simple - their assembly charges are by board area. Note that they only assemble the SMD stuff, not through-hole stuff (get with the times, nobody uses through-hole parts these days).
Though if you have access to a reflow oven, I'd be tempted to just sit my ass down, get a pair of tweezers, crank up the speakers and start placing parts.
I would, but the nRF52840 is the part I don't think I can do myself. The rest of the board I could probably attempt (it'd my first attempt at SMD and using a reflow oven). And thank you for the suggestion!
Eh, it doesn't look that bad to me. But then again, I do this all the time...
DrAzzy said: get with the times, nobody uses through-hole parts these days
Of course... if only film capacitors and electrolytic capacitors were available in SMD... or SMD offered the same mechanical strength as THT so you can unplug connectors without risking ripping them off the board... I'd be happy to do my boards in SMD-only.
But as long as PP (~170°C) has a lower melting point than solder, and PETs melting point (~260°C) is about the same as tempereatures used in reflow ovens, those caps will come out of the oven looking like a gooey mess on the inside, and we'll continue to have to use THT mounting for those.
SMD does make assembly easier, indeed. Unfortunately reality gets in the way of doing everything SMD.
I am going to try PCB:NG; however, I'm not entirely sure if they are still in business. I don't see a lot of activity. The order process works, so we'll see.
Having said that, I do think the cost is high for my use-case. I think I would be willing to pay someone to place these components rather than go through a PCB house. Would I post something like that in the Gigs? It's 31 unique parts and 42 total placements (mostly passives). I would only need 2 boards done. I can have the PCB's manufactured at JLCPCB since I've had great success so far.
if you buy the right CNC engraver you can make your own, and when you are done you still have the CNC engraver
Will a CNC Engraver place the components and solder them onto my PCB? Or is that just for cutting the board?
Further discussion continued from May 28, 2019, through June 2, 2019, involving users Geek_Emeritus, westfw, wvmarle, Wawa, and czu001.
Load more posts below.
