Pictures of my first home-made PCB

 

 

The first 3 pictures are of the normal component side view. The last picture shows the copper side.

Tungsten Carbide Drill Bits

I just received my order of 1/32" tungsten carbide drill bits with 1/8" shank. The 1/32" size is very good for drilling general purpose holes in PCBs. I simply used a Dremel and drilled the holes by hand. The tough part is centering the drill bit on the hole (on the copper side), but once you have it centered, the drill goes through very quickly. I didn't have any trouble with drilling and did not snap any bits.

Another cool idea for connecting vias for DIY double-sided PCBs

Tony Smith, , of the PICLIST gave me this idea:

Take a long piece of solid strand wire and thread it through all of the vias, like sewing. The wire should obviously be bare (stripped of all insulation). Solder one side, then the other. Do this for all the vias and clip off the excess wire and the interconnecting wire.

It’s fast, easy, cost-effective, and it works.

Annoyances and solutions for components when top-soldering DIY double-sided PCBs

Most components are very easy to top solder when making double-sided PCBs. However, some can be annoying and hard. The following may be a simple solution for such components:

• Large capacitors
• Do not insert completely. Leave space on top and bend capacitor over on its side. This will leave a lot of space for easy top soldering.
• Male/female pin headers
• For the male pin headers, use pliers or  a vice & hammer to tap the plastic part further toward the connection end. This will give room for top-soldering.
• For the female headers: this can get tricky on some types as not enough pin length is left to allow for top-soldering. The best I can think of in this case is to try and raise the header off the PCB slightly anyway and solder the top parts first. Then flip to the other side of the PCB and continue soldering.
• Switches, piezoelectric speakers, and other seated components.
• These can also get tricky to top-solder. Again, the solution may be to raise the component off the PCB as much as possible. If this doesn’t work, then the next quickest way is to solder stiff copper wires to them as lead-extensions.

 

If all else fails, it’s always handy to have a few through-hole rivets (as discussed in detail in my previous post). In any case, top-soldering is the quickest and most cost-effective method for DIY double-sided PCB making.

And there’s my thought for today.

DIY Through-Plating for Double-Sided PCBs

Creating your own PCBs can be annoying – especially when trying to make them compact and contain many parts. Routing can be very difficult. Luckily, we can make our own double-sided PCBs just as easily. However, the problem now is finding a way to create vias and plated through holes at home safely, efficiently, effectively, quickly, easily and cheaply. Large chemical through-plating machines are out of the question. There must be an easier way to do it.

I came across a webpage a while back which had a few ideas for tackling this issue: http://www.electricstuff.co.uk/pcbs.html

There are several ways to overcome the vias/plated through-hole problem:

Top-soldering:

• Easy, quick, cheap, works for most ICs and components. The IC holders can be a bit tricky though, as well as certain capacitors and funny components.
• Connects one side of the board to the other – like a plated through hole.
• For vias, a smaller hole can be placed and a wire can be soldered through it on both sides of the PCB. This is slow and annoying.

Linking pins and rivets:

• These linking pins (http://www.harwin.com/search/T1559-01?ProductSearch=True) seem to be very interesting and provide a quick and easy solution for vias.
• For through-holes, the following system can be used: http://www.megauk.com/through_hole_rivets.php. The machine is expensive and is not necessary. According to the first article mentioned on this post, the rivets can be placed easily with tweezers alone. They seem to be relatively inexpensive (cost 20 pounds for package of 1000 rivets).