How much to design this for me? PCB Boards best place to buy

Discuss hardware-related topics, such as development cartridges, CopyNES, PowerPak, EPROMs, or whatever.

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icemanxp300
Posts: 159
Joined: Thu May 14, 2015 6:17 pm

How much to design this for me? PCB Boards best place to buy

Post by icemanxp300 »

Just wondering what do you guys use if you buy them. I was looking into snes adapter boards for the m27c160 chips. I will def. have to do research as I have never designed a board before but how hard could it be to draw some holes w/lines between them.

Plus looking at an Atari composite mod and seeing the guy charging $25 for a small 1" board w/7 wires, 2 resistors, a transistor, and 3 jacks seems crazy.

I could probably do a snes adapter board easy just have to look up the rewiring for that chip but the Atari wiring man I would have no clue where to start on that thing but I will def. learn!
Last edited by icemanxp300 on Wed Sep 16, 2015 6:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
lidnariq
Posts: 11432
Joined: Sun Apr 13, 2008 11:12 am

Re: PCB Boards best place to buy them?

Post by lidnariq »

You basically can't get single PCBs cheaply. At all. The best you can possibly do is make it yourself, either with a PCB mill or some kind of masking and etching. (Or, if you don't need a two-sided card edge connector ... perfboard. Yes, I've deadbugged SMT parts on perfboard.)

If you're willing to get 10 copies of a 1- or 2- layer PCB with maximum dimensions {5,10}cm × {5,10}cm × {1.0 through 1.6mm}, and are willing to wait a bit, seeedstudio is pretty cheap ... at least to the US.
qwertymodo
Posts: 775
Joined: Mon Jul 02, 2012 7:46 am

Re: PCB Boards best place to buy them?

Post by qwertymodo »

OSHPark up to a point, but once you hit the $15-$20 size, SeeedStudio/IteadStudio are probably gonna be cheaper, with the trade-off being the increased turnaround time.
icemanxp300
Posts: 159
Joined: Thu May 14, 2015 6:17 pm

Re: PCB Boards best place to buy them?

Post by icemanxp300 »

Turn around time isn't too important to me. I also don't mind buying 300 or so to get a good deal. I have to make some phone calls, to get more information.
lidnariq
Posts: 11432
Joined: Sun Apr 13, 2008 11:12 am

Re: PCB Boards best place to buy them?

Post by lidnariq »

If you're willing to buy 300, you'll get a good deal from almost anyone. Seeed will get you 300 5cmx10cm boards for $276 (a nice price); even ExpressPCB is only $993 (not too shabby)
icemanxp300
Posts: 159
Joined: Thu May 14, 2015 6:17 pm

Re: PCB Boards best place to buy them?

Post by icemanxp300 »

Ok looking into this some more. Seed appears to be the best option. The snes case does not have much room. It appears the eprom pins would have to be trimmed at the very least. Do you see any problems going with a pcb size of .06mm. It looks like the snes pcb is about 1.5 mm thick.

I think I have about 1mm of extra room in the case to work with.

Any free program I can use to design this? It seems most want a Gerber file, so I will have to look into that some more.
lidnariq
Posts: 11432
Joined: Sun Apr 13, 2008 11:12 am

Re: PCB Boards best place to buy them?

Post by lidnariq »

You might also look at ITEAD. They're comparable to Seeed.

PCB thickness is 1.2mm, not 1.5mm. (Contact pitch is 2.5mm, not 2.54mm).

What dimension are you referring to when you say ".06mm" ?

My SNES cases have roughly 12mm of clearance, which really should be abundantly plenty for DIP components... even with sockets. Where did you see less?

There's a gazillion different free PCB programs, from FOSS (kicad) to freeware (eaglecad) to various online things (PCBweb, easyeda, upverter). Which one's "best" is mostly a matter of opinion...
icemanxp300
Posts: 159
Joined: Thu May 14, 2015 6:17 pm

Re: PCB Boards best place to buy them?

Post by icemanxp300 »

.06mm for the thickness for the adapter board. When I say 1mm extra space, I mean currently if you have a snes board in case there is about 1 mm extra between the rom and the case as snes board lays. If I were to put an adapter board in between them, there is not a whole lot of room to add pins as well, they kinda would need to be pretty flush.

On the snes board the pins of the rom can stick through the other side of the pcb, there is not enough room from where the board lays for the eprom pins w/out trimming or bending them over.
lidnariq
Posts: 11432
Joined: Sun Apr 13, 2008 11:12 am

Re: PCB Boards best place to buy them?

Post by lidnariq »

If you're going to mate a board to an existing PCB, you may as well choose 1mm instead...

Also, I don't know if you can get anything short of polyethylene film in 60µm thickness, let alone PCBs.

Oh, also, look through Markfrizb's posts. He's done graftable daughtercards like this before, although only for the SNES.
tepples
Posts: 22708
Joined: Sun Sep 19, 2004 11:12 pm
Location: NE Indiana, USA (NTSC)
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Re: PCB Boards best place to buy them?

Post by tepples »

lidnariq wrote:Also, I don't know if you can get anything short of polyethylene film in 60µm thickness, let alone PCBs.
Was 600 µm meant? Because that's half the thickness of an NES game PCB.

EDIT: Below posts say yes.
icemanxp300
Posts: 159
Joined: Thu May 14, 2015 6:17 pm

Re: PCB Boards best place to buy them?

Post by icemanxp300 »

I'm just seeing the options it was showing me.
pcb thickness.jpg
icemanxp300
Posts: 159
Joined: Thu May 14, 2015 6:17 pm

Re: PCB Boards best place to buy them?

Post by icemanxp300 »

.6 not .06 lol that's the confusion.

edit: I just realized Most snes boards dont fill the entire case up like a troy aikmen 2 mask rom board. I would not need those carts anymore. As long as I offset the chips to go outside the board area, space will not be an issue as I thought.

Amazing what comes to you when you are laying in bed lol.

I do like Markfrizb's adapter board but he told me he is not selling them anymore.
SnoopKatt
Posts: 47
Joined: Tue Aug 14, 2012 8:37 pm

Re: PCB Boards best place to buy them?

Post by SnoopKatt »

Give this a try:

http://pcbshopper.com/

Compares all the cheaper sites. I used Maker Studio for a demo run, and it was alright. Not good enough for a small production run, but it essentially gave me enough info to review my design which was all I needed. Cool colors too :p

For long-term use, I like Advanced Circuits (4pcb.com). Expensive for smaller boards ($33 each + shipping!) but the quality is amazing.
icemanxp300
Posts: 159
Joined: Thu May 14, 2015 6:17 pm

Re: PCB Boards best place to buy them?

Post by icemanxp300 »

SnoopKatt wrote:Give this a try:

http://pcbshopper.com/

Compares all the cheaper sites.
Wow that is pretty cool, it has two china sites listed under $200 for 300 boards.

pcbway $194 shipped 11 days
itead studio $197 shipped 19 days

Wonder how quality is.
icemanxp300
Posts: 159
Joined: Thu May 14, 2015 6:17 pm

Re: How much to design this for me? PCB Boards best place to

Post by icemanxp300 »

Ok so I tried messing w/this eagle program a bit and I honestly don't have the time to invest in learning this program right now. How much would you charge to do it for me and send me the files needed to order these boards.

Wanted adapter board for snes to m27c160 eprom. I can provide desired board size and placement. Pm me if interested.
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