Pleae note, I apologize if this is in the wrong forum or covered in a FAQ somewhere… feel free to remove this post if it’s misplaced.
I have some very beginner questions about the manufacturing process. The board I’m making, I plan to start off with a quantities of less than 50 (20 actually) and then see what the demand is like from there. I have no idea how many or how few I will need to make in the future.
Is getting automated soldering for less than, say, $5 per board, totally impractical at low quantities? The reason I ask is, I see wave soldering machines selling for less than $4k, and it doesn’t look like any special tooling is necessary for a simple board with just through hole components, in my case about 40 components – so I’m thinking it is best to use just TH components just to avoid the added complexity of soldering SMD when it must be done by hand. Does that make any sense?
Does anyone know of a service that does low quantities at reasonable prices… and, are low quantities better suited for soldering baths or wave machines?
I can’t recommend a service, but I will say that manufacturing them yourself probably isn’t as hard as you think. I’m in a very similar situation, making low volume products with about 25-30 components per board. Size is critical in my product, so smd is mandatory (I use some small packages too; 0805 resistors, qfn16). I’ve just started using the sparkfun method, and it’s a breeze. I haven’t started full production, but I estimate I could turn out 50 boards in 2-3 days. No cost except the solder paste and the stencil. $50 for enough paste to to 100+ boards = $0.50 per board. The mylar stencil was <$30 and most manufacturers charge you a large minimum fee just for that (goldenpheonix is $200 for instance, and they are relatively cheap, I believe).
I’d say a wave soldering machine is much to big an investment for low volume production (especially if you are a beginner). Give the skillet method a try, and if you like it, you’ve saved a ton of money. If not, you lost a relatively tiny amount.
I just want everything to look totally clean and professional, most of which is accomplished with the silkscreened PCBs I’m ordering. But I haven’t actually seen the skillet method yet. It sounds promising. I’ll take a look… thanks.
I make all my boards using the skillet method. I recommend a big skillet (8 pancakes!) and a hot air solder gun for those hard to heat parts and “dead spots” that you may find on the griddle.
SMT boards are way easier to manufacture. There are no wires to cut and it is very simple to place parts.
Sounds good, but I guess initial prototypes are still done with through hole components on breadboards…
Anyway, if I go the SMD route, I would need a different socket for my programmer, of course, but I haven’t seen these advertised.
I’m going off on this tangent, here, but do you know offhand of a socket that would be good to use on a programming station for adding and removing 44 pin SMD PICs? I see lots in my Mouser catalog in the 1 dollar range (sounds too cheap to me) but I’m not sure if those are the right kind. Thanks a lot!
djohnson:
I’m going off on this tangent, here, but do you know offhand of a socket that would be good to use on a programming station for adding and removing 44 pin SMD PICs? I see lots in my Mouser catalog in the 1 dollar range (sounds too cheap to me) but I’m not sure if those are the right kind. Thanks a lot!
They’re almost certainly not what you want, since ZIF sockets of that size usually cost around a hundred dollars. What kind of packacge are you talking about?
Yes, that’s what I was thinking of but now come to think of it, it probably is better to be able to program the chip after it’s on the board. If so, I think I am ready to move forward on this. Everyone here has really been so helpful I can’t believe it. I’ll keep everyone posted on my progress. Thanks again. DJ
I add 10 pin icsp programming header for all of my proto designs. I use an melabs serial programmer and will probably buy one of these zif tqfp sockets soon. And yes I do use smt for most of my prototype work. Bare pcbs (sans soldermask) are great for this.
