Chief Delphi - PCB Programs?

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Re: PCB Programs?

Quote:

Originally Posted by BQuennell (Post 665039)

In the past we've gone quite low-tech and just used Microsoft Paint to draw up the boards, we do have an etcher though so it makes life easy for the electronics guys and they just produce them on their own.

... Really? I HAVE TO SEE THIS.

I was joking about exactly this at work a week or two ago.

Please, details!

Re: PCB Programs?

I think you could use Pad2Pad to generate your double-sided etch masks. It's easy to use, and has a pretty good autorouter.

Re: PCB Programs?

Quote:

Originally Posted by EricVanWyk (Post 665079)

... Really? I HAVE TO SEE THIS.

I was joking about exactly this at work a week or two ago.

Please, details!

Forgive me, I've been out of the shop since I graduated so I can't recall the name of the paper but it goes like this.

Someone designs the board in MS Paint, then prints the design out in a laser printer onto some special trace paper that you iron onto a clean board with like a clothes iron. It's really cool because the toner powder mixed with whats on that trace paper is able to avoid corrosion in an etcher so just toss it in and let the traces live, scrub off the toner and you have your board. MS Paint works great as well for this because you can zoom in to quite in depth and modify the circuit just about pixel by pixel.

The process isnt that bad to do really you can have the board done from printing to etching in about 25 minutes, but it does require an etcher which not everyone has. We're very lucky to have an electronics teacher from the High School be our lead mentor and let students use it.