pcbdesign
Title:pcbdesign
Author:86.132.38.119
Published:Mon, 09 Aug 2010 09:42:44 GMT

This page is under construction. It is intended to contain information for people designing printed circuit boards for the Propeller.

Currently a lot of placeholder text and links to forum threads. Will be summarizing info from threads as time goes by.

This page is primarily maintained by mpark, but anyone is welcome to make improvements.

Propeller chips

Crystal

EEPROM

Bypass/decoupling caps

Power
Power connector
@rapidonline, @digikey

General

Surface mount

PCB fabrication houses

Advanced Circuits
in Colorado*
BatchPCB
"is the cheapest place but it does take some time to get the boards back (they are actually made in China)"; "Nuts and volts uses a service called batch pcb I think. They take small orders until they have enough for a panel and then run it. The turnaround time varies but the price is reasonable."*; "I don't think it is Nuts and Volts that's directly affiliated with Batch PCB, I think it is www.sparkfun.com. If you have a lot of boards that add up to one or more panels, then Batch PCB can turn around fairly fast. I believe Batch PCB uses Gold Phoenex for the actual fab." *
ExpressPCB

http://www.futurlec.com/PCBService.shtml
"They have an automated quote generator on-line. Reasonable prices, fast turn-around, low cost World wide shipping available.*
Gold Phoenix
in China; "If you need large panels"*
PCBexpress

SeeedStudio
in China; "has a nice PCB service and can even partner with the designer to distribute an open hardware "product" through their online store. Low cost International shipping with tracking via Hong Kong." *
Related thread: Best Method for "short run" of PCBs

PCB design software

You forgot to mention the best (IMHO), free (GPL), cross platform (MAC too) suite of programs for EDA (Electronic Design Automation), KiCAD. KiCAD has Schematic capture, PCB layout editor, Gerber viewer, footprint selector, footprint editor. autorouter, project manager, etc.; a complete suite capable of producing professional quality layouts..

iut-tice.ujf-grenoble.fr/kicad/

kicad.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

There's a large (2,5k member) active KiCad Yahoo Group here:

tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/kicad-users/

Parallax approved Eagle parts

Propeller Schematic Symbols for Express PCB

There is an excellent Homebrew PCB Yahoo Group with almost 5k members. Much help on EDA and fabricating your own PCBs:

tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Homebrew_PCBs/

Photoboards: They really need testing. Exposure time varies from manufacturer to manufacturer (and with the kind of paper or transparency you have), and developing too.*

Common numbers

Members' boards

Other threads of interest

Rayman's PCB page