Obtaining a Prototype Printed Circuit Board - PCB

When trying to think up something totally new, or revising an existing one, designing and obtaining a prototype of a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) is often a difficult and pricy task. If one enquire's why this is so, one discovers ways to help make the same process uncomplicated.

Just like any other product that is designed or made to your specification, a brand new printed circuit board has some straight up costs which you'll find precisely the same irrespective of size i.e. how large, or small one's production volume is. To design a new board, or revise a pre-existing one, will have an engineering cost. There will also be an expense for creating a new solder mask for the new board; Remember whether you alter one component or maybe you completely redesign the entire the board, any changes from an already paid for solder mask, will require a new one to generally be made.

It is a common misconception that a small change in the PCB, should have a small charge to realize this alteration. One must realise, a change is a modification concerning the valuation on printing the board. In addition, it would not follow with the engineering. This has been the situation that someone has a product designed years ago by one engineer that they want slightly modified by another engineer. The new engineer will need to assess the existing design to determine just how to implement the actual required change.

This can be frustrating to the company paying off the bill as they can feel cheated to pay nearly the cost of a completely new PCB when they would like to modify their pre-existing PCB, the way around this is to plan ahead when you are designing PCB from scratch and work with a firm that will help you get this done.

Let's consider the illustration of a PCB that in addition to power and a power on light, contains 2 inputs and 2 outputs. It is possibly, if not likely, that additional features are desired for the next iteration of the product, let's say 4 inputs and 3 outputs including a display. The details with this desired iteration are usually not to the forefront however it is logical that the next iteration would benefit from this, sometime in the near future (this is often even years down the road).

Remember, there exists a fixed cost to the solder mask and the engineering time. The added expense of engineering the future desired features is negligible in comparison to the cost of designing over completely from scratch. Just because there exists circuitry on your PCB does not mean you need to populate it when you've got boards made. You possibly can in essence manufactur a board that has two revisions.

While it is true in the end you have to make modifications to the software affecting your microcontroller, this will be easier and less expensive than revising the entire board; this can be particularly so prepare easy to understand and detailed notes on the board and a copy of the software with notes to where you want to modify it.

When you find yourself desiring to have PCB designed and built, look for a firm that can assist you get through these issues. Use their expertise to determine what exactly is reasonable to decide for and what's not. Generally if the firm you are using the services of does not prefer to help you with this; hunt for an alternative one that does.

As for my past experience of services such as gerber making, pcb design customizing, fabrication i.e. prototyping, troubleshooting, redesigning, manufacturing and upto the minute detailed communication between the company and customer I would recommend Rush PCB; their staff is very attentive and looks into the details of each and every assignment whether it be for PCB Design or PCB Faricating or Manufacturing. Their userfriendly website even offered me a new customer discount, gave me a quote right then and there on the website which is very efficient as well as time saving. If you really want to have a PCB designed or fabricated I would really recommend that you try out their services at: http://www.rushpcb.co.uk/