VIA' in home pcb work

for a while now I have been doing double sided layouts and single sided
boards - with the component traces tracked with jumper wire.

I am now trying to do a TRUE double sided board and I wondered how you
folks handled vias?

I am thinking I should follow the same approach except that I would run
the wire through the hold and simply solder both ends?. Actually I bend
the wire and solder it to the trace at both ends.

Messy but it seems to hold for now.
Vias for signal traces are about 16mil in diameter. I drill the hole
with a 17.7mil drill bit. I am thinking I should look for "thicker"
jumper wire (instead of the 26awg) to stuff through the hole such that
it holds and I can snip off both ends and solder it cleanly without
having the bend it unto the trace

Any of my gibberish making sense? Maybe Ill post a link to a picture later

 

I sometimes use a PCB milling machine to manufacture low volume, quick
turn around prototypes. When I need to make double sided boards, I try
and keep as many of the traces as possible on the bottom of the board,
and use eyelets, soldered on both sides of the board, to make the top
side interconnections. Vector and Keystone sell the eyelets, and tools
to swage them into the board.

Usually, I just send my artwork out and have the boards made. The quick
turn around PCB market is extremely hungry and competitive.

-Chuck

 

Usually, I just send my artwork out and have the boards made. The quick

Thanks Chuck.
Can you recommend some manufacturers? Alas it would rob me of the job of
both designing and building (1 out of 2 is enough?).

I heard of a PCB house in Romania. Ideally Id like to start with
reasonable PCB houses in the good old USA, if the difference between
prices doesnt exceed $20

Thanks again

 

Bulgaria

Ideally Id like to start with

It will.

Olimex, in Bulgaria, makes crude, but good enough double sided, plated
through, boards with silkscreen, and solder mask for $33 for a 6"x9"
board. It costs about $10 to ship them home. They will put as many
boards as you can fit on that panel, and depanelize them for free.

-Chuck

 

That's what lots of people do, yes.

 

As Chuck said, handing this off to a fab house
should be considered. The relative economics
are debated in these groups on a regular basis.
http://groups.google.com/group/comp...arebonespcb+Shanghai+PCBex+*-quality+futurlec

If you use an autorouter, learn about keepout.

If you still feel compelled to DIY:
http://www.google.com/search?q=PCB+copperset

 

That's the way we used to do it before we counted the time we took into
the cost of the PCB. Still useful for hobby purposes, but if you have
the cash and better things to do with your time, the cheap prototype
houses (e.g. PCB Pool or Newbury Electronics in the UK) are the way to
go. Between about 1985 and 2000, we swallowed hard and got a batch made,
then if it wasn't TOO bad, added the little wiggly wires to make it work
before sending it out.

Paul Burke

 

A long time ago, prior to discover that it's easy and no so expensive to
order PTH boards on the net, I used to etch my double-side PCBs at home too.
For the vias I used the following method that could be helpful to others :

- drill the holes with the smaller diameter you can
- put the pcb on a rigid foam, like the antistatic foam used to store DIL
chips. This is the trick...
- using a small unisolated wire (like wrapping-style wire), put the wire in
each via hole of the pcb, plug it in the foam, and cut it 5mm above the PCB.
That way the wire is kept in place... Do it for all vias and leave the small
wires vertical
- Then solder each via on this side (but don't cut the wires...)
- Then remove the PCB from the foam, reverse it and plus it back on the
foam. That way the wires are now kept in place by the foam, soldered face
down, this will help in the next phase...
- then solder the vias on the second face, as quickly as possible in older
to limit the flowing of the solder on the bottom face
- Then remove the foam and cut all via wires on both faces.

Quite long to explain (especially for a non-english native like me) but
quite efficient.

Cheers,
Robert
www.alciom.com