Techniques
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Contents
Printed circuit board fabrication
Homebrew
- Toner Transfer -- This method involves laser printing your PCB design onto paper, then transferring toner onto copper-clad board.
- Photoetching -- Exposure of PCB designs onto photosensitized copper-clad board.
- Chemical Etchants
Commercial PCB fabrication
- Submitting PCB's for fabrication -- Common processes for submitting PCB's for fabrication.
- PCB Manufacturers
Circuit construction (non PCB)
Soldering techniques
- Basic soldering -- How to use a soldering iron.
- Surface Mount
- Rework -- Techniques for fixing mistakes.
software design tools
Some people still build circuits without ever using any software tools. For complicated circuits, software design tools can save a lot of time.
schematic capture, simulation, PCB layout.
In no particular order:
- gEDA http://geda.seul.org/ ; gEDA wiki -- free version; open source
- McCAD http://mccad.com/ -- free demo version available for download; a (different?) free demo version comes with the book "Apple I Replica Creation" <tangent>(any useful tips in this book for those who want to build a CPU from scratch ?)</tangent>
- Protel DXP http://altium.com/ ; independent Protel users FAQ
- Eagle http://cadsoftusa.com/ ; http://cadsoft.de/ ; Eagle tutorial from Sparkfun ; another Eagle tutorial -- free demo version available
(Should I make a huge grid here, with checkmarks for "runs on Mac", "runs under Linux", "open source", "includes autorouter", etc. ?)