Re: gEDA-user: Anybody ever had a board assembled (pick and place)?

[Steve Wiseman <sjwiseman@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 01/08/2011, yamazakir2 <yamazakir2@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Still looking for suggestions for assembly besides 4pcb.

Do you really have to have it done externally? I gave up, and do it
in-house, mostly to avoid the pain that is kitting, exporting data,
waiting and hoping.

Cheapest:
Plastic solder paste stencils are cheap and good enough for small
runs. No need for a luxurious printer, just tape the stencil to the
board, and apply solder paste with the edge of a plastic card.
Hand place the components
Reflow it in a toaster oven.
Total investment probably less than £150, and some time.

My approach:
£40 for a stainless stencil (per job)
pick & place on a £3000 machine from ebay
http://search.ebay.co.uk/170659568094
manual stencil printer, and batch oven off ebay.

Manual placement machines exist, and are far faster than tweezers.
They're expensive, though, normally about £1000 on ebay, since they're
so useful.

Quite soon, I'll be needing to use gEDA to generate pick & place
files. Will report back :)
(centroid-based is sort of OK, but other packages also generate
synthetic centroids, based on the extents of copper pads - this
rescues things when library parts are done with pin 1 centred, or some
other seemingly sensible scheme...)


Steve


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