I am looking into panelizing but I was first interested in the quality and reliblity of the china options. Now I need to price things out.
IIRC there is an upcharge for panelized boards, I did not run the numbers to see if it worked out cheaper or not. On a few other sites that I did run the numbers with it came out slightly cheaper to do them individually (makes sense, it allows them to squeeze them into leftover spaces on the sheet).
I could almost fit 3x3 17mm drivers on a 50mm panel except it comes out to 51mm, I need to see what kind of clearance they need between PCB’s.
It is a flat price up to 50mm for a single PCB but most places charge an extra fee for penalized design unless you don’t have them cut it out. Since cutting out circles myself is not something I care to do, I would need to pay the fee.
What I have not figured out is if paying the fee with a panel works out cheaper then just buying the drivers individually.
So, basically, they charge extra for “internal” drills and mills in your PCB design? That’s still not making sense to me. But, then again, they’re not in business to make sense, but dollars!
Edit: Maybe I just don’t know what “panelized” means? I figured you’d just make a “single” PCB design, which included internal drills and mills to make the individual drivers separable.
If you look at most PCB supply houses they ask you when submitting your design if it is a single board or a panelized deign. They then have a fee for the panelized designs.
You can have them make up as many as you want without the fee but they wil not cut them apart for you and if they catch you trying to use a bunch of drill holes to “cut them” they will charge you the fee.
I just ran a quick example PCB and it is slightly cheaper for driver ro run them as a panel BUT you have to order 90+ of them at a time. Like I said, still got to run some numbers and pick between the 2 I narrowed it down to.
I can say they are mostly for larger 30mm+ drivers though.
Well, I guess chalk one more up for OSH Park! They “Fully Support” internal drill hits and milled slots/cutouts. I searched in Google to find out what “panelized PCB” means. I think you could get by with it if you just call it out as drills and mills. You certainly can with OSH Park. Also, it seems that Seeedstudio Fusion supports panelization directly with up to 5 different board designs per panel. I don’t know how they compare on price.
Yeah, those are some of the options I have to consider, sadly everyone has thir own rules which is why I narrowed it down by quality first and price/rules second. I hope to spend some more time looking at it in the coming weeks. Real busy right now and don’t have time to really dive into it.
Ok, but will they pick up the pieces from those drill hits or just the one board left over? I bet if you order 3 pieces, 3 pieces is all you get. I don't know how these things work in detail, but could imagine if you did try to just run it as automated mill outs like you would a slot, that the whole board would fall apart before the job finished and it wouldn't actually even work. So maybe there really is some attention required for separation.
I just played around with Seeedstudio’s online instant quote system. Lots of options, which all cost extra, of course. But, you could get a 10cm x 10cm panel with blue soldermask and 2oz copper (on 1.6mm FR4 substrate) with ENIG (which is standard for OSH Park, but costs extra here) for just a bit over $100USD for 10 copies. I think you could get 28x 17mm drivers on that panel, if you stacked them in alternating pattern instead of straight down in a line. That turns out to be $0.36 per board! To do the same panel in OSH Park, it would be their standard purple, and either 1.6mm 1oz OR 0.8mm 2oz and would cost$77.50 per panel for three copies, or ~$0.92 per board. With the smaller 5cm x 5cm panels, and a clever mix of board sizes, with a higher price per board, but lower total cost, you get the best of everything (blue soldermask, 1.6mm substrate, 2oz copper).
Have you ever looked closely at a circular driver board? They are always panelized! Even the boards from OSH Park show evidence of being panelized. How is it done? They cut most of the way around the board(s) with a milled cutout, leaving it attached at either two or four points. Those points are “perforated” with drill hits, so that they can be broken (or cut) apart easily. If you had four circles arranged in a “square”, there would be a “concave” diamond shape in the middle of them that can be completely removed with a cutout by the milling machine. At the edge(s) where the circles meet, a few drill hits are all you need. They would stay together throughout the fabrication processes, but they’d be easy enough to take apart once you have them in your hand.
David the point is that fabs know when you have “panelized” multiple boards into one, and many of them charge you more for it.
It may be because they can’t fit as many on a panel that way vs if they fit them in themselves, or it might be because it’s more work for them somehow, or they might just like to charge more money.
In bulk you can get them cheaper for sure but that still requires an up front investment of $100 + all the components to build said drivers and most importantly the time to do that.
I am still in the very early stages of considering a production run, I do know that building them by hand is not an option for what I consider a production run, at most it would be small batches here and there as I had time.
For a real production run I would have the drivers assembled as well which knocks the price out the door up to $800-1000+ which I do not remotely have at this point and that would be for only single size.
Like I said, I plan to run the numbers and peruse a few options to see what is feasible. First the firmware needs to be finished though, still waiting on TK for that.
Right now I am mostly looking at making a “sample” order from one or 2 china places in order to see how they compare to oshpark.
Is it somehow possible to use an NTC thermistor for direct MCPCB temp reading? Wouldn't that make the thermal regulation more accurate and more responsive?
Sorry if it's already been discussed in this thread. I know I've read of someone kicking this idea around before. So what happened? Seems like a good thing to have.
If it was worked into the firmware you could indeed do that using the R1/R2 pads as connection points after switch to internal reference.
Although honestly I have no issues or complaints with the internal temp sensor on the tiny25’s. They are more then accurate enough for me. I mean my hand can’t tell the difference between 125f and 135f anyways. It is a lot simpler and easier to do that as well. People underestimate how well a copper pour and thick traces transfer heat.
I just build a TA17 for a Solarstorm SC02. Added the small switch board from the original driver on the side next to the FET.
I am still using a 13A and flashed the e-switch firmware I am using for the tripledown driver.
Everything working as expected, thanks for the nice design!
Funny, I started today on doing pretty much the same exact mod on a Manker U11, but I had to sand and file down the outer edges of a TA22 to fit into notches in the pill, then stripped down the vertical switch board because the backside was loaded with parts and the MCU. In the U11, the switch board extends below the driver board, so I sanded down an edge of the 22mm TA to flat so the switch board will go flush against it -- the sanding/filing is all done - things look like they fit perfect. The TA22 is great for a mod like this because it has a lot of spare space on the outer edges. I think I can still fit all the 7135's on the bottom as well. I'll probably use a brass post instead of a spring on the driver to ensure clearance for the 7135's.
Did you have to attach the switch board up to the driver? Soldered or glue/epoxy? I want to do something, maybe epoxy - doesn't have to be strong because shouldn't be pressure there on the bonding, and the connections to the switch and switch LED's will be via separate wires.
Yes, I had to file one side flush to the FET to get space. Then soldered the switch board to the ground ring to get the electrical path but this also holds the switch board in place. Then added a small amount of super glue.
