How to Get Professionally Printed Circuit Boards Cheap

Get your boards printed by a pro-service for a longer-lasting,
better-looking project.

Let's say you have a problem that can be solved with some
electronics and maybe even a microcontroller. You gather up
your parts and prove the idea on a breadboard, a sort of
blank canvas for prototyping projects. Then what? A common
solution is to solder everything to a blank perforated
circuit board, but that still leaves you with a fragile mess
of wires that looks like a disaster and takes a long time to
assemble. The better idea: get a circuit board professionally
printed. Too spendy? Think again. I've had about 10 different
boards printed for all sorts of projects ranging from
a trampoline that shoots fireballs to much less complicated
boards that spells text on my bicycle wheels. These circuits
are still working great fours years later and didn't break my
wallet. Follow the jump to see my tips for getting
professional boards without breaking your wallet.

To get the most bang for your buck on a pro-printing job, you
have to first ask: How much can you do without? Do you need
a legend (aka silkscreen)—the printed part names on the
circuit board? If you designed the circuit and will be the
only person building it, you can probably skip the legend.
How about a solder mask? This is simply a thin, resistive
coating that prevents bridging between areas of the board
that are to be soldered. If you don't need either one, why
pay for them? That's why I love Barebones PCB, a minimalist
board shop that makes 2-layer boards with plated-through
via's for less than any other place I've found online.
(If you've found a better deal, please let me know in the
comments!)

Barebones has a simple Web site that prompts you for three
basic questions. Answer these and you get a unit price.

Quantity ?
Y_Dimension ?
X_Dimension ?

I punched in quantity: 2 y=2" and x=3" and got a price of
$23.70. So much for my good deal talk, right? But when I
changed the quantity to 20, the price drops to $4.80 a board.
So for any projects you intend to make more than once, you
can save yourself a ton of money and the headaches of
hand-drilling boards or messing with breadboards.

The first circuit boards I had printed were all based on
persistence-of-vision projects. A microcontroller would blink
specific LEDs at 30Hz, creating an effect that looked like
text when the lights were moving. This is a fun beginner
project and each of my boards worked. I sent these boards
out for printing for two reasons:

1. I was getting into surface mount parts, which make home
etching and perf boarding even less appealing.

2. These boards were going onto bicycle wheels, so I didn't
want to have them falling apart or dropping off the wheel as
I rode through the streets.

Here are the basic steps to go from idea to pro-printed board:
Step 1: Design a schematic (most DIY folks use Eagle software,
I use gschem)
Step 2: Design a circuit board (most DIY folks use Eagle
software, I use PCB)
Step 3: Export the gerbers (circuit board formatted files)
Step 4: Upload gerbers to barebonesPCB as a zip file
Step 5: Wait five business days for boards to arrive
Step 6: Stuff (assemble) boards and enjoy

Oh, and should you decide that it is time for a more
professional circuit board complete with legend and
soldermask you can still go through Advanced Circuits.
The cost of the original barebones order will be discounted
from your final run of professional boards.