💬 Easy/Newbie PCB for MySensors

[sundberg84]

@johmei - thank you for your feedback! :)

[maghac]

Agree, very easy to start using. Upgraded one of my old "cable spaghetti" temperature sensor nodes to this board, looks much neater now, and actually fits a lot better in the box too.

I soldered the arduino and the radio directly on the board, but then I realized that maybe it would be better to use female headers so I can replace them if I wanted. How are people generally using the boards?

[sundberg84]

@maghac - I do both and it depends on cases and where i put it.
Sometimes there just isnt enough room for headers but I try to make it as modular as possible... most important is the radio for me so I can easy swap and test if something goes wrong.

I have a couple of test nodes (running time sketch for example) which is ONLY modular where I try out my hardware before soldering them as well.

[maghac]

@sundberg84 Makes sense. I spent a few hours troubleshooting my node and the problem turned out to be the DS18B20 sensor (actually, I had 3 bad ones, so I guess I had a bad batch), having a test board would have saved me some headache :)

I'm using the 100x65x35 mm plastic boxes linked in the store, I'll check if there is enough room for headers too.

[Nca78]

I made one with headers everywhere, I use it to test the parts (pro mini, radio, sensors), upload the sketch etc.
Then when everything looks fine I solder the components on a new board to save space.

I had a case once with a pro mini that had a pin from the atmega chip not connected to the pro mini header hole (faulty or broken track I suppose), and realized it only after the pro mini was soldered to the PCB. Now I'm more careful :)

[sundberg84]

@Nca78 - I had the exact same experience with a analog pin broken on the atmega chip. I tried to desolder it but it was broken inside the chip i think.

[nitroburn]

I used pcbway, was very fast with no taxes or fees via EMS unlike DHL. 3 Days from shipping notice to my door with additional 3 days to have the boards made. I had 3 different board designs made. 30 of this one, and 50 of jModules 1 & 2 EACH (oops). I submitted jModule 1 & 2 together as part of one order, with both boards in 2 zips inside 1 main zip and specified there were 2 boards and they combined them and then cut each individually resulting in 100pcs which is a ton as I expected 25 and 25. I only specified the dimensions of each board in the notes and said there were 2 sizes and 2 designs. Cost was:
$25 for 30pcs of this board specs: "48.66mm * 49.86mm ,Thickness:1.6 mm, 2 Layers, Finished Copper:1 oz Cu"
and only $ 30.00 & 50 pieces (actually 100pcs once cut) specs: "34mm * 23.1mm ,Thickness:1.6 mm, 2 Layers, Finished Copper:1 oz Cu" <-- Width is doubled with both together (oviously)

If only I submitted all 3 together.

Only newbie problem was that tNames & tValues weren't printed as part of the silkscreen so I'm missing a bunch of the text including values, mysx pin layout, a bunch of stuff. tPlace was silkscreened just fine, but that is the only layer as far as silkscreening. Not the end of the world but have to either recall or look things up that weren't printed. I'll just have to make a reference card and laminate it. Problem was my fault as their suggested CAM (sfe-gerb274x), which I used after there was no drill file, doesn't include the missing layers in the Top Silkscreen GTO (just checked). I know for next time to double check the selected layers for silkscreen (and others to be safe). Live, learn and now move on to attempting my own design after learning what I want and need from the boards. Likely a middle ground between size of jModule and ease of this board with different daughterboards using MysX or custom connector.

Thanks for this great starting point! I'll be sure to donate, couldn't use openhardware as no way to combine boards or orders.

[gohan]

So it is cheaper to combine different boards and have them cut into single boards instead of ordering them on separate orders?

[nitroburn]

@gohan very much so. I didn't see a price difference between having 1 or 2 boards made with the jModules anyways because they are so small. It always is cheaper to panelize your boards which, in the case of pcbway, they will do for you. I didn't even select the panelize option. I left it on single and selected 2 designs as the option and it didn't increase cost likely due to small size. 100mm x 100mm is $5/10 boards so cram whatever you can into that size and your good. I likely could have got way more boards had I thought that through as 2 boards together was 34mm x 23.1mm. I'm not 100% sure the best route but I might have got more had I selected the panelize by pcbway option. There are going to be some sort of fees when you want to cram 5 different designs on one board.

Again, not 100% sure how it works as it will charge more if you request 50pcs over 20pcs but if you can fit more boards in that 100x100 space, it counts as 1 peice even if you end up with 6 as you're paying for a 100x100 board at $5/10pcs. Next time I'd put all the boards into one set of gerbers and lay it out myself to maximize # of boards possible. Actually, before I do that, I'd actually ask if that's what their panelization service would do anyways so am I wasting my time doing it myself, to which they would likely laugh and say, "yes, you pcb ordering newbie", but at least I'd have more boards.

I got a ton of stuff to mock up now to order all crammed together.

-edit-
excuse the poor english, phone is being a pain and some advertisement took me away from posting so I had to do it again and no time to proof read right now.

[gohan]

Do you use kikad to put together the different pcbs?

[sundberg84]

@nitroburn - thank you for input! I hope it works out for you even without values and names. Good advice with combining the boards for better price. I did so with EasyPCB + the new Easy RFM69 PCB and a secret one. I think i paid 20$ + shipping for 30 boards. (50x50, 50x50 and 25x50). I just submitted zip files and PCBWAY combined them for me.

[Nca78]

@nitroburn I always panelize by hand, because most PCB companies accept it like that. They will ask you to pay if you ask for vcut (v shaped cut between board so you can split by hand), but if you cut yourself then DirtyPCB, Seeed, PCBWay,... don't care. And if you make thickness <1mm it's very easy to cut with basic scissors.
Seeed is also 5$ for 10 100*100mm boards now, and they have no stuff like "paypal fee" and much cheaper shipment costs, at least for me.

[sundberg84]

@Nca78 - ah so thats why it was so cheap, they have gone from 10$ to 5$ for 10pcs 10x10. PCBWay as well I see now.

[nitroburn]

@sundberg84: sadly I only did it for the jModule boards but realize now I should have done it with your board as well since I could have got 4x as many for the same price. I realized after I could have got significantly more of those as well, or just have spent less. Might have had to trim a little bit from the dimensions though as I don't know about clearances using the full 100x100 without room to split the boards, but I could be wrong due to them being square Actually, after just checking pcbway's site it says, "Leave min clearance of 1.6mm between boards for break-routing. For V-score panelization, set the space between boards to be zero." so I could have got 120 boards for $25 as they are actually 48.66x49.86 per board. Or combined different boards together as I think 120 would be overkill :) I never realized how inexpensive it is compared to etching your own. It would be crazy to etch at these prices.

Thanks for the great starting point and learning experience.

@Nca78: Yeah, PCBways base price is $5 for 10 100x100 as well but they don't seem to charge for vcut (doesn't change quote) and allow 0mm spacing so no need to cut. I used EMS to ship and was here in 3 days without taxes or fees unlike DHL has every single time I use them. $15 just to collect $0.10 in tax.

[Nca78]

I never received so fast with EMS.

And I'm always dubious about the ultra positive comments on PCBWay as you never know (in fact, you know it :P ) if it's a way to get a discount for the next order via their marketing program....

I never did it because my experience with them is mixed, they have a fancy website with all process details but the PCB they sent me had really subpar silkscreen, way lower quality than any other PCB makers. And on one of my boards (not EasyPCB which was ok) I had problem with quality with a long track that peeled away when I unsoldered a component to replace it. Never had that on boards from DirtyPCB or Seeed.

[nitroburn]

@Nca78 and I've had a bunch of problems with seeed, however that wasn't related to their pcb services just their store and various bugs with the site that I had to multiple times point out to them and months later still needed to be fixed. (ie, incorrect paypal checkout flow that processes orders without a chance for final review as it should, and says will happen. Other people's PCB orders filling my cart with their gerbers and all. selling a galileo gen2 board right beside a gen1 case with no mention of incompatibility or that the case was for gen1 and at the time only the gen2 and that one case was for sale and they didn't seem to care that it was confusing, plus many other issues across just a couple orders. Seemed to be horrible customer service there.)

[Samuel235]

Everytime I panelize anything I get charged for specifying that it is panelized, even if i specify that i've done it and don't need them to do such. Do you just submit the board as a normal board but have your milling and drills such that it allows you to remove them all when you receive the product?

[Nca78]

@Samuel235 you should not specify that you have panelized your boards.
And yes I use milling for complex shapes so I just have a few straight lines to cut with scissors. I did it with DirtyPCB last time and had no problem.
Seeed explains you should just not select panelizing related options when you order and they will not care.

[maghac]

@jens-persson What's the 0.1 uF capacitor next to the battery terminals for?

[sundberg84]

@maghac - below the booster on the right side? it is an output capacitor to filter the output on the booster. There isnt any evidence this works and there are capacitors on the booster itself as well, but I found that a 0.1uF capacitor worked great on one of my nodes which was all ST=FAIL (radio transmit/ack fail) until i added this. I have found that a cheramic capacitors on the booster worked best for some reason.