Some impressions of working with KiCad and JLCPCB
2024-01-14
For a still secret project of mine I have some electronics that need to be needly put together and quite sturdy, so using my regular perfboards wasn't an option as it always ends up looking messy and is rather fragile. After another of the omnipresent ads for one of the Chinese PCB manufacturers, I decided to just give designing and ordering such a board a chance and want to share some of my experiences with you in this article...
Like I'm used to from 3D printing, everything starts off with a digital model - this time not in a CAD, but in a so-called EDA (Electronic Design Automation) software. There are countless viable programs out there and some manufacturers even provide their own online software, which makes the whole process incredibly accessible, but I decided to go with the tried and true KiCad due to its open source nature and plenty of guides for it on YouTube and in their own documentation. Before I go any further, I should probably mention that I'm not a complete novice in terms of electronics design, but my only experience also was with the really restrictive Fritzing project and dates quite some years back - so I would still consider me a beginner in this. With that background, I was ready for a few really painful hours working my way through tutorials (which was the reason I procrastinated on it for some weeks), but this didn't really turn out to be necessary.
Once you open KiCad, you're first required so create a project folder into which all of the schematics and PCB designs alongside automatic backups are stored. From there you first have to create your schematic, which was quite a breeze for me, since I already had a working prototype on a breadboard and the interface for choosing components as well as connecting them is rather intuitive. The hardest part turned out to be adding the components which aren't already in the extensive catalogue shipped with the program, but you're likely to find these easily online for popular parts like the ESP32 D1 Mini or can create them yourself either based on some other component, from scratch or with a scan image as reference. Especially this last option really surprised me positively, since advanced features like this are usually missing in FOSS programs being only available in slow and costly proprietary software.
Overall, I spent roughly 10 hours designing my first PCB. That might sound like much, but actually is quite quick considering I had to replicate my schematic, search or design the footprints for multiple components, create the rather complicated shape of the board and last but certainly not least route all the connections with multiple vias and groundplanes on both sides. More importantly, it also wasn't a tedious process, which involved fighting with arbitrary limitations of the programs, but felt empowering and more like a creative task than anything else. I even managed to get into a real flow state at some point, which is usually something I only achieve while programming and on good days during CAD design. Rounding off this really nice experience, was the incredibly easy Gerber export for manufacturing, which only needed a few clicks and worked without hiccups.
This is a perfect transition to talk about my impressions of ordering the boards at JLCPCB. This isn't sponsored or anything, but as every sane individual does I compared a few different options including PCBWay as well as AISLER and for my specific board with the rather unusual dimensions of 70x240mm JLCPCB offered by far the cheapest price. However, in terms of the quote process all performed really well with the option to upload your zipped Gerber files, tweak some options and get an instant offer from there. Getting back to JLCPCB, I sticked with the simple 2 layer 1.6mm FR4 option, but opted for a black solder mask, since it looked really cool in the preview and turned out even better in reality - a definitive recommendation, especially as it doesn't cost anything extra. Based on how quickly you need your boards, you have the option to select priority manufacturing and express delivery, but I didn't need either and my boards arrived within just 8 days from the delivery with the regular 3-4 day build time and EuroPacket shipment - nice. The latter one is rather interesting, since JLCPCB collects orders from one country until a whole pallet is full, then delivers it to a distribution center in the destination country by plane and uses the local postal service for the last part to the customer resulting in a cheap and easy import process, which also manages to be surprisingly quick.
Obiously, I have only done a single order from them, so this is my very personal experience and nowhere near representative, but from what I could gather, I can only highly recommend giving this whole process a try yourself. As always, feel free to use a different EDA software and/or manufacturer, experiment with different options (as I certainly will in the future too) and be ready for possible disappointments. However, the industry overall has made such huge leaps forward in the last few years (just like in the 3D printing world) that designing and building your own circuit boards is easier, cheaper and more fun then ever . So, you really don't have much to lose and it will be a fun learning experience for sure. Like, share and comment if you want and we'll hear from each other next week again...