Overview of Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs)

August 5, 2025 ยท View on GitHub

The PCB designs presented in this project are intended to make your life easier. PCBs have the potential to be cheaper than manufacturing with punched boards and eliminate a lot of soldering work. Optionally, manual assembly of components can also be eliminated, but is more costly.

There are a number of companies that provide this service online, both locally and globally. All you have to do is upload some files, pay and wait for the postman. To name some:

PCB shopper provides a price comparison among several online services.

A minimum order is required, which is usually five units. Optionally, you can order component assembly and soldering service, but please note the following:

  • The cost of the components is significantly higher than that of the PCB itself and is multiplied by the minimum order.

  • Surface-mount components are not suitable for mounting with household tools. You will need to order assembly on designs that include these components. Their advantage lies in smaller board sizes.

  • The designs include components that may not be available from your chosen supplier, so you will have to do the work of substituting one for another.

To keep costs down, this project incorporates designs featuring through-hole components, eliminating the need for assembly services. You can obtain the components from a local supplier or buy them online. Then all you have to do is solder them to the printed circuit board yourself.

License

All PCB designs in this project are open source hardware adhered to the CERN Open Hardware License Version 2 - Permissive

Constraints

Each supplier of printed circuit boards imposes design rules that depend on its manufacturing technology. The designs included in this project are based on the JLC PCB manufacturing capabilities. If your supplier does not accept them, you will need to edit the designs, adjust the constraints and redesign the traces.

JLC manufacturing and assembly services

EasyEDA PRO is the main design tool for these PCBs. This tool is associated to the JLC PCB factory. You can upload the project files (.epro) provided here to EasyEDA PRO, then directly place an order to their manufacturing services from this tool.

If you require assembly services from JLC, take into account that the minimum PCB order is 5 units, but you can choose the mounting of only two boards, thus saving some money.

Non-profit

The author of this project does not sell or market these boards. Nor does he receive commissions for manufacturing orders.

Disclaimer

When you order the manufacture of a board, you are not purchasing a product with guarantees and certifications. Board manufactured in this way are for personal use only. Their sale may be illegal depending on your local legislation.