Hi,
I want to have 2 boards but to keep a low budget, I want to embed one board into another
so far, I used board cuts lines… but is it the way to go ?
I mean, if I send the design to a manufacturer, are they gonna choose the right drill bit size ?
would there be some extra cost in the end ?
thanks for your inputs
They can probably route it, but the bridges between two slots or slot and edge may be too narrow.
Some cheap manufacturers explicitly tell they charge for two boards if they find that. Some customers cheat by adding extra tracks between pins of different boards, and because the manufacturer can’t know what they are for, they have to handle them as one board. You have to decide by yourself if your conscience allows it. Or you can just try your luck with two obvious boards and see if they really charge extra. They don’t necessarily do it, especially when your smaller board wouldn’t give them any benefit for panelizing. It already uses the space economically.
I’ve done this many times prior to machining my PCB’s. So, it was decades ago but, most fab houses do it - just need to verify with them re specifics requirements (they may have some…).
Yes, use the Edge-Cuts layer.
Aside from obvious need for details in a Purchase Order, a Sketch/Drawing is recommended to avoid mistakes.
Can be as simple as this (though, presented to you for the post, is crude)…
Example Requirements from JLPCB…
thanks, I’ll 2mm them and add comments
so I send such an image to the manufacturer or should it be on the PCB itself ?
also does that requirement only concern routing ?
https://jlcpcb.com/ is not expensive IMO, postage and handling may cost more. Their technical support is good too, if you have questions.
I dug into my paper archive and grabbed a simple PCB drawing (for a catheter interface I have patent on so, no legal problem posting it).
You can provide minimal info to very detailed… Generally, a PCB fab house, such as JLPCB/etc has enough Quality Control/Assurance. etc, etc, etc. Such that, other than specific’s, such as detailing these cutouts/etc, they prefer minimal confusion and need for back/forth emails…
Attached shows how I did PCB’s 30 yrs ago… and, because I make my PCB’s for past 25 yrs, I don’t know what the current-day geeks do… you’re on your own!
ADDED: You can ‘Plot’ a b&w PDF drawing with/without comments. Then, Edit it in desktop app (such as Libre Office) to add comments, dimensions, etc… (stuff you might not want to add with Kicad’s PCB “Text” tool…
wow thank you so much dude
as I live in europe, I’ll maybe outsource the manufacturing closer, I believe Altair is a german company providing such services, I’ll check with them their requirements
Note 3 on the schematic reminded me of another recent thread about ‘mils’ and ‘thou’. I wanted to make a joke about metric prefixes on imperial units (Megapint anyone?), but I never saw μin (micro-inches) used before.
More importantly, was it used correctly?
A milli-inch would be a mil, so a micro-inch is 0.001 mil. Did you really (intend to) specify 200 μin = 0.2 mil (or about 5 μm) plating? Same goes for 50 μin = 1.25 μm? Seems thin to me, but what do I know - I didn’t make up the specs 
Edit: nah seems fine for plating thickness, the sub-mil figures threw me off.
Yes, it’s correct (re; your edit). So long ago…
I am finaly going for JLCPCB
but I am not sure my breakout board will be cut correctly
it looks green instead of white
while I definitely used edge cuts
anyone ???
I would suggest to order two separate boards. The cost of shipping likely exceeds the cost of having that small board as a separate PCB on the same order.
I’d rather draw a line on the silk layer
are they really gonna make me pay extra for this ? I’d still have to pay for shipping
Have you searched their support site. They give pretty explicit instructions for panelizing. PCB Panelization - JLCPCB: Help & Support
I dont understand, they talk about V-cut/V-Groove, yet, how do I setup this in Kicad ?
and of course kicad is f…ing up the whole thing if there are edge cuts inside the board outline
You can’t use V-cuts to get a embedded board like you depict anyway. The cuts have to be straight and edge to edge.
ok so I am screwed
f@#k sake
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