I’m trying to save space as this board is quite big; currently, it’s 110x137 mm.
My question is: Can I place other components onto the Arduino footprint? When I try to do this, even if the Arduino is on the other side, it shows in red, and I sense that I cannot do this. My plan is to mount the Arduino with pin headers like this one: sparkfun 9279
Another thing is, I am thinking of using PCBWay to assemble some SMD components. I have never tried it before, so if someone can shed some light on the process: Is it reliable, and can I trust that they will use the parts that I want? It’s just a TPL7404 driver and some resistors and capacitors. How much more do they charge for the parts? If my calculations are correct, the parts will cost around $10 on mouser, so what am I expecting to pay other than the assembly, PCB cost and shipment?
You will be able to use all that space under the arduino module (height permitting). Currently it has a big pink courtyard around it saying “stay out.” But you just need to tweak the footprint to have just the sip sockets and then the area is available. Kinda like this: https://forum.kicad.info/t/advise-one-choosing-components/51516/6
You don’t need stackable sockets (just short-pin sockets), unless you want the long pins available to connect patch cables, logic analyzer…
I have used pcbway for bare boards, but not assembly. I have mostly moved to jlcpcb as prices are better and I have done assembly there with perfect results. You need to find their part numbers from their available inventory (which is huge). Parts cost is generally cheaper than mouser, though you have to pay assembly costs and dhl shipping. Still good pricing overall. Specialized parts (adc…) are not always available so I usually manually finish the boards, but having almost all of the passives and garden-variety parts assembled saves me oodles of time. You can get an immediate online quote, but you need all of the docs available first – gerbers (directly from kicad), and placement file and bom (in JLC’s format). I presume pcbway is similar.
You need to pose the second question to the PCB+assembly house, you can’t predict costs from Internet shopping. I’ve read though that if importing parts into CN is involved you could be up for red tape and more costs, so it’s best to choose from the suppliers in that country.
Well here is a cost example. I just had qty 15 of these done at jlcpcb – 4-layer board, 125x145mm, fancy edge rout, tooling rails, plus assembly of most parts for about $16 each (board-plus-assembly) or about $20 each including dhl shipping. They assembled 83 caps, 93 resistors, 14 ferrite beads, 4 leds, 1 diode, 2 LDOs, 1 boost, 1 inductor, 2 analog switches, 1 micro, 1 crystal, 1 sd-card socket.
@teletypeguy has explained the “correct” method. I simply put the sip headers in as connectors.
BTW Pololu has low profile sockets that will save space, there may be a shorter pins to match I don’t know. These low profile work fine but don’t have the physical holding power of the standard height versions.
Incidentally I have no problems putting things like resistors on obverse side of DIP ICs on two layer boards when space is tight.so the Arduino footprint must have been constructed too stringently. Compare the courtyards of the footprints.
I started with pcbway back in the day and now only use jlcpcb which has better pricing.
Every time I look at using their SMD assembly I talk myself out of it. It’s cheap enough for standard parts but it can start getting ‘expensive’ when using extended parts where they charge you extra for inserting the parts into the machine. (Not sure if pcbway do a similar thing)
In the end I’ve just started doing all the smd soldering myself. In the beginning I was wary but now it’s as fast as soldering through hole components. It’s not as hard as you think. 0805 and 0603 are very easy.
Did some 0402 the other day and would not like to do those again in a hurry.
As a hobbyist guess it all comes down to your time vs money when considering to use self assembly.
This is a good video on the process for setting up the parts on KiCad for JLCPCB. (Process should be similar for pcbway)
It’s for the previous version of KiCad but process is still more or less the same.
