Should the design be easy to get via JLCPCB (and distribution in the EU be feasible)?

[spth]

AFAIK, the design uses a lot of components from LCSC. LCSC cooperates with JLCPCB for board making and assembly.
While JLCPCB is willing to add some LCSC parts on request, however JLCPCB explicitly does not support connectors (they say connectors interfere with their approach of doing assembly before depanelization).

This makes the following option attractive:

• Have the connectors as through-hole components to make them relatively easy to hand-solder.
• Make the rest of the design orderable at JLCPCB

This has the added advantage of making it possible to sell the device as a kit in Europe: In the EU, it is practically illegal for private individuals and small companies to make electronic devices to sell or give away fro free (WEEE Directive). However, AFAIK, it is still legal to sell kits that require substantial assembly, such as soldering.

At first sight, it seems the only change required would be to use a through-hole USB connector.

[cpldcpu]

I like the idea of the trough hole usb connector. Jlcpb is not able to mount any usb connector so some solution is needed anyways. It would be a huge usb-a Plug though. No usb-c socket available in that

…

On Mon 25. May 2020 at 08:16, Philipp Klaus Krause ***@***.***> wrote: AFAIK, the design uses a lot of components from LCSC. LCSC cooperates with JLCPCB for board making and assembly. While JLCPCB is willing to add some LCSC parts on request, however JLCPCB explicitly does not support connectors (they say connectors interfere with their approach of doing assembly before depanelization). This makes the following option attractive: - Have the connectors as through-hole components to make them relatively easy to hand-solder. - Make the rest of the design orderable at JLCPCB This has the added advantage of making it possible to sell the device as a kit in Europe: In the EU, it is practically illegal for private individuals and small companies to make electronic devices to sell or give away fro free (WEEE Directive). However, AFAIK, it is still legal to sell kits that require substantial assembly, such as soldering. At first sight, it seems the only change required would be to use a through-hole USB connector. — You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#15>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AA7FVBTDVLDMVIMFZIGAOY3RTIELXANCNFSM4NJICR2A> .

[cpldcpu]

Another component that is bizarrely missing from jlcpcbs catalogue is a proper power inductor, btw.

[spth]

I have been in contact with JLCPCB, and they are willing to add LCSC surface-mount parts on request to their catalogue (their long term goal is to have them all anyway), with the exception of connectors.

[cpldcpu]

Yes, but most components will stay as "extended", which means there is an additional set up fee. It makes a lot of sense to redesign to only use "basic" components. So far that works, the only extended component is the MCU.

[spth]

I guess a set up fee is not a big deal as long as it doesn't affect too many components. Do you know how much the setup fee per part is.

[cpldcpu]

It's $3.00. Does not sound much, but consider that they will assemble a maximum of 5 boards. So each board will be $0.60 more expensive for every non-basic part that is used.

[cpldcpu]

But it's not an issue, since the "lite" design (see EEV forum) is only based on "basic" components.

[spth]

It's $3.00. Does not sound much, but consider that they will assemble a maximum of 5 boards. So each board will be $0.60 more expensive for every non-basic part that is used.

I just checked their website. It seems the limit has been raised to 50 boards. And for those wanting to go over the limit, they recommend panelizing the design (I guess they would then assemble 50 panels). Seems enough for now.

[cpldcpu]

Well, I frequently use their service and two weeks ago it was still limited to 5 for discounted orders.
Panelizing is something that would help, but easyeda does not support panelizing of the component placement. It's rather weird really. A workaround would be going to the KiCAD design.

[maartenbrock]

When the connectors are left out, there is exactly one through-hole component left: the crystal. Would it not be prudent to replace that by an SMD variant then?

[cpldcpu]

There are also the header for the programming, which is through hole.

The crystal is optional anyways, since the MCU is able to synchronize from USB.

[freepdk]

@cpldcpu

In case this needs to be identified as a board variant (which I think might not be required) it would be a good idea to connect one of the unused STM32 pins (e.g. choose one from PB8-PB15) to GND.
This would make it possible to identify this hardware variant in the firmware and to handle things different in case it's needed.

[cpldcpu]

In case this needs to be identified as a board variant

I conntected PB8 to GND in the design. I posted a changelog in the EEVblog thread.
We should probably create a list of board variants with ID codes somewhere. But I want to test the version first.