How to make (almost) anything

by Gabriella Gardosi (Gaia Gaoi)


Electronics Production

How to Make One's own Printed Circuit Board

Making a Tiny-Weeny circuit board of my own!

Printed Circuit Boards (PCB) are good for prototyping and are more environmentally friendly than Chemically Etched Circuit Boards. The alternative chemically etched circuit board are better for making larger quantities by sending off .png files to a local board house (they deal with the nasty chemicals) such as Euro circuits .

This week I am going to make my very own Fab ISP , which later I will go on to program!


Techniques I will use:

  • Milling
  • Soldering

I. Milling a PCB- I will need:

  • One PCB template trace- I use Fab ISP Valentin , which can plug directly into the USB port
  • One Milling Machine with drill bits 1/64 for the trace and 1/32 for the cut- I will use Roland Modela
  • FR1 Circuit Board- copper sheets laminated onto a non-conductive substrate
  • Double-sided tape

The vinyl board will be milled, according to the circuit template I downloaded. I will use Fab Modules to convert the .png template to a .rml files for the milling machine. I will use double-sided tape to fix the board down so that it will not move during milling.

Using Fab Modules for Milling:

Tracing out the PCB using Fab Modules and Milling Machine

First do an outline trace of what will be milled.

N.B. If it cuts the board (instead of tracing) there is a problem!

Next repeat steps 6 to 11, for the circuit board trace. I had to repeat the circuit trace because the first time the drill began to miss the board. Second time everything was milled correctly.

PCB Milling- 2nd trace with success

Then to cut the board, change drillbit to 1/32 (again with drillbit up and to the front- V. IMPORTANT!)

Cutting out the board using Fab Modules and Milling Machine

II. Soldering/Stuffing a PCB- I will need:

  • Tweezers
  • Solder iron and solder
  • Good lighting
  • Double-sided tape
Soldering Set-Up with hand-drawn circuit board and with components listed and stuck to paper

Someone once told me you cannot truly understand something until you draw it! I find this to be true so I drew out my circuit board template.

Hand-drawn circuit board in preparation for making

I also recommend to print out a list of components and as they are so tiny... stick them with double-sided tape to the paper, so as not lose or confuse them.
I use double-sided tape to fix the board down while soldering. I found soldering fun, I first did the small components then the larger ones.

Components for soldering include:

  • Resistors- 10K Ohm (marked as 103 on resistor i.e. 10 and 10 to the power of 3), 1K Ohm, 499 Ohm (4990), two x 100 Ohm (1000), and two x 0 Ohm.
  • Capacitors- 0.1 UF and two x 18 PF
  • Diodes- Zener 3.3 V Orientation Important!
  • One Crystal Oscillator- 20 MHZ
  • One micro controller- AVR 4K Orientation Important!
  • One Bergstik Header Connector for Ribbon tape- 2 x 3 Pins

After soldering the board, I encountered a short circuit problem between my micro controller and crystal oscillator. So I used a small knife to pick off the solder that caused the problem.

Final Stuffed PCB

Programming a PCB- I will need:

  • Ribbon Tape with 6 wires
  • Two USB to TTL cable
  • USB to TTL cable

ribbon tape: