For a while, I would been contemplating making an computerized lighting fixture, the place an LED comes on when it is darkish. To lastly accomplish this, my “Transistor Evening Mild” PCB measures mild ranges with a light-dependent resistor (LDR), activating an LED through a transistor when it is sufficiently darkish. This provides mild solely when it’s wanted, permitting its CR2032 battery (held by the PCB itself) to energy it for weeks, possibly even months.
It is a neat design, however except you have been dwelling underneath a rock for the previous couple of months, you understand that there are new U.S. tariffs on items made internationally, particularly from China. This impacts – amongst different issues – quick-turn PCB manufacturing, making prototyping costlier, even for us mere makers.
However possibly prototyping would not must be costlier. Spurred on by tariff and delivery prices, I turned to home provider OSH Park for this job. They produced three high-quality PCBs at a quite staggering 85% pricefinancial savings (?) versus my potential order utilizing a Chinese language provider.
After all, there are some necessary caveats to this large price financial savings. First, my OSHPark order was for 3 PCBs versus the quoted 20 from China. Second, it took longer to obtain the PCBs from the fab than (mockingly) it might have from midway all over the world. Extra particulars are outlined in my full writeup, however the TL;DR model is: store round and think about the financial and different prices earlier than you make a PCB buy.
When all is claimed and finished, I acquired a trio of very good PCBs from OSHPark, roughly three weeks after my order. After all, now that I’ve one working I’m contemplating promoting them as solder kits… 20 items and faster supply would not sound so unhealthy. As with most engineering and enterprise choices, it is all about tradeoffs!
