The PCBs for the StarSensor have arrived!
False Start
Last year I made a Kremzeek! SAO (very small run, just 5 boards) and used a board house called PCBX. I went with them because they allowed for unusual combinations of Silkscreen and soldermask. The big houses (JLCPCB and PCBWay) won’t put black silkscreen on a yellow soldermask – for instance.
I submitted this board to PCBX and then didn’t hear back. For weeks. Maybe I just never got the email, but I couldn’t find it. After asking a couple of times they got back to me saying that the quoted price was wrong. It was going to cost $97, up from about $10. I had selected Immersion Tin as the finish, thinking that it would give a more matte look on the silver parts of the StarSensor. When I asked about switching it to the Lead-free HASL (my default) the price went down to $42. Still way too much for the project.
Asking some folks in the excellent BadgeMakers discord, I was pointed to PCBBUY. I ordered from them for what I consider to be a reasonable price. Their estimate for Immersion Tin was also high, so I ended up going with Lead-free HASL.
In hand
A couple of things to note about these in hand:
The footprints are tiny. I knew I was working with a small chip, but I don’t think I’d ever really looked at it lifesize. I’m not planning on hand-soldering these, but I’m a little anxious about it. I’ve had mixed success with reflowing QFN chips.
Waiting on parts
I ordered the boards before I ordered the parts for the boards. Whoops! I’m patiently awaiting the arrival of the parts – Poor timing as well as the first week in October is China’s national holiday, and a lot of companies are taking the time off.