MikeThere's no way I'm going to be able to hand solder 96 tiny SMD components.
This is a direct quote from my brain.
I watch enough YouTube to know that there are a handful of PCB houses on the planet that want my business and are willing to accept my first attempt at PCB design and dutifully execute the details of my Gerber Baby files, pick and place spreadsheet and BOM. Terrifying.
The boards should arrive tomorrow and I'm very excited about it. Just holding a PCB (let alone a stack of them) that I designed is going to be a thrill. I haven't made a PCB since high school.
That being said, I will be astonished if this project works on the first try. Yes, I checked and double checked my connections and whatnot. I did (sort of) prototype the circuitry on a breadboard. But, I fully expect something to be terribly wrong and that debugging will take a while.
I'll be sure to keep you posted.
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So you still have THT components on your board like the photo in the gallery? Is the PCBA house going to populate those for you or are you going to do them yourself? Why not use the SMD versions and get those assembled too?
Are you sure? yes | no
It's a good point you make. My (probably flawed) thinking is that since this is my first time at the PCBA rodeo, I'm likely to screw something up and debugging the board will be easier with THT components. The LEDs however seemed easy enough to get right. Once I get the prototype assembled and working, I'll refactor the whole thing to be SMD, modular and extensible.
Are you sure? yes | no