Blank Plank prototyping board

Can’t stop picking at it…

White silk on the blank bits for labeling the project and revision.

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You have these nice “VOUT” markers on the top side to explain the outer vout-ring. Maybe add some similar “GND” markers to bottom?

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Could you check this spot? It looks odd to me, but could be a screenshot artifact or something.
75c186454985ce44627b911afbba4a2ccf442733

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  • Replaced missing pattern
  • Removed 1206 R and D, like the placement a lot better now.

  • Added pin labels to the bottom
  • Added GND labeling indicating the outer ring of the via.
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Glad to see the attribution link. :slight_smile:

On the top, the VOUT label is clearly referring to the broad trace.

I’ve read through and became familiar with the neat idea of the dual-rings to simplify connections to GND. Even so, my first look at the GND labels on the bottom made me wonder if only that right column was fixedly routed to GND. This is even though I previously read about electronic_eel’s design on his github site.

Perhaps an additional grid of removed soldermask between the rings, or silkscreen grid to show all the outer rings connected, to make it more obvious that all the outer rings are connected to GND?

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Sending this off now. Will make ~20 and put them in the (new) shop for a marginal cost (can we do free coupons?) if you’d like to try.

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Another idea to make the layout more obvious would be to use transparent soldermask (“After dark”) on the pcb, so the layout of the copper is clearly visible.

But I guess this is bit more expensive than the barebones 2 layer protoboard from the dirty fab. Don’t know if this is worth it.

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Totally possible. We have to provide our own bucket of clear mask epoxy and activator, and it has to be used all in a single batch, so I like to do that when we can do 1000+ PCBs at once.

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ouch, 1000 pcs. is quite a bit more than I have expected. I thought custom colors have become more common in the last years and “After dark” being one of the more popular options. But I guess not at the cheap dirty fab.

Sticking to the default colors is fine by me.

It not a big issue. I only intended to say that we can go clear after we’re happy with the initial prototypes. I have no problem making 1000 boards after prototyping.

We intend to do a big batch of clear panels for all the planks at once. The SZ office has been so busy keeping up the current manufacturing and shipping that I haven’t pushed for that yet.

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I’m definitely interested in some of these.

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I am interested as well. Checked shop officiel and ali but its not there yet.

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We are fast but not that fast :slight_smile: Just sent them off today, will take a few days to get made and kitted up with rubber feet.

I fear I didn’t made enough. My goal is to send you all samples at minimal to no cost, but it won’t be a lot of boards, just a few so we can all give them a try.

Definitely interested.

One thing I noticed in the image … That silkscreen shows as hitting both the inner and outer rings. Should it only reach the outer rings (and not the inner rings)? No big deal on first small batch, but just tiny thing (“polish / fit and finish”) to update before final…

It appears to just be a rendering error.

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This is not the final, this is the early draft I sent out to see how it looks in real life.

We’re kiting up the feet and 10P connectors for the final, which should be available next week.

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