New poll (DIY board assembly)

Printed Circuit Board Through-Hole Assembly.

Printed Circuit Board Through-Hole Assembly.

We’re in progress of designing an open source accessory circuit boards for ION drive that are sold as finished product but instead they are DIY. So we will provide the design files (PCB & schematics) and maybe sell bare PCB’s too but assembly (soldering of components) should be done by user.

The poll is there to study which kind of PCB assembly skills people do have. Through hole components are easiest to assemble but is it necessary? Or do you prefer surface mount components (SMT) which would yields smaller PCB size? Vote and share your thoughts in comments below :)

SMT assembly

SMT assembly

6 thoughts on “New poll (DIY board assembly)

  1. Dear Tero!
    In this poll, the point is missing, if you ever at a DIY project
    is interested. I for one wish a finished “GRANITE” – product
    with “GRANITE – guarantee”. By the way: The aspect, to construct ION very small is a secondary aspect. I think that it is important ION absolutely robust
    and perhaps also to make inexpensive. I want to be honest: I’ve never
    understood the meaning of ION. Why must VSD-XE Evolution / DualDC
    die? Could not live VSD-XE with an update?
    Best regards from Herford.

    • The board we’re working on now requires high flexibility of component choices which is why it’s provided as DIY project. More on that device later.

      VSD-E becomes discontinued now because the assembly house where it’s used to be manufactured no longer provides the manufacturing service. Moving it to new location would have caused quite a lot work so we saw it wiser to use that time to make new and throughly improved drives to fill the void.

  2. Hi Tero,

    I voted for through hole components, but in fact unless there were few parts required I’d much rather have a ready made board, and more so if there’s a chance of damaging the drive. If the user made a mistake, could they void the warranty of the attached ION drive?

    Regards,

    Jason

    • The DIY board design is made so that it’s very unlikely to cause any damage by user mistake. ION also is very robust thing; all I/O protected from ESD, outputs protected from short circuits etc.

      We don’t want to be strict about warranty. When drive (not just Ion) is damaged by user mistake, we consider replacements case by case. In most cases we give a new drive or grant very significant discount for replacements.

  3. through hole please. Less chances of human error.

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