Prototyping the circuit board
A number of low-cost PCB prototype board vendors offer services to hobbyists and other small-scale clients. Some vendors require a set of Gerber files in industry-standard formats for production. Others will directly accept a KiCad project as their input, which saves some minor steps.
In this example, we will use OSH Park as the vendor. You can place orders with OSH Park at https://oshpark.com/. OSH Park produces prototype PCBs in a distinctive purple color directly from KiCad project files. The following figure shows the board top for the fifth revision of the oscilloscope project PCB:
Figure 6.27 – OSH Park PCB rendering for the oscilloscope project
At the time of this writing, OSH Park charges $10.00 per square inch to produce three copies of a four-layer PCB. Since our board is 2.5" x 2.5", the cost for three boards is $62.50 plus sales tax, and comes with a free shipping option.
When ordering a...
