Why working together works for us both
Saar Drimer is the Author of this Paper.
Founder of Boldport Ltd
Unit 35 IO Centre, Armstrong Road, London SE18 6RS, UK
Tel: +44-7779-606-045, E-mail or visit the home page
On paper we’re unlikely collaborators. Eurocircuits is focused on common manufacturing sweet-spots while I, at Boldport, break traditional circuit board design banalities by pushing the medium in new directions; I call what I do ‘electronics craftsmanship’.
I got in touch with Eurocircuits in late 2012 when the first ever design I made with PCBmodE ─ my own open source PCB software ─ was getting ready to be manufactured. To my surprise Eurocircuits’ PCB Visualiser accepted my Gerbers without problem. I ordered ten units for about €100, which was much cheaper than the quotations I got from non-pooled services. I was happy.
As I sent more boards to Eurocircuits I often got upset, and vocal about it on social media, after Eurocircuits added their production number onto my beautiful boards at the most inconvenient and visible places. Minor silkscreen imperfections and soldermask blemishes annoyed me as well.
It seemed to me that it wasn’t going to work despite my appreciation for the way Eurocircuits goes about their business. At some point I’ve learnt that I’m now called a ‘troublemaker’ internally, which, to me, was more flattering than upsetting.
First PCB made with PCBmodE and with Eurocircuits
Quite a few projects later I finally met Dirk at Electronica 2014 and introduced myself as the `troublemaker`. To my delight, I was greeted with a smile. It was important to me to make sure that the Dirk and Luc knew that I’m serious about what I do and that I’m not a nuisance for the sake of being a nuisance. I wanted this relationship to work. Later, I proposed an experimental project that involved multiple soldermask passes. We made a few experimental units that turned out very well.
Circuit Love was an experimental collaborative project that I designed and Eurocircuits manufactured. We wanted to test the look of several passes of soldermask with different colours.
In early 2016, I met Luc and Dirk at Eurocircuits HQ. There, we had a chance to communicate my needs and their constraints, such as the necessity of the production number, and that custom soldermask colours are not an option, for example.
(I’ve learned, and accepted, that full traceability during manufacturing, and after delivery, is crucial for the operation and more important than my artistic expression.)
We also addressed the elephant in the room: why would they bother with the headache of having a customer like me.
Dirk replied: “Every sensible manufacturer needs one crazy, erm, challenging, customer to keep them on the edge. We found ours in Boldport. But we can only handle one.
The Gent is a recent Boldport Club project where we used two soldermask passes again.
I will complain about silkscreen blemishes, bad packaging, website issues, and minor things that other people don’t really care about (on top of what other people would complain about, of course). This helps Eurocircuits translate these complaints into improvements of their daily procedures, and into the introduction of new features. For example, after I made a ‘fuss’ over the production number placement they introduced a tool to let people place the number in the PCB Visualiser. (I’d like to think that it was because of me, anyway.)
Additionally, through Boldport Club ─ a monthly subscription of electronics projects where most PCBs are manufactured by Eurocircuits ─ over 430 people, many of them engineers, are exposed to their PCBs. Similarly to what I hear from other fabs I work with, our designs are a breath of fresh air from the otherwise ‘boring’ designs that pass through the factory day-in and day-out.
Eurocircuits sponsored The Matrix, in order for us to create the project within budget on a 0.2mm thick PCB ─ thinnest they offer.
With MOSTAP ─ based on a 40 year old circuit from an Elektor magazine ─ we used exposed copper and transparent soldermask to give it a retro look.
Eurocircuits sponsored SPOOLT, a solder spool holder made of 2.4mm thick PCBs.
In turn, I have the ear of an innovative forward-looking PCB fab that’s willing to work with my challenging designs and hand-hold my boards when required. More importantly, when something goes wrong Eurocircuits has always fixed the issue to my satisfaction and, quite remarkably, have never been late on delivery. (Dirk makes sure to warn me that that will eventually happen.) Steve Jones, the local rep, is brilliant at resolving issues right away for me, and helping me through occasional issues with the ordering system. As part of Boldport Studio, I can present schedules to our clients that I know that we can keep. All this means that I can keep my tight schedules and sleep well knowing that I work with a solid reliable supplier. That’s worth a lot to me.
Our most recent collaboration, The Monarch where we use two soldermask colours (black and red) and a unique physical construction.
Our most recent collaboration, The Monarch where we use two soldermask colours (black and red) and a unique physical construction.
Finally, we both enjoy the association of our brands. Boldport has a reputation for innovative electronics and Eurocircuits for PCB manufacturing innovation and quality. In that respect, we are very likely collaborators.
