Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] SSRP ADC board finalized / production cost estimates

[David Carr]

The board makes extensive use of surface mount components to minimize 
cost and stray capacitance and inductance that might degrade 
performance.  Most passive components are 0603 surface mount parts, the 
LTC1746 is a .5mm pitch 48 pin TSSOP and the THS4501 and LP2989 are 
SO-8.  All that might seem a little intimidating at first, but I've only 
soldered SMT components on two previous projects and I have no problems 
with these.  Having a few key tools makes it very simple.  I have a pair 
of good non-magnetic tweezers, a syringe of RMA flux and some .015" 
solder.  I use a medium tip on my soldering iron for everything except 
the TSSOP for which I have a "mini-wave" tip that costs about $20.  I 
find that after you get the hang of it, soldering SMT parts is quicker 
and perhaps easier than their through hole counterparts.  The production 
boards have soldermask to minimize the chances of bridges and I will 
seriously consider offering a board kit with the ICs already mounted.  
My goal is for the SSRP to be accessable to a large number of people.  
As it stands I'm basically selling everything at cost and I will for 
sure offer an assembled version, its just that I don't have a terribly 
large amount of time and I want to charge as little as possible.

Thanks for the interest so far, its very encouraging.
David Carr



Krzysztof Kamieniecki wrote:

> Great Job, David!
>
> How tough will it be to assemble the board by hand?
>
>
> David Carr wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I ordered prototype pcbs for the SSRP LTC1746 board today.  They 
> > should be here in a little more than a week.  If the initial bring up 
> > goes well then I should have production boards shortly thereafter. 
> > The SSRP LTC1746 ADC module can sample at up to 20Msps with 14 bits 
> > of precision.  It looks like production units will cost $60-70 
> > unassembled or bare PCBs $15.  The bare PCB option can be 
> > considerably cheaper because an individual can request free samples 
> > of the LTC1746 and THS4501 and save $25+.    Assembled boards will be 
> > available for additional cost.  With the USB2 module running $89, and 
> > the LTC1746 board ~$70, a user can get a 10Mhz bandwidth, 14 bit 
> > radio peripheral for about $160.  Not too bad I'd say.
> >
> > -David Carr
> >
> >
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