Ordering guide

Sanity checking

Before you actually order your parts, you should sanity check your design first! It can save you a lot of money, time, and resources later down the line. Here’s some things you can do:

• Ask for feedback on your design in other communities - they’re filled with experts who more often than not are willing to help
  • That being said, do not spam!
• You can print out your PCB on paper to get a check for the fit & overall size before ordering - this is a built in feature of KiCAD!
• Make checklists for each thing to check for before sending things off to prod. Here’s some examples:
  • your schematic has everything wired up correctly
  • DRC has no errors
  • You set tolerances on all parts
  • Your parts are all within spec

Tooling

Make sure you know what tools you’ll need! It’ll make working on your project go so much smoother. Here’s some general tips I’ve noticed:

• You only need a hotplate if you are SMD soldering smaller components! You don’t need one for through-hole projects like hackpad
• You may need wire cutters! They’re super cheap and work a lot better than scissors (note: hack club will not fund this!)

Actually ordering

• do your research on the different manufacturing options for the services you use - this mainly applies to PCBs but it’s really important you actually understand what you’re getting
• create a checklist for all the parts you need to order so that you don’t miss anything; with complex projects it’s super easy to miss a part or two and set back your project by weeks
• get 3D printed parts from printing legion - your part will be printed by a real human that you can talk to.