I have such a vice, it was from PanaVice.  It is indeed basically for thru-hole products.  When I was assembling much larger boards with all thru-hole stuff, I used the vice a lot, it hasn't been out in years.  In the 1980 when we were producing video equipment for Wall Street firms, I made about 50 of these when we had a supplier punk out on us and we had to ship product.  This is a 2-channel video board, something you can do now in about one square inch of PCB!  My, how the times have changed!

Yes, the oscillators are tied into the sockets using waxed string.   All the chips are in sockets as well, you don't see that much anymore!

This is the vice I have, just a slightly later model, mine doesn't have the little release lever on the one side.

GRJ, great find.  I did motherboard layout for several years and everything was much easier after the library was built.  That pcb price is very attractive.  For my personal stuff I only used PTH cause the components were so much cheaper and more available at the time.  I'm so glad I kept all those cabinets of components all these years.

Bob Walker, it used to be rivets, eyelets, the component leads, and the use of stitching back in the day.  On some modern products stitching is still used.

I find now days that I don't do many repetitive circuits.  Most of what I do are deadbug circuits that use the bulkier components for support.  It allows the form to be curved or put into other shapes as needed to fit the cavity.  I haven't sold my boards commercially for years, so it's just for the application or situation that I desire.  I use hot melt glue, CA, double sided tape or shoegoo for mounting the final asm.   Most of those are going to last longer than I am for most of my applications.

I also have a Panavise, but slightly different. It doesn't have anything to hold the components when you have the board upside down for soldering like the Weller has. The Panavise stuff is pretty nice though and works well. I just 'improvise' on different ways to hold the components for soldering. 

I like the tied in components, not sure I have seen that before on a circuit board? Some of the old items and methods used to make it was really pretty interesting, at least I have always like it. In the late 1980s & early 1990s I worked in a large AT&T building that had a lot of phone circuits in it. They had racks of large multi-conductor phone cables, probably an inch or more in diameter, that were meticulously laid in the trays and they were all tied down just perfectly with string. The strings were about every 2-3 feet, perfectly aligned and the knots were all the same. It was real craftsmanship, a work of art so to speak. It was amazing how nice it all looked and I always tried to imagine the labor it took to get things to look that way. I was amazed by it all.

The cables went to the old mechanical relay racks for routing calls. Rows and rows of them, all about 12'-14' tall. The AT&T workers were tearing it all out and installing electronic computer controlled phone switch gear to replace it. Maybe fiber optics (I never asked), but a lot less wires. They were kind of secretive about some of the stuff. They had sold all of the older equipment to a foreign country somewhere overseas. 

I spend as much time making new components as I do laying out the board.  I do find DipTrace pretty easy to work with.  I just wish there were more 3D models.  It's handy to get the 3D visualization, but only if the components are actually there.

Many of my designs would be too large with all thru-hole parts.

Another take on the "game changer" aspect of the OSH pricing is quite simple.  Ignore the difficult of connecting to surface-mount components; I think we all agree you pretty much need a circuit board to do this whether making 1 board of 1000 boards.  In some industries what is frequently called the PCB or Printed Circuit Board is actually called a PWB or Printed Wire Board.  Think of it how you want, but the game changer is the idea of a low-cost method of printing the wiring instead of taking small gauge wire, cutting it to length, stripping it, and tediously soldering each end of the wire to components (whether it be through-hole or surface-mount).

The point is the OSH prices makes it practical to perform the wiring of a circuit "virtually" on a PC screen...and let OSH then "print" this wiring onto a board for you.  Then all you need to do is, effectively, solder or attach the components on to the board...the Wiring is done for you.  By game-changer it can make it practical/economical to fabricate a board even if making quantity 1.  Sure, you need to learn a new tool which can be a show-stopper for many guys.  So maybe it's a game-changer for a limited few...but a game-changer nonetheless.  The idea of having professionally performed wiring for a production run of 1 is a game-changer in my mind.  It definitely should replace the need to soak copper boards in Radio Shack Ferric-Chloride! 

Stan, I tried a couple of different times to do the kitchen table PCB fabrication.  While I could get a usable board, it lacked a lot of the niceties.  You can actually do a double-sided board, but no plated thru holes, and of course no solder mask or silk screen.  I'm just spoiled by the real thing, and I find it hard to consider the kitchen table boards nowadays. 

OSH was a breath of fresh air as I can get single boards a lot cheaper now.  I already have three orders outstanding, the first two were to see any board, so I send a couple I've already produced.

I recently added one more order for my locomotive ground light LED modules.  I was getting a board made and then cutting it on the bandsaw, that's a major PITA due to the small size of the individual pieces.  From OSH I can get the thinner boards and put some slots between each LED location so they simply break apart, that will be a major convenience factor.

It's not only that OSH has inexpensive prototype boards in small quantities, but you can also do many options that other short-run houses don't offer.  I'm sure at some point I'll want an odd-shaped board, that's no problem with OSH.

GRJ, I was poking around on the Diptrace website and they have a package of 3D libraries that is 2.16 gigabytes in size. Probably a dumb question, but have you tried those? Just wondering if those might help you with your designs, or what was wrong with them that didn't use them? Just curious, this stuff is still all really new to me.

I loaded those with DipTrace.  Obviously, when you have to make a part, they won't have a matching footprint for it.  I suspect there are similar parts that I might be able to attach the 3D model to my part, but I haven't figured out how to find the matching models yet.

I loaded Diptrace last night and opened it up, but that's about as far as I got. It offered me a tutorial which I think I will try to go through. I haven't loaded the libraries, but maybe I will now. Not that I will be able to figure it all out, or ever make anything, but might be fun to fiddle with. At least I might get an understanding of how the boards are laid out and made.

I agree that you should do a tutorial.  Also, keep in mind that a tool such as a schematic capture and PCB layout package isn't going to make much sense unless you know what you're building and have a sense of the components and use.

Oh dear...I may have just been eliminated by that last sentence. It seems to indicate one has to know what they are doing here?  

I am going to try the tutorial and then will probably just continue to follow you and Stan and some of the others here. 

Well, it is a bit hard to sort out a circuit if you don't understand even the basics of how it works.   Even the layout sometimes has considerations you have to follow, you can see that on my powered 9V battery project, I just posted an update.  The switching circuit wants to laid out pretty close to what I did, at least according to their datasheet.

I've spend a little time with the 3D model feature, it's actually working out better than I imagined.  I can find the proper footprint parts and add 3D models to my designs without too much trouble.  I even went back and fixed a couple of the boards I did so the 3D models are correct.  It's a pretty cool feature to visualize what you'll get when it's done.

Some of the simpler circuits I can stumble my way through, but the more complex ones become a problem. I also didn't really understand one of your earlier posts on the PCB for this project from 9-23. I get the idea or what wasn't correct and what you changed, but how you got there is still puzzling? I haven't yet done the tutorial though.

Glad you're getting the 3D figured out. Was that using the Diptrace libraries? I can see where it would really be nice to see the 3D models of the things before you commit to making them. Could turn up a needed change before it causes a redo later on.

rtr12 posted:

Some of the simpler circuits I can stumble my way through, but the more complex ones become a problem. I also didn't really understand one of your earlier posts on the PCB for this project from 9-23. I get the idea or what wasn't correct and what you changed, but how you got there is still puzzling? I haven't yet done the tutorial though.

There was not enough annular ring around the holes, OSH Park wants 7mil annular ring around any pad.  There also wasn't enough room between the leads to expand the pad, so I picked another footprint that I could modify and still not violate any design rules.

rtr12 posted:

Glad you're getting the 3D figured out. Was that using the Diptrace libraries? I can see where it would really be nice to see the 3D models of the things before you commit to making them. Could turn up a needed change before it causes a redo later on.

I figured out how to attach existing patterns to components.  Also, you can modify the components in certain ways to "bend" them to be closer to the shape you want.

Thanks for the explanation. I think I still have a lot of 'Tutorial' work ahead. I will probably never understand all the requirements the PCB makers want you to meet, but I will still fiddle with it some and see what happens. I don't have anything to really make, but it might be nice to know how just in case... 

It also sounds like the 3D is becoming easier for you too, and that is good. Modifying (or bending) is usually always better than starting from scratch.

No way I was going to build 3D models from scratch, that's a steep learning curve all by itself.  I don't have any 3D experience, so I'm glad it's not as difficult as it first appeared to be. 

Note that the 3D representation will never bee 100%, but it's nice to get a close approximation of what it'll look like when populated.  The 3D also seems to work a lot better for surface mount stuff than much of the thru-hole components.  Nature of the beast obviously.