[TriEmbed] OSH Stencil notes

[Pete Soper]

I always enjoy your good cents.

My "you gotta be kidding" first impression of polymide stencils was 
their curvature. In my experience this makes uniform paste thickness and 
avoiding bleed through a crap shoot without techniques that are also in 
the "you gotta be kidding" category. If mylar from Pololu tends to sit 
flat that would be worth some money.

-Pete

On 11/14/2016 10:00 AM, Brian via TriEmbed wrote:
> Joining this conversation a bit late, but having ordered stencils in a 
> variety of materials from a variety of vendors, here are my three cents:
>
> - OSH Stencils' kapton (polyimide) stencils are the least pleasing to 
> use, IMNSHO.  They are very flimsy and feel quite fragile.
>
> - For flexible-substrate stencils, I've had better experiences with 
> mylar stencils from Pololu.  They're a bit more expensive, but I'd say 
> it's worth the extra expense to have a sturdier material.
>
> - OSH appears to offer stainless steel at a very competitive price; 
> I've only ever ordered stainless steel from Stencils Unlimited.  
> Stainless is definitely the best stencil to use, in no small part 
> because it is flat and rigid.  I think the premium for metal stencils 
> is well worth it, especially for smaller designs of which you plan to 
> build many.
>
> IANAL, YMMV, OMG, WTF, BBQ!
>
> -B
>
> On 11/09/2016 03:55 PM, Pete Soper via TriEmbed wrote:
>> I made some notes while listening to an interview of the guy behind OSH
>> Stencils:
>>
>> http://triembed.org/blog/?p=1895 <http://triembed.org/blog/?p=1895>
>>
>> By the way, I'm not in the position to publish this at the moment, but
>> several weeks back I worked out the steps necessary to "combine" Eagle
>> designs so one board file can be uploaded to OSH Stencils for a
>> single metal stencil that can be used for the multiple designs. By
>> having a set of fiduciary marks for each board (and adding a few lines
>> to the stencil with a permanent marker) it is straight forward to
>> minimize cost. (What the hell am I babbling about here? The minimum
>> border size of the metal stencils make them *expensive* for
>> small designs.) This can no doubt be done with alternative tools like
>> gerbmerge.
>>
>> -Pete
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
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