[sdiy] Possibly quick / cheap pcb service - anyone interested?

[Paul Maddox]

Hi,

>> I'm sure there's a market for very small scale PCB productions as many
>> board houses don't become viable until you reach, say, 20 PCBs.
>
> Oh, there is a market, but most people are put off by the prices.

I'd agree, I'd love to get low price "one offs".
But, my caveat is, I'd need solder resist as I'm moving more and more
into surface mount.

>> George Hearn introduced me last year to www.PCBtrain.co.uk who offer
>> relatively affordable one-off boards for prototyping - this may give some
>> good ideas for chargeable prices, though this isn't a CNC based service.
>
> *cough* Not what I'd call affordable - the PCB shop I use in China is
> cheaper even for small runs (and I'm including FeDex shipping to the UK).  I
> recently had a couple of 50mm x 80mm double-sided PCBs made, total cost £44.
>  PCBtrain would charge £52.  In quantity they're more than twice the price
> of China.

hehe, sounds like the one I use.
For the cost of one board with no silkscreen from PCB-Pool, I got 2
made, with blue solder resist, different mask top and bottom (it's a
surface mount board) with UPS shipping, turned around in 12 days. That
was PCB-Cart.
I sent them my eagle PCB file, they checked it and turned it into
gerbers, emailed them to me, I made a correction, which they included
and then mailed me back before proceeding.
My 100x80 PCBs came to 88GBP... if I want another 100 made, it'll now
cost me less than 3 GBP a piece.....

I have to say, they're not only cheap, but excellent for service.

Paul