not trying to push you away from smd as i love it, but have you looked at the recom r-78xx line?
http://www.recom-power.com/ same basic footprint as a 780x but high efficiency (85-95%). there website is a bit messed up with where the links take you, but if you search on digikey you will see their full line of the 3pin through hole options they have. the seem to run between $9-$12 through digikey depending on in/out V and A.
also, for boards, i get mine done at dorkbotpdx -
http://www.dorkbotpdx.org/wiki/pcb_order they always work and are very high quality, plus if you use eagle, you can just send the eagle brd file in and not have to worry about gerbers, until you feel more comfortable with it. plus the dorkbotpdx boards are made in the USA.
so for design/board, i go eagle+dorkbotpdx and then for your power the recom units should work out beautifully.
hope this helps you out,
bob
--- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, Aaron Turner <synfinatic@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Everyone,
>
> I'm building my first project which consists of two AA battery powered
> modules- a transmitter & receiver. I've been looking at
> various step up/buck power circuits and trying to find something that
> was relatively efficient for decent battery life, simple, cheap and
> doesn't take a lot of PCB space. It seems that the only way to meet
> all those requirements is using SMD parts as all the PTH parts tend to
> have higher part counts (inductors for example), higher costs and
> obviously take up a lot more space.
>
> I've done a fair bit of research on the web about soldering SMD parts
> and looks like this should be quite doable by hand. The only issue of
> course is that I don't yet have a board to solder them to for testing.
> I'm planning on designing my own boards for this project, but one
> really nice thing about PTH parts is being able to go from breadboard
> to perfboard to PCB and test/learn/tweak along the way.
>
> Anyways, I was hoping to get some insight on how to proceed in way to
> keep my costs down (ie: avoid costly mistakes).
>
> I was thinking perhaps of initially designing a small board which
> would have the 4 components and have standard 0.1in pins for testing
> on a bread/perf board and have them done by BatchPCB or the like. I'd
> be in for about $10 in components + 3 small PCB's for testing purposes
> and when I was done I'd have some
> nice little power modules left over for other future projects. Once I
> know I've got everything working, I'd be able to transfer that design
> to the final design for my project.
>
> The other idea I had was to just design the transmitter PCB which is a
> lot smaller/less complex then the receiver. I suppose my chances of
> getting a small PCB with even just PTH parts right the first time is
> slim to nil, so perhaps it's just better to get it over with? That
> way I could test/debug/learn on a bit more involved board rather then
> just 4 small components which may have limited learning opportunity.
>
> Any suggestions on how to prototype/test SMD based circuits without
> spending lots of time, effort and money making mistakes? I've never
> designed a board before, but with PTH parts at least I have a chance
> to test the circuit ahead of time. With SMD parts, I feel like I'm
> sorta guessing what will and won't work.
>
> Thanks!
>
> --
> Aaron Turner
> http://synfin.net/%c2%a0 Twitter: @synfinatic
> http://tcpreplay.synfin.net/ - Pcap editing and replay tools for Unix & Windows
> Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary
> Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
> -- Benjamin Franklin
> "carpe diem quam minimum credula postero"
>