Homebrew PCBs

I agree with what Dave stated.  The economics just are not there for 
me.  I can buy a bunch of PCB stock on Ebay very cheap.  I can print 
a lot of layouts on a laser printer very cheap.  The Ferric chloride 
for etching is cheap, the ironing process is cheap, drilling the 
holes is cheap.  All of the above is also pretty easy once you get 
the hang of it - much easier than doing your own PCB design and 
electronics design which brings me to the real reason why!!!

Being green about electronics, most of my designs do not work first 
time out.  Most of the stuff I have been designing does not lend 
itself well to breadboarding or even perf boards.  So, I do the best 
I can in the design, layout the circuit, and make the PCBs myself. 
If things go as usual, I may make the same board 3 or 4 times in one 
day and that is very key for me.  I don't like waiting 1 week, 2 
weeks, 3 weeks, etc. for something I can do right now.

So, really, there are two primary advantages to making PCBs at home; 
Economics and Instant gratification :-)

Chris





--- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, "Dave Mucha" <dave_mucha@...> 
wrote:
>
> 
> > 
> > Speaking of old-timers, I used to etch my own circuit boards 
back in
> the 60s
> > when I was a teen-ager. I was a little surprised to see so many
> people still
> > doing it these days with services like ExpressPCB available.
> 
> Services like Express are nice, but, if you want to make a small 
power
> supply, screw terminals, regulator, cap, diodes, resistors...  it
> costs  $20.00 for each board.
> 
> then you want to make a PWM to analog converter, couple resistors,
> couple caps and and an op-amp.  Another $20.00
> 
> but, since each board is $20 and you have to order 3 boards, the 
cost
> is now $120.00 for those two boards.
> 
> I don't know about you, but I can make two boards in an hour and 
save
> myself the $100 on the simple projects.
> 
> Dave
>