Vic,
You have asked a very legitimate question; no consternation here -- even though I do roll my own and plan to continue to do so. Here's why:
1) Your last question is right on the mark: this is a hobby for me, so part of the fun is seeing if I can make it work--even more, the fun is seeing that it DOES work, and I made it all myself! (please hold applause ... :)
2) I am no more than a moderately skilled amateur when it comes to electronics, but I enjoy trying out my own design ideas. I would hate to spend even $42 to make 3 boards that all have the same error(s) on them -- more than once it has taken me a first board to find all the errors. And I would hate to have to wait 9-10 days to find out that I have a design error, and then have to wait another 9-10 days to see if I corrected it.
3) Related to both 1 and 2 is that homebrew IS considerably cheaper, at least for me. I would estimate the cost for 8.4 square inches of double-sided copper clad board is around 50 cents (based on my last buy of boards off ebay); the cost of toner and paper is a few cents; the cost of etchant (using HCl + peroxide) is maybe another 50 cents if I make it fresh (considerably less per use if I reuse it with a bubbler). So, for around $1, I get a board the same day that I design it -- and I can redesign it that same day and make another. It does take a little while to drill, but not very long -- the total time spent printing, transferring, etching, and drilling is probably an hour total for a board that small. Yes, if I were doing this commercially, an hour per board would be a poor use of my time, if I think about paying myself per hour. But as a hobby, it is time spent having fun.
(By the way, when it comes to the pricing, I was not entirely sure I understood your math -- when you say your boards are 8.4 square inches, do you mean that it is an 8.4 square inch design for 3 complete boards? Otherwise, at $5/sq. in., it should be $42 for the whole 8.4 square inch board, right?)
None of the above invalidates your decision to go with a commercial house; certainly the final product that you get will look much nicer than mine (though mine don't look bad, IMHO), and different people value different aspects of the hobby. For me, the challenge of making the board is part of the fun, but for someone else, it may be sheer drudgery. For some, $42 is easy to justify on the hobby; for others (like me), $42 represents a significant portion of the budget I plan to spend on the hobby for the whole year -- including buying components. For some, the ultimate goal is to sell the boards -- in which case, going with a commercial house makes all kinds of sense. For others (like me), the boards are for personal projects. As they say, "different strokes for different folks ..."
--- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, windswaytoo@... wrote:
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>
> I have been a member of this group for some time and normally read all the posts. I design and build electronics, mostly with embedded controllers. I went thru the stage of making my own PCBs way back
> in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I ran a successful business selling electronic devices then and throughout the 1990s. I switched to commercially made boards around 1993 as it was cost and time effective to do so. I retired around 1998. For the few projects I did for my own interests I used ExpressPCB to do the boards. I am now getting back into business and have taken up EagleCad to do the schematics/board layout stuff. I have begun to use the services of one of the batch businesses, DorkbotPDX, to do my board prototypes. My
> boards are for the Arduino Mega and are 8.4 square inches in area. Dorkbot will make three of these for $42, for $5/sq in, which works out to $14 per board! They offer free shipping in the US and the turn-around is 9-10 days. The boards are two sided, PTH and silkscreening. BTW $10/sq in for 4 layer boards. Check it out
> here:
>
> http://dorkbotpdx.org/wiki/pcb_order
>
> I have no interest in DorkbotPDX but am a happy user of their services
>
> So, my question is why would I want to make my own boards with all the attendant fuss and mess and then etch and drill them or CNC them? Do you get a better board? A faster turnaround? There is no product to order or store. Is it cheaper to roll your own? I guess I just don't get it. Is it a hobby thing?
>
> I expect this post will cause some consternation and there will be quite a few replies. Then again, I may be quietly ignored.
>
> Vic
>
> Vic Fraenckel
> KC2GUI
> windswaytoo ATSIGN gmail DOT com
>