I have a need for proto PCB’s on thinner material. The proto shops I have found generally charge well over $100 for a minimum run for such a board, even for small boards. I would think that with the trend toward smaller components and small board sizes that there may be others in my situation.
Is there any possibility of Spark Fun offering such a service? I would be willing to pay more per square inch and be be willing to wait longer to get the boards. Thanks.
Scott
I wonder if there’s a good way for SF to handle the special requests people come up with periodically. For most boards I don’t really care how thick the board is (within reason), what color solder mask it has, etc. So SF could accept special requests (with a surcharge), and wait until the number of request for that board + the number of “don’t care” requests is enough to make up a panel. This’d be more work for SF, though. 
Currently we don’t have a good way of processing these requests individually. For the time being we have been passing on the minimum fees we are charged by asking that the special requests come in the form of a panel purchase. That could be a lot of extra space that you don’t need, especially if the design comes out with bad nets or other errors. I like the idea of aggregating requests as the come in, however this would be pretty labor intensive and it would increase the wait time tremendously. I’ll run it by sparky and see what we can come up with…
Is there any real advantage to thicker PCBs? All the stuff I’m working on needs to be as lightweight as possible - so I’d definitely be pleased to see thinner boards available (though I also doubt that it’d make much of a difference in weight - but every gram counts!)
What are you working on that it needs to be as light as possible? Just curious.
Mike
NleahciM:
Is there any real advantage to thicker PCBs?
Yes, some edge connectors (like DB9 and SMA) are specifically designed to slip over the edge of a .062 board. .031 won’t work.
– Greg
upand_at_them:
What are you working on that it needs to be as light as possible? Just curious.Mike
My current project just needs to be thin, not light. It’s a board for a custom CompactFlash I/O card - .062 is way too thick to fit. Even .031 is pushing it a bit, but I could make it fit.
Scott