Not sure if its ok to post my question in this form or not so feel free to delete it if i’m violating any rules.
I’m thinking of doing a bit of part time work laying out pcbs for the hobbyist crowd in mind. Right now my full time job is routing fairly complex, multilayer PCBs with a bit of 3D mechanical design. Years ago when electronics was my hobby my designs were either a mess of wires on a breadboard or a mess of wires on the bottom of a protoboard. Etching worked well once I got the hang of it. That was all 10 years or so ago so i’m just posting a quick question to see if there is any interest out there. I’ve never done this before so pricing is still up in the air. I would have the boards manufactured at Alberta Printed Circuits which isn’t too far away. We have quite a few quick and dirty jobs done by these guys at work. An example of manufacturing costs would be $30 for a 3" x 3" double sided job with no silkscreen or soldermask. Adding silkscreen and soldermask brings the price up to around $50 or $60. I would need a few hours to make non standard footprints, route the design and ship it to you. If this is what you’re looking for then drop me a line at 0miker0gmail.com.
0miker0:
…That was all 10 years or so ago so i’m just posting a quick question to see if there is any interest out there…
The idea isn’t bad for the casual hobbyist not looking to learn a CAD package like Eagle. As for cost, you’ll have to factor in the hourly rate along with the raw cost of having the board made. I have to be honest though, when you are talking $60+ for just the single 3x3 board, you are better off going the Gold Phoenix route for $90 and getting a batch of boards with the chance that they are correct the first time around and usable.
I have entertained some requests to do some board layouts for people. Most pass when they get the work rate quote, on top of the cost of the boards themselves. Its kind of a flip of the coin. Usually hobbyist are looking for the cheapest route and having someone do the work, rather than learning the CAD program yourself can be pricey.
See, you guys are doing it wrong. What we want is a revision server where we send it to you. and you tell us how much of a dumass we are fix it and send it back for $25/$50/$75 depending on how complex/how much of an F up we are.
And to the OP. Just do the design let them print the board where ever they want.