Hi,
I’ve just finished building a website, PCBShopper.com, that lets you compare prices for manufacturing prototype PCBs from different companies. Just enter the board size, layers, preferred color, and quantity, and you’ll get a list of manufacturers with prices (including shipping to the US).
The site also has a page with a list of free CAD software. For both PCB manufacturers and CAD programs, there’s a place for users to write their own reviews, Amazon-style.
Finally, it has a phpBB board with forums for discussing manufacturers and CAD programs.
I was inspired by LadyAda, which has a PCB price calculator. But it appears not to have been updated since 2007. I hope to keep PCBShopper.com up to date and add more manufacturers to it as time goes on.
I am not affiliated with any manufacturers or CAD developers.
Check out the site. I’d appreciate any feedback.
Nice, simple design. I like it. Also learned of a PCB manufacturer that I will need to try (not because of prices).
The one thing that would guarantee me visiting your site repeatedly is if you accumulated all the DRC rules from the various manufacturers, and put them on a grid, so people can compare them with one another. Please also include the X and Y resolution of the photoplotter used to make the mask in the photoresist process.
This doesn’t just help with producing the board; it also helps at the library part design stage, so you can know your part, and thus your board, is compatible with as many affordable manufacturers as possible. Every time someone needs to add a new part to their library, they’ll come to your website, look at all the board manufacturers, and design their board accordingly. When it’s time to price out their completed board, they’ll come back to your site, do a price check, and probably click through, earning you your cut as an advertiser. And when they do their next board, they’ll do it all again.
Thanks, Techhunter - that’s an excellent idea.
Ah yes. That is an excellent idea. I know OSH Park has 200 DPI printers and with the ULPs in Eagle, 200 DPI just doesn’t cut it. Itead will print any logo that I add, but I don’t know what their DPI is.
Codlink, what are you talking about? Solder Mask? Silkscreen? I was talking about the photoplotter resolutions, which produce the traces on the board. But yes, resolutions for the Silkscreen and Solder Mask would also be helpful (silkscreen is arguably helpful to more people than the photoplotter resolution, which is only helpful to people who care how the PCB fab is going to round their conductive feature dimensions; most Sparkfunists don’t even consider that). Amitron, which is the company that OSH Park uses to produce their boards, has a photoplotter of 4k in each dimension; I’m hoping he meant 4000, and not 4096 (which it well could be, and it can make a difference).
I meant the silkscreen DPI. I talked to Laen (it’s been about a year now) with a problem I had with my logos not being on my boards. He stated that the resolution of the printers was 200 DPI and that the logos generated from the Eagle ULP scripts had to match. I tried 2 different ULPs, plus an exe I found to produce the logos in Eagle but none of them worked. I tried countless different solutions and even asked on several forums with no luck. If I have a board that needs a logo, I use Itead.
Anyway, yea I know that you were talking about something different and should have stated that. eh, oh well… When I read “resolution” the DPI issues came to mind and I started typing.
I figured, but the lack of clarity doesn’t help the original poster any, so I asked for some. 
Bob, be sure to post back if you get that DRC comparison tool up and running. I can’t wait to see it! XD