Re: milling circuit boards

> wait on
> service 16hr (assume 48 wall clock hour delivery)
> bureau

This is possible. if you send out your files today at 11:00 AM, they
get entered and cut by Monday, 11:00 AM and shipped next day air for
Tuesday delivery. you can get the boards by 8:30 AM on Tuesday.

Or, if you hand the floppy to your tech to cut the boards, he will
have a board cut by noon and start stuffing it after lunch and quite
possibly find your mistakes by 3:00 PM TODAY.

Your worries over the weekend ?

in senario #1, that the board house will not find any problems with
the file and just make the boards.

in senario #2, WTF you did wrong and how to fix it.

The flip side, is that you have a working prototype this afternoon and
can start testing in on Monday AM.

Cost is not usually the issue that time is in a business environmnet.

As for the home shop guys. cost is a huge concern.

if you can make the board small enough to fit into an
ExpressPCB=mini-board for $60.00, you get 2 spares.

if there is a problem, you have 5 unneeded boards as you have to
re-make the board and wind up with the first 3 as junk and 2 spares.
and are into the mix for $120.00

The alternative is to buy a few sheets on e-bay for $25.00 and have a
couple square feet of boards.

you buy a couple cutters from Think and Tinker for $12.00 each and a
set of 50 PCB drills from E-Bay for $30.00 and your whole investment
is up to about $100.00

then, the design time and layout is the same.

but, you make one board, or two, or three.

but, after two boards, your board house cost is over $120.00 and your
home shop cost is under $100.00

The down side.

No plated thru-holes
no solder mask
no white silk screen

You can do the iron on technique to make black solder mask.

But, the big problem is that on a board house, you get boards with
only traces.

on the home etch method, you have a board that is full of copper with
only isolation traces.

and , if you do double sided, you have to use pins of some type to
make thru hole connectors. resistor wires work well.

But, board 3 or 4 or 5 wind up costing only the time to make. for a
home shop, that actually opens the door to tons of projects that one
would not otherwise do.



Dave