
Build a Custom-Printed Circuit Board - jacquesm
http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/hands-on/build-a-customprinted-circuit-board
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sparky
I can recommend ExpressPCB, PCBExpress, and Sierra Circuits ProtoExpress (
<http://www.protoexpress.com/> ) here. ProtoExpress, in particular, was pretty
good in terms of price, specs (minimum trace/space, hole size, ability to do
4-layer boards), and turnaround time. If you want to do something super-
simple, ExpressPCB (<http://www.expresspcb.com/>) is a PCB prototyping house
that has their own free Windows CAD tool you can use. You can only use designs
from that tool with them, but they have at least been around a few years, and
should suffice for many simple, low-volume projects.

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ladyada
If you're paying $75/each for PCBs, even in hobbyist quantities, you're paying
too much. I even wrote a calculator, it is handy!@
<http://www.ladyada.net/library/pcb/costcalc.html>

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CamperBob
Looks useful -- how about extending the calculator with a four-layer option?
That's where things start to get pricy, it seems.

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hga
Cool! MOSIS (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOSIS>) for PCBs.

Although I remember fabricating a couple in the '70s by hand, although not
hardly as fancy or with such fine details (you lay out your pattern on the
board with stickers and/or a pen of the right sort and then bathe it in an
etching solution that removes the copper that's not covered).

I think some people are also doing 2 layer boards using milling machines to
remove the copper.

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_mattb
Yeah, you can still do pretty well nowadays with photo-etching pre-sensitized
boards. Here's Abe Lincoln (and a legitimate circuit) I did a while back:
<http://i.imgur.com/PyLyn.jpg>

And PCB isolation routing! I've tried it with broken drill bits as mills and
the Eagle to G-code software. It worked ok but I couldn't figure out DIY
solder masks.

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elpuri
I've had good experiences with Futurlec
(<http://futurlec.com/PCBService.shtml>). I believe the PCBs ship from
Thailand so don't expect fast delivery (unless you pay for courier service),
but the quality for the price is good (and their other stuff is cheap too).

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_mattb
BatchPCB is slow, from what I hear. I can recommend barebones PCB (speed) and
Gold Phoenix (price). There's lots of fun to be had in board-making; Sparkfun
tutorials are a great place to start for learning schematics and layout in
Eagle if you're interested.

~~~
yurisagalov
+1 for Gold Phoenix. I've used them before for an order of ~250 4 layer PCBs
and their work was pretty good for the price I paid.

+1 for Eagle as well. They have (had? I haven't checked in a while) a free
version which is fantastic for beginners and to just toy around.

