Re: gEDA-user: Looking for my first fab shop.

[Dave N6NZ <n6nz@xxxxxxxx>]

If this is your first board, I'd go with a shop that is reasonably fast and known for quality work. 

Fast because:
* this is your first board, and you are excited to have it.
* this is your first board, and now is the time to "make mistakes quickly".

Quality work because:
* this is your first board, and you don't need to chase any red herrings.

On this side of the pond, I'd go for APCircuits or PCBExpress (not to be confused with express PCB).  Either will give you a very high quality board, quickly.  Either is as easy to work with as ordering a book from Amazon.  Either will appear costly compared to slower solutions of less predictable quality.  IMHO, today is your day to spend a few more dollars on a PCB and eat a cheap lunch. :)

My friends have used Olimex with happy results, although you will wait.

I used to be high on SparkFun's BatchPCB, but soured on it after experiencing long waits and getting back junk.  Well, not total junk.  I ordered multiple units of several different designs, and got back nearly 2X of each that I ordered.  OK, at first I'm thinking they felt generous when they were panelizing, nice customer service.  Turns out, many were bad boards.  I think somebody *knew* they had just created a batch of dodgy boards, and ran another batch of panels and sent the whole output to their customers to sort it out.  I consider 60% yield, expecting the customer to weed out the pigs, as unacceptable quality.  The BatchPCB vendor is Gold Phoenix, a Chinese vendor.

If you are outside North America, then APCircuits or PCBExpress may not be cost effective options.

-dave


On Mar 8, 2010, at 10:36 AM, jason duhamell wrote:

>   Are you willing to work with chinese?
> 
>   On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 2:30 AM, Jim <[1]jim@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
>     Are there any fab shops that would be gentle with a very new, very
>     inexperienced PCB designer? OH and reasonable for a prototype. Last
>     time I laid up a board I used a drafting table and mylar.  I may
>     need a bit of handholding as I go along.
>     Thanks,
>     Jim.
>     _______________________________________________
>     geda-user mailing list
>     [2]geda-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>     [3]http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
> 
> References
> 
>   1. mailto:jim@xxxxxxxxx
>   2. mailto:geda-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>   3. http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> geda-user mailing list
> geda-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user



_______________________________________________
geda-user mailing list
geda-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user