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

[Peter Clifton <pcjc2@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 2010-03-08 at 19:00 +0000, Robert Spanton wrote:
> On Mon, 2010-03-08 at 13:30 -0500, Jim 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.
> 
> In my experience, most PCB manufacturers cope with "newbies" reasonably
> well.  Is it in their interest to do so!
> 
> In the UK there's PCB Train: http://www.pcbtrain.co.uk/  They at least
> have a web interface that'll immediately generate a quote for you, and
> take design submissions through the website.  A number of friends and
> myself have used them fairly regularly.  Their express service is
> extremely useful and cheap!

> The one thing that you should make sure you're aware of is that paying
> the extra for electrical test is going to be worth it.  PCB Train will
> sell (and I'm sure other manufacturers will too) you boards that haven't
> been electrically tested, which I've been stung by in past.  It's not
> pleasant having to manually beep every via on a board with a
> multi-meter!

I just had some boards (through an assembler) from pcbtrain, and they
somehow managed to short a pin with 20mil clearance!

Unfortunately, it was a main power rail (typical), and I had to do a lot
of searching (eventually bisecting by breaking tracks) to find the
problem).

My assembler assures me this was a complete one-off, and he's never had
any problems with them before.


-- 
Peter Clifton

Electrical Engineering Division,
Engineering Department,
University of Cambridge,
9, JJ Thomson Avenue,
Cambridge
CB3 0FA

Tel: +44 (0)7729 980173 - (No signal in the lab!)
Tel: +44 (0)1223 748328 - (Shared lab phone, ask for me)



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