On Mon, 20 Oct 1997 11:38:19 +0000, you wrote:

>My boss wants me to price up the equipment we would need to be able
>to produce up to 100 pre-production prototype circuits in our lab.
>Geez! With our present methods it takes a guy a day to make one!
>
>I'm thinking about a nice heated pumped ferric chloride etch tank (as
>opposed to our 9" x 12" glass tray and hotplate we use now)  a small
>CNC drill, dipping through hole boards in a solder pot (as opposed to
>using a soldering iron or a $50,000 wave solder machine)  and some
>kind of reflow oven for surface mount.
>
>I know we have discussed converting toaster ovens into reflow ovens -
>let's not go there again.  How bout the real thing?  Any body used
>them?
>
>Do I need some kiond of small pick and place system for surface
>mount?  So far we have made surface mount prototypes (with a lot of
>pain and eyestrain) using tweezers, syringes, and a soldering iron.
>It makes you nuts.  What do you guys use?
For that volume, I'd think it would be cheaper to contract-out the
work, unless it's 100 *different* PCBs per day! 
For products to go into volume production, it is useful to have the
people who will do the production run do a pre-production run to iron
out any problems less painfiully!
If you want to do it in-house, a flow-solder machine for TH and the
required setup & running costs would probably be too much - think
about hiring a temp person to hand-solder.
A mid-way solution to SM is a hand silkscreen printer to put the paste
on, and you can get manual tables with component dispensers   etc.
attatched for maybe $1-2000. One problem with small batches is
shelf-life of things like solder paste once opened. 
In conclusion, find a good low-volume subcontractor, they will have
already found good solutions to all the problems you are likely to
waste time & effort on yourself! They may also be buying parts in
large qtys for other customers, which may be useful for price &
leadtime.