> HELLO! Does no one want a FREE professional custom PCB made for their
> project?

Geesh James, it's only been a day since you announced it.  There are also a
lot of other reasons you might not get many customers.  It seems like a lot
of trouble to go thru to get ONE board made, two months after you packaged
everything up and submitted it.  And then the board size is rather limited
and is only two layer.  I have one personal project that would have been OK
for except that I had 8 boards made, and another that it wouldn't.  I'm
respinning the board for another, but this board will be double sided,
bigger than 100mm x 160mm, and I want to make at least 4.  It will also
include some code I don't want to give out.  In any case I don't want to
wait 2 months on the chance that they might chose my design and make me one
board.  Frankly, the little bit they are offering just doesn't outway all
the costs.

Let's also be honest about what's going on here.  I doubt this has anything
to do with "supporting" the PIC list.  They know as well as we do what they
are offering is nearly wothless.  They are trying to get exposure as a PC
fab house hoping to catch future business.  I don't have a problem with
that, but I think they are going about it the wrong way.

I usually us PCBExpress because a while ago I looked around and priced out a
couple of jobs from a bunch of board houses, and PCBExpress came out best
for small prototype quantities.  They have always done what they said they
would do, and I'm satisfied with the quality.  Now I don't waste time
looking around anymore, I just send work straight to them.  I also like the
fact that everything, including the prices, is on line.  I don't have to
send them info and get a quote back that is computed by some mysterious
means.

If some other company wanted to capture my PC fab business, they need to
give me a reason to try them once AND reason to believe that I would want to
use them in the future.  Just getting a better price on one board once isn't
worth the hassle to change my process.  How about 50% off the next order of
up to 8 boards, with a standard price list that regularly beats PCBExpress,
including the shipping charges?  That would get my attention.

I just checked my notes from when I looked at PC fab houses, and Olimex was
on it but crossed out.  I don't remember the exact reason, but this probably
means their web page didn't tell me what I wanted to know or was down.  I
also note they are in Bulgaria, so there are some serious shipping and
customs issues they will have to make me feel comfortable with too.


********************************************************************
Olin Lathrop, embedded systems consultant in Littleton Massachusetts
(978) 742-9014, olin@embedinc.com, http://www.embedinc.com

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