On Wed, 8 May 2002 09:36:33 -0400, Byron A Jeff wrote:
>I'm still learning how to price this stuff. A lot of what I
>read, say at www.apcircuits.com for example, doesn't seem to
>even offer runs without the soldermask.

They have an entire production line that does only these types of
boards! From their web site:

"Proto 1 service: Quick turn engineering prototypes.  Orders
received by 11:00 AM Mountain (1 PM  Eastern) any business day
will ship the next business day."

I use AP Circuits for these types of boards at least a dozen
times a year. I rarely build anything more than a handful of
components on a breadboard or perfboard unless I'm looking to
just get a quick look at a single device or very simple circuit.

As an example, I recently built a small adapter board that
converted a 4Mbit static ram with battery backup circuit and
battery holder to mount in a 32 pin PLCC socket FLASH socket for
development work with a Rabbit 2000 CPU design (speeds downloads
and debugging). The total cost of 6 boards was $68 (US) and I
received them 2 days after I placed the order.

Note that the boards are not routed, they are sheared.
Rectangular boards only and you might have to "clean up" the
edges. No soldermask or silkscreen -- just plain tin-lead plated,
2 sided boards. But for most first run boards used to get real
hardware up and running, this is about the cheapest and easiest
route I've found.

If you must have "finished" boards with silkscreen and
soldermask, Advanced Circuits is a very good choice. I use them
almost as much as AP Circuits. They are running a $33/ea. (2
board minimum, 5 day turn) special on 2 sided boards right now.
They are just like finished production boards. They also usually
deliver faster than 5 days in my experience.

http://www.4pcb.com/33each

With resources like these, I find it hard to justify much time at
all hand building anything. In the end, you spend a lot of hours
and end up with something that's NOT what your end product will
be. The "real circuit board" route gets you much closer the first
time and I usually find circuit boards easier to modify than hand
wired prototypes.

Matt Pobursky
Maximum Performance Systems

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