On Sat, Jan 8, 2011 at 11:33 AM, doug metzler wrot= e: > I make these things myself by going to one of the quick-turn fab places, = in > my case express-pcb (no association). =A0I'd grab their layout software, = put > down a bunch of through-hole dip's, put some smt footprints in the middle= of > them, trace the two together, get as many as I could fit on their quick-t= urn > boards (2.5" x 3.8") =A0and then order them. =A0Since you get 3 boards yo= u get 3 > of everything. > > The quick-turn service is about $70 and you get it in 2 days. > > Then when the boards arrive you have to cut them out manually (don't brea= the > the dust!) and manually solder pins in the through-holes (use old LED > leads). =A0Amortized out you're probably talking $2 per surfboard and you= can > tailor them to exactly the footprints you're most interested in. =A0I eve= n did > little ones like multiple sot23's inside dip-8's. > > I'm still living on the sets I did 4 years ago. > In my last job, we did this as well for the R&D department. We paid the MOQ (say US$1500 with the NRE) and we got about 60 big boards with all the common SMD footprints to DIP converters. This board would last 2 years for the department and it was very cost effective. We then used those SIP machine pins or in certain cases leads from discrete resistors to solder onto the board. The layout designer made the board in such a way that it was quite easy to break the board away. Sometimes we did almost everything on bread board or hand soldered board before going to real prototypes. Some engineers were really good at it and the hand soldered board looked like a piece of art. --=20 Xiaofan --=20 http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .