2003-04-21 20:33:53.411083+00 by Dan Lyke 3 comments
Phil pointed me to ExpressPCB. Download free software to design your schematic and layout your circuit board, press the "order" button, pay for the boards. At $62 for a minimum order, and I'll bet you could duplicate a circuit once or twice on the board for that, this is competitive with a whole lot of "single board computer" circuit boards, except it's custom. Probably not the cheapest, but looks like a cool implementation.
[ related topics: Free Software Software Engineering Graphic Design Embedded Devices ]
comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):
#Comment made: 2003-04-21 21:41:45.73939+00 by: meuon
$62 or anything under $100 is worth it if they do it well. Thank You!
#Comment made: 2003-04-22 12:52:50.132421+00 by: ebradway
Wheee!!! Back in the '80s when I was a high school intern at NASA, I marveled over the PCD design and fab system they had (very, very simple by today's standards). Of course most complex PCBs can be implemented with a since PLC chip...
But $62 is a helluva a lot cheaper than even wire-wrapping a prototype. Sockets and discrete chips gets pricey! Not to mention the hours of tedious wire twisting.
#Comment made: 2003-04-22 16:15:31.270477+00 by: Dan Lyke
I've ordered a handful of Atmel AT90S8535s, they're marked as obsolete, but 8k of ROM and half a K of EEPROM and RAM each, along with the UART, the 10 bit A/D channels and a pair of timers, all at 8MHz is a hell of a lot more than my first computer, and migration to the new generation shouldn't be all that hard if I decide to go anywhere with it. For now I just want to play with moving some small motors around.
And I've been building a bunch of brass attachments for a sewing machine to help align fabric. Hmmm...