So I picked up a new good habit, ordering PCB boards. I know it might sound odd, but it really has become a habit. It started with an iPad charger I made, and now it is much more, and often.
It’s quite a simple process, dream up some neat little board, design it in Eagle, and order it via DorkbotPDX. There are even .dru and .cam jobs for you to use with Eagle, or you can just send the Eagle .brd file if you’d like. About 2 weeks later, you get 3 copies of what you ordered. It’s a fantastic way to get a few PCB’s made to test before ordering a big quantity, or just get a few for a personal project. It only cost $5 per square inch, with no setup fees and free shipping! It’s a great way to get boards made for the first time without the fear of losing a large amount of money involved with minimum quantities or setup fees. I have placed 7 orders and all have been perfect. So what are you waiting for? Give it a go! You can find all of the info on the DorkbotPDX PCB Order page.
For larger boards (150 square inches or more), or 4 layer boards ($10 per square inch), there is also a service. Details on the DorkbotPDX PCB Order page.
Below are some pictures of the boards I have ordered. Click for full res images.
Great video showing the advantages of moving to making custom boards. The DorkbotPDX service is indeed awesome, thanks to Laen, and what has gotten me to order a board every week as it’s so simple, with the quality being really high and having a fast turnaround time, and $5/sq. in. for 3 boards is good value.
Definitely more hobbyists need to pick up this habit of making custom boards to save massive amounts of time. Even though you have to design a custom board you spend time assembling (which gets old real fast on perfboards) and get a much better result as well.
I love DorkbotPDX, use it all the time. Great video, thanks.
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Less than a value meal and much more satisfying 😉 I recently found myself designing a board (I did not need) in Eagle *just* so I could order a few. They are that good.
Jeremy – thanks for putting this together.
Your boards look really good! Thanks for the video it really encouraged me to start using the service!
Have you posted the files for your Pixel Bit Controller? I never saw a post about it. That could turn into a great AtTiny Dev Board and save me a bunch of work each time i need to make a little device needing a bit of logic.
Indeed, I ordered a few boards from DorkbotPDX recently and they were *awesome*. High quality output with a frighteningly fast turn-around time, at a price low enough that you can pretty much order boards on nothing more than a whim.
Laen also told me he is working on a way to get reasonably priced solder paste stencils, which I think will make his service the king of hobbyist geek board making… Not that I don’t think it is already!
I’ll definitely be including a tip with future orders. The guy deserves it!
(and I can’t wait to do my first four-layer board)
Thanks for sharing this. I use DorkbotPDX and it was pretty good. I also use a service called MidnightMaker (midnightmaker.com). They have a faster turaround time, which I like a lot. I love it that makers have options to get their stuff built.
Does anyone now of a similar service in Europe?
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