I got my new board built in Eagle! Now looking for a PCB fab shop in the US. The board is very simple, dual layer. I am only looking for 8 of these boards. They are small, 1in^2. Looking for a 1~3 week turn around. Any suggestions?
What's your budget? A small batch like that can run a couple hundred dollars.
Here's a place.
http://www.pcbfabexpress.com/index.jsp
Just search PCB fab on google and you'll find a whole lot of places.
I've used these folks for lots of protos.
All errors were my own design, never a prob with manufacturing.
For that small amount, you might try etching your own board (plenty of info out there on how to do it). Etch all 8 PCBs onto a single board (I would also suggest adding alignment marks to the patterns, to match up with the edge of you PCB material). Once you have the board etched, drill the holes out (where needed, with a small PCB drill press), then cut the boards apart.
There are other options out there for board making that are cheaper, like SparkFun's BatchPCB service:
But honestly, you might try your hand at homebrewing them (unless you don't have the tooling, which won't be cheap for the first run, either).
If you don't mind cutting the boards yourself I would go with PCB Express.
You can get two 9 in^2 boards for $121, two sides soldermask and one side silkscreen.
Ships in two days.
Make a panel with up to 8 layouts spaced 50mils apart. You can cut them apart
with a hacksaw. Wear breathing protection when you cut the boards
You will end up with 16 boards.
(* jcl *)
www: http://www.wiblocks.com
twitter: http://twitter.com/wiblocks
blog: http://luciani.org
Looks like sparkfun will be the best option. Thanks for your input.
I have tried both Batch PCB and Sierra Proto www.protoexpress.com
Batch PCB is cheaper but it takes FOREVER (mine took over 5 weeks)
The build quality is very good for all these houses so it boils down to price and how long you are willing to wait.
Now that I've gone through BatchPCB and Seeedstudio Forge a few times, I'm interested in the PCB assembly services. I can do the SMTs by hand, and I'm going to try solder paste in a syringe for my next board, but I have limited time and energy for the assembly stage.
Unfortunately, services like Sierra Proto and Screaming Circuits (links above) seem to charge pretty high prices for their help. I'm sure they're ten times more diligent than I am, and ten times more efficient with their assembly time, but it's hard to pay a couple hundred dollars for soldering parts onto a four-square-inch board. They get better with volume, but I could only justify it if I knew I'd sell a thousand units.
I just sent out job for quote -- two in^2 board, 10 SMD parts per board (603 or larger,
no fine pitch), 50 panels, 20 boards per panel. Both quotes came in at roughly
ten cents per part for placement (amortizing all of the setup costs over the
10,000 placements). Ten cents to place a one cent part 
I think unless you get into 100,000 placements it will be expensive. You may want
to see if you can find a very good assembler or technician that wants to moonlight.
(* jcl *)
www: http://www.wiblocks.com
twitter: http://twitter.com/wiblocks
blog: http://luciani.org
I think the PCB may be cheaper in China
If there anybody have needs can contact me:
sales(at)pacificpcb.com
I like Sparkfun's BatchPCB service but it does take a while. The good thing about them is they seem to send out twice the amount of boards that are ordered so you can "risk" ordering half the amount and saving some money.
Have you looked at dorkpox? You can make smaller PCBs for cheap and each order has 3 copies. So you order 3 copies at $15 total including shipping.
http://dorkbotpdx.org/wiki/pcb_order
They may have filled up their board already for this coming run but send them an email by all means.
BTW, they use local manufacturing instead of overseas and claim to be lead free.
Note that the question here is about ASSEMBLY (adding the components to the PCB, not just making the bare PCBs.)
I doubt you'll find a cheap alternative for this, although providing a service that could partially pick&place a small set of pre-defined components might be an "interesting" idea.
While I find EEVBLOG generally annoying, his entry covering "design for manufacturing" covers the reasons for this quite well. http://www.eevblog.com/2010/11/15/eevblog-127-pcb-design-for-manufacture-tutorial/
While I find EEVBLOG generally annoying, his entry covering "design for manufacturing" covers the reasons for this quite well. EEVblog #127 – PCB Design For Manufacture Tutorial – EEVblog...
Argh... His voice is very disturbing... But his videos are all very informative!
PCBnet.com $10/Board
PCBnet.com $10/Board
... minimum quantity 10 boards, so minimum order is $100.
per board is not bad, but not the best price for a prototype.
-j
Right, but a lot of places charge more than that for one + shipping etc.
I recall it was free shipping.
I usally just purchase 10 when what I'm doing goes beyond proto.
But if I need to do one I get these so I don't even need to run wires.
Sometimes there is always a few people that want one or two if you want to sell off excess. Like H-Bridges for motors etc.
Maybe we can help you
PCB price big discount??..
Base price list for 1-8 layers prototype
2layers 4layers 6layers 8layers
Tolal Area of one design (c[ch13217]) 1000 CM Sq
Base price (USD) 80 150 270 480
2layers (FR4 HAL )small quantities, medium quantities only 80 (USD) /[ch13217]
pacificpcb,
Stop sending private messages selling your service.