HI I know some of you guy make your own boards what software do you use and where do you get them fab?
Thanks
Cadsoft Eagle, manufacture either using http://oshpark.com/ or http://www.eastpcb.com/
Agreed on Eagle for CAD and OSHpark for fab. Also if you want faster turnaround that’s pretty cheap, APCircuits.com.
EagleCAD though I send my stuff off to China, just like OSHpark and others do.
Eagle, http://oshpark.com. Eagle is an incredibly ‘ugly’ piece of software, but after briefly playing around with lots of other tools, this seems to be the one to use. That said, I’m a rank amateur.
There are some fab houses that offer PCBA, or PCB Assembly service. They can either source the parts themselves or you can get the parts and send to them. Or you can do it yourself. SMD parts is not as hard as you may think. I’ve been doing it for a while myself. Look up the skillet reflow tutorial on Spark Fun’s web site.
@Zeke_Koch I can’t say it’s ugly. It was the first one I picked up and only one I’ve learned to work with. I’ve tried gEDA to try and stick to open source software but it’s really hard to beat Eagle’s parts library. It’s so incredibly easy to create new parts as well. That’s not to say some other application out there can’t do it … I just haven’t found it yet.
Been using KiCAD for a few months which is also free (like Eagle) and has an autorouter. But have not been able to get the autorouter working as yet.
Picked up operation quite easy and I have created lots of parts without issue. Libraries not as large as Eagle.
The free version of Eagle has some limitations which was a problem for me.