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by djthorpe 3029 days ago
I suppose this is only the first article, but before you commit components to a manufactured board, I recommend you do a schematic layout and then a wire-wrapped or bread-boarded version first. Manufacturing takes time, and can be costly in mostly time if you make a mistake.

I made a few PCB's using http://aisler.net/ which seem fine for prototype manufacturing. They can also make the laser-cut stencil for SMD component mounting. You can upload Eagle BRD files directly (my experience with KiCAD and Fritzing was a lot less than stellar). Cost was around nine euros for three small PCB's and another nine for the stencil and took about a week to be delivered.

2 comments

This rather depends on what you're doing - anything which relies on controlled impedance or high-speed digital is a pain in wire-wrap and even more so on a breadboard. If you can stand the delay a PCB can be a cheap and reliable way of getting started. If you leave enough space that you can green-wire over PCB errors you can have the best of both worlds.
Is this the same as oshpark?
OSHPark also allow you to upload Eagle BRD files, but based in the US. I think it's a separate company.