Slashdot Mirror
From Your PC to Reality in 3 Easy Steps
aelbric writes "PC Magazine is running an on some entrepreneurial businesses that are taking an interesting approach to prototyping and one-off manufacturing. Apparently, you can send in schematics for circuit boards to Pad2Pad, where they will quote, build and ship you a part based on your exact specifications. There is also reference to eMachineShop, for those of you more mechanically inclined, for building some home projects.
Design the part on your PC, send it to the shop electronically, recieve custom built component(s). "
Get a clue, editors.
that's difficult (at least for electronics), it's the realisation. If I have a spartan-3 FPGA in an FG456 package, I need it professionally soldered onto the board - finding that facility for small runs (ie: 1 :-) at reasonable rates is a far harder proposition than firing up Eagle and creating a design.
I know pad2pad will assemble some of the more commonplace components, but I can't see them running to large-sized chips, and anything up to a QFP100, I can do myself anyway...
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
I was thinking it was going to be something like this:
1. Turn off PC
2. Climb stairs out of basement
3. Go out into sunlight
Blaze a trail to the New World
Or, if you're so inclined to design your own printed circuit board (PCB), Express PCB offers a reasonably priced service.
Kewl! Now I can get the components made for that Killotron 5000 I've been working on!
Seriously, I think fab services like this could be a great boon, but how do you keep some group with nefarious intent from getting WMD components fabbed this way. If the pieces were submitted by multiple customers, it would be difficult to see that someone was trying to build something destructive.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
I'd imagine they'll tell you if they can't manufacture it. Now, whether or not it does what you want is a good question... ;)
:P
I'm more interested in the eMachines shop. Pricing is expensive for small runs, but not unreasonable at all for larger runs. Of course, the software is windows-only....
Windmills do not work that way!
With freeware programs like Eagle available and really cheap circuit board manufacturing options, there's no reason to get locked into a service like Pad2Pad.
Check out my Digital Design & Construction Wiki for lots of resources on do-it-yourself electronics design.
At work, we use www.protoexpress.com. They're similar to pad2pad for what we use them for, 'no-touch' custom circuits. No-touch means they don't do any verification of the board, and is what lets you get your own board quickly and inexpensively. We've had them do some pretty complex stuff without any problems. Their turn-around times are also very good (generally less than one week), and they are affordable and don't have any problems with small runs -- we often do only 2 prints of a new design.
Of course, a significant portion of the time involved in this is in populating the board. Soldering 2,000 points is never any fun.
----------------------
Freedom or Evil: Freevil.net
G. W. Bush says, "You decide!"
It doesn't look like they offer testing services. Their software will catch errors such as overlapping traces, etc., though.
There is absolutely no way for them to check your design to make sure it works, however. Unless you sit there and explain every detail to them, in which case they can still only moderately check certain aspects. There are just way too many different things involved in the design process for them to check every design. It would be like handing a company millions of lines of source code and telling them to check if it works, without running it first.
Why would they?
Does Kinkos proofread your brochures, or ask if your graphic designer is colorblind?
PC Magazine is running an on some entrepreneurial businesses that are taking an interesting approach...
And someone calls these people _Editors_ ???
sad robot making broken music
Now I get to have my very own Kelly LeBrock!
Now all I need is a bra to wear on my head.
I've used ExpressPCB for a lot of mini projects in the past. The rates are pretty good if you know how to maximize your layout properly, and you can get multiple boards out of 1 panel (ie: 5 silkscreened/soldermasked panels of 21sqin/ea are about $250, ($50/ea). But, if you can get 5 boards out of 1 panel (and you need 25 boards, give or take) then your per-board price is effectively $10/ea, which is reasonable for a small, custom job). The quality of the ExpressPCB boards has always been excellent.
.1uF caps?? WTF??), but the prices for boards with a few components soldered on is pretty reasonable (again, if you are ordering in a manner that spreads your cost over 25 or 30+ boards).
I converted one of my projects to pad2pad just last night. Their component selection is horribly small right now (no
FrontPanelExpress is another good option for custom metal panels.
-This sig intentionally left blank
It's very interesting to see a website like eMachineShop (I've known about it for a little while already). A lot of actual machine shops that use CNC machinery are run by 40+ y/o gentlemen who are sort of "stuck in the past" (no offence to anyone) with regards to their equipment.
So when you have websites such as eMachineShop you're providing competition to these guys who have no web presence and no facility to even take such orders.
*plug*
On another note, I'm working on something similar but in a slightly different manner. Machine shops themselves would send in a CAD file, and then we would quote them on a cycle time based on our machinery that they could purchase (since I work for a CNC Machine Distributor, who is also ironically suffering from a DOS attack).
*/plug*
looks like you are off-topic. Would you like an autoban?
I'm a subscriber. I agree with what you are saying.
I've paid for page views, not 503 errors.
I don't understand what's up with this crap. Maybe someone at VA will give a crap if we gripe enough.
Yes, if fed up enough, I can go else where. But dang it, they've already got my money. How do I get it back?
Sent from your iPad.
Not a representative of the company, just a really satisified customer.
You hit the nail right on the head. These kinds of services are the Kinkos of electrical/mechanical fabrication.
A full service PCB fab house, like a full service printing shop, looks over your design to make sure it makes sense and nothing will get lost in the tranfer from design to implementation.
Customers are never happy when they spend $5k and what they get back there's a completely bonehead error- even if it is their own fault! From what I see, Kinkos and PCBExpress specialize in orders under $1k.
Obligatory link to the previous slashdot post about the same article, five days ago.
For quick-turn plastic models from my 3D CAD drawings, I've used XPress3D. They broker the services of numerous prototyping houses, and their website is drop-dead simple to use. Just upload your file, and almost instantly you will see a rotating animation of your creation and quotes from several of their suppliers. Select the prototyping method and supplier you want to use, enter your credit card info, and in a couple days you have your prototype. It's the slickest, most well-thought-out web service I've seen in a long time.
But hey. It takes 3 downmods within 24 hours to autban you for 72 hours IIRC.
Here is happy fun clicky link to original post griping about the dupes and the 500/503 errors.
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
Here, and in the comments following the original post about eMachineShop (5 days ago), everyone is talking about Pad2Pad and hardly even mentioning eMachineShop. And the truth is that eMachineShop marks a huge, huge milestone in our history. Ok, that's just my opinion, but think about it for a second. You can draw up a three dimensional object, click a few buttons, and have that object delivered to your doorstep within two weeks! I know what the cynics are saying... "You could already do that" and "It's too expensive" and "You can't build ridiculously complex shapes" and whatever else... but forget about all that obligatory naysayer BS for a moment.
You can download their software, for free. You draw up your part, and immediately get a price quote. Then you modify your design, experiment with different materials and different machines, and get as many price quotes as you like, until you find the one that you can afford. Then you click the "buy" button and you get the part delivered right to your doorstep.
Yes, of course there's no really new technology involved here, but there really is genius in this business model. This idea has put more power in my hands (the average home PC user) than anything I've seen in a long time. What were my options before? Buy a CNC machine and rent space in a warehouse? Draw my design in a CAD app and then send it to a B&M machine shop a dozen times until it finally meets their design rules, only to find out that it's too expensive?
And, finally, and most importantly, just think for a minute about what this could mean in the very near future. What if this idea catches on, and suddenly there are websites that do the same thing as eMachineShop, only with fabric? Or clothing? Or more sophisticated stuff, like motors and gears and robotics?
This really could mark the beginning of a new era. Imagine a world where people use P2P programs to share designs for CARS, rather than Eminem albums. Hey, you got that new Ferrari? I'll trade you this custom convertible that some guy designed and posted to Usenet. What's happening is that the advancing technology of the internet is making all forms of information accessible to everyone. 3D objects are nothing more than information, just like music, movies, pictures, etc... Some day piracy of music and movies will be the least of the **AA's worries. Maybe AAA will be the next "Association of America" to try to stop P2P.
actually no, I'm still a subscriber. Guess this is another thing that got broken:
You have paid for a total of 4000 pages and so far 2597 have been used up (10 today). Thank you for supporting Slashdot! We appreciate your contribution very much.
(We use Greenwich Mean Time to decide where "today" begins and ends. Your day may vary.)
We give you some control over deciding where to suppress ads. New subscribers default to suppressing ads everywhere except on comments pages. For accounting purposes, we'd appreciate if you had at least one type of ad being suppressed.
Sent from your iPad.
Shut your mouth, take your soma, and click through some fucking ads, you deadbeat. Nobody at VA, and nobody on the /. crew gives a shit about anyone or anything except ad hits. Witness Taco's flippant 'ohwellweeventuallyfigureditout' journal on the recent 503 crap. Why no meta stories on Slashdot? It's not because 'they aren't appropriate', it's because Malda and the rest would be pilloried by the readership.
Because, after all, the readers who aren't posters are 95% of the page hits or some such nonsense. Well, how many of those people would be hitting pages if it weren't for the Funny, Insightful, Interesting, Informative, Troll, Flamebait to be found?
Are the 503's and stupid modbans the only way to combat the GNAA and others? Hardly. But nobody gives a fuck. Nobody.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Link for your convenience.
I'd say it's inappropriate to have people (paying subscribers, even) have their entire subnet get knocked off Slashdot, just because of three downmods in 24 hours. (Then have an impertinent "meh, wait out the ban period" as the response.)
Hmm...kinda like shooting mosquitos with bazookas.
...
Just a little humor to save the day!
Cheers,
Ethelred (a fellow subscriber)
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
Why no meta stories on Slashdot?
Yeah, i've always wondered about this... is it because taco and crew are just that terrified? I mean... with all this talk of open source and YRO and on and on and on... why not turn that spotlight around on themselves?
Are they that affraid of what they may learn? That there are legitimate grievances here with users?
Why the fear of an open and transparent exchange of those grievances? Insecurity on the part of Taco and crew? I think so.
Yes moderators... this is way the fuck offtopic. But that doesn't mean these things shouldn't be said... heh, and in the context of this thread... it *is* on topic.
sad robot making broken music
true.
But oh well.
If nothing else, maybe the editors will pause and realize that:
1) banning entire subnets to get rid of problem posters deprives legitimate PAYING customers at the same time. It's a YRO issue that they are ignoring. Do you have the right to get what you pay for? Yes.
2) I seriously think no one here would have a problem if the coders would merely state "Hey, it's time for a code push, we are pretty sure it's solid, but if something breaks, email us." We don't get that. Again, as someone who has paid money for this site, this is WRONG. Imagine if MS or some other website did something like this? Slashdot would be all over it. But if it occurs on their own turf, it's ignored, or flippantly remarked about in the creator's journal. Whatever.
3) Moderation is BROKEN. BADLY.
4) Duplicate stories. I don't expect the slashdot team to catch every article, I don't. But it does get ridiculous some times.
The bottom line is this:
a lot of us PAY for the content here. Granted, you can't have everything, but our voices are NOT EVEN BEING HEARD. We are after thoughts. I can't post what I think to Taco's Journal because I'm not his "friend". If you email him, you often get either ignored completely or treated like you don't matter.
This site started out in his dorm room. It's not a dorm room job anymore. Things are different in the real world. Perhaps they'll learn someday.
Sent from your iPad.
I decided I was unwilling to moderate following the post of death, and FK being told he had no life. Mod points are bullshit when an editor can mass mod someone/something, just because he doesn't like what has been said.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Blackhole ads.osdn.com in your hosts file. When I'm banned from posting for no reason that I can find, I point the ads server to 127.0.0.1 . Then, when I post via proxy, I see the ad that pops up when I post, switch the proxy off, and I no longer see ads. When I notice the ban is lifted, I comment out the blackhole line in my hosts file and I see ads again (until the block comes back on..).
That way, they get an ad view when I circumvent the block, but while I'm blocked for no reason, they get nothing.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!