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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). "
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!
Or, if you're so inclined to design your own printed circuit board (PCB), Express PCB offers a reasonably priced service.
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.
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Freedom or Evil: Freevil.net
G. W. Bush says, "You decide!"
Why would they?
Does Kinkos proofread your brochures, or ask if your graphic designer is colorblind?
Obligatory link to the previous slashdot post about the same article, five days ago.
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.