Three is a good number for me as well. It's unlikely I would want to build just one of something and even if I only needed a one off, there's always the possibility of an issue that requires more than one assembly to troubleshoot.

Nothing wrong with more people doing batches. Seems like the only way to get the price down for small orders. From what others have said already in this thread, the trick is being able to put together the panels. Doesn't sound like a trivial task so if more people can do it, that's great.

 

Dr_Ram: what kind of turnaround time do you expect you would have for orders from the U.S.?

The turnaround time for the panel fab itself is a week. It's the previous step of getting Gerbers from interested folks to add up to a panel (which is about 200 sq in) that I expect will take time till more people know about this. Expect 2-3 weeks for that to begin with, and hopefully it will reduce to less than a week soon enough.

 

If you want to go on the cheaper side and still get a placed board, have only the parts you can't add to board placed by the fab shop. QFP w/heatsink ICs, TSSOP ICs with the insanely tiny pin pitch, and maybe the tiny of the tiniest resistors of sizes: 0402 (2mmx1mm) and 0201 (0.6x0.3mm). Do all the large part and through hole assembly yourself, though the cost won't be too much different.

Having a reflow oven (proper) eliminates the need to order placed boards, but again, the price is a bit on the high side.

The biggest benefit of having boards made is power and ground planes on a 4 layer board, everything looks nice, neat, and clean that way, but it gets more expensive quickly. 2nd benefit is silkscreen, 3rd is solder mask (solder mask is #1 when working with SMD)