I've created a website, http://**********.com, aimed at hobbyists who design their own PCBs. ********** lets you enter your board's specs - size, layers, preferred solder mask color, and quantity - and shows you a list of PCB manufacturers along with prices and delivery times. You can then sort the results to find the cheapest or fastest manufacturers.

**********.com also maintains a list of free PCB CAD software. Since many of the programs are limited versions of commercial software, ********** includes descriptions of what the limitations are.

********** currently lists 14 manufacturers, and more are being added. ********** is free to use and is not affiliated with any manufacturers.

I hope my fellow hobbyists will find it useful.

 

A thread I created was apparently considered spam and was removed from this list. But Markd77 asked me a question and I would like to be allowed to answer it. I will not name my site again, in deference to the moderator.

Mark saw a link on the web site I was announcing. The link was to a PCB manufacturer's site and he asked "Is it an affiliate link? If so how do you maintain your impartiality?"

It is not an affiliate link. Yes, it is a link to the manufacturer's web page, but I have received no money or any other consideration for it. Nor did the manufacturer ask me for it. As far as I know, the manufacturer was not even aware my site existed when I put the link there. I've put equivalent links for all the other manufacturers, and none of them knew I was doing it either. The links are intended to be a convenience for my users - nothing more.

I'm an electronics hobbyist and I created my site as a free service to electronics hobbyists. Yes, I am selling ads on it. No, I'm not getting much money from them - nowhere near enough to corrupt my values. Thus far, none of the advertisers have been companies my site supports. In the future, that might change. But my site reports only hard numbers about manufacturers. There's little opportunity for favoritism. Beyond that, users of my site can either choose to trust me, or choose not to.

- Bob

 

It seems like it could be a useful site, I didn't actually report it as spam with the button, I wasn't sure.
Just now I actually managed to find the page ending in "/a1ad77.asp" by navigating from the main page, but at first glance it looks like it is passing a reference number to the site.
Coupled with the fact this is your first post I can see why the moderators removed it.

 

The web page shows blue links for the "14 PCB manufacturers" but when clicking on those links there is no way to go to the PCB maker's web page.

It would REALLY improve the usefulness of your site if people at your site could then go to the PCB makers by clicking links.

That could get you bookmarked as; "that web page that lists all the PCB makers".

And you could also give a factoids paragraph for each PCB maker, with useful stats like minimum order quantity, board sizes, turnaround time, general price info etc.

 

Hi RB,

Thanks for the suggestion. I've modified the manufacturer review pages so that they have links to the manufacturers' sites.

- Bob

 

Wonderful website. Thanks for posting.

 

Looks useful but how about sorting the results table cheapest first?

 

Looks useful but how about sorting the results table cheapest first?

Just click on the "Price" column. Every column is sortable.

- Bob

 

Thanks, I was browsing on a minimalist browser so didn't see that...

 

To be honest to me they seem pretty expensive.