Hello everyone,

I ran into a problem making my own boards. I was forced to redesign the system with 4-layer boards, and in order to accomplish that I developed and built a lamination press. Done, it works beautifully. I can now make multilayer (>2) boards. The problem is that I have now exceeded the reliability limits of using conductive epoxy to make my through holes and vias conductive. Having just spent many weeks (> 3 months) developing the lamination press, I didn't want to put my project on hold while I develop electroplating capabilities.

So I decided to go ahead and use one of these board shops to have this set of boards made.

I contacted Spirit Circuits about their Go-Naked service. They never responded during the whole time I was redesigning the boards (I had to replace three parts that have gone obsolete, and I combined two boards to reduce the total board count from 5 down to 4). Once I finished the redesign I went ahead and sent them the Gerber data. This time they responded, but only to say "Sorry. Your boards are not suited to this service." When I emailed them back asking why, thinking maybe I could change something to make them "suited," Spirit Circuits once again resoundingly ignored me.

Strike One!

I then went to PCBNet. They offer 4-layer boards for $50. But only the first board for new customers. The bottom line is that all four of my boards would have cost $1,100.

I tried a couple of other shops. One would do all of my boards for only $50 each, but I had to buy five copies of each. Bottom line, $1,000. Another offered to make them for only $35, if I ordered 10 of each - $1,400.

At the end of the day, Spirit Circuits were unwilling to even communicate with me, and while everyone else was all to happy to tell me they would give me a great deal, none of them was willing to actually deliver for less than a thousand dollars.

I have since built and tested a reverse pulse plating controller and am in the process of setting up an electroplating system.

Joe