Protoboard Pty Ltd

When prototyping electronic designs, vero-board and "white chocolate" are invaluable tools. they allow the placing of standard components and jump wires to test the design and allow for the changing of components with the minimum of fuss (when your capacitor goes 'pop').

The problem with prototyping this way is that a lot of components do not fit the standard layout provided by these tools. Surface Mount, SIL packages and custom pins all need to be tested in a different form, or they need to have jump leads soldered to their legs and then connected to the white chocolate.

One solution for this would be to create the PCB and test accordingly. However, PCB printers mainly operate on an economy of scale model and charge a similar amount for 1 board as they do for 1000 boards. This makes them unsuitable for a quick prototype/test or a design for 10 boards.

My proposal is that a company set up an operation with Dick Smith (or Radio Shack if you are from the US) to take small orders for PCBs at the electronics counter (like when you send away for photos from a chemist) which then get sent to the manufacturing plant and printed accordingly.

The main business proposition here would be in small run orders. The requirements for a board would need to be clearly stated on the order bag (protel format images, 10mil minimum track width, 20mil minimum spacing, one board, two layers only), but a quick, low complexity printing setup could be set up and the orders could be run with a quick turnaround.

For an extra fee vias and pin-holes could be drilled, but they are not part of the base service.

This would allow home-designers and students to prototype their designs, utilising surface mount packages, without destroying a fishtank and filling their house with chemicals to print the PCBs themselves.