Absolutely. At Other Machine Co., (https://othermachine.co/) our volumes just aren't big enough to go to Shenzhen yet. Not to mention the fact that the upfront costs require significant upfront capital investments. That's why we make a product that lets companies (including our own) prototype PCBs and other parts themselves.
Why not? I've used milled PCBs for commercial prototypes as they're an order of magnitude cheaper than a fab given the turnaround time. You can get down to 0.5mm pitch easily.
You don't get soldermasks and vias are normally riveted (good enough). For most people, two layers is enough and if you can design the board well you shouldn't need much routing on the second layer.
Without a soldermask, how do you mount anything SMD finer than about a SOT-23? (only a slight exaggeration)
I can't imagine mounting even a simple ATTiny, let alone a quad-flat anything or a bunch of 0603s without a solder mask.
I'm sure that some use cases can get by with all DIP, through-hole, and similar-sized parts, but it's hard to design a product that can later scale up cost-effectively without being able to use surface-mount parts. There's a reason the mass production all switched over to SMD->cost.
Remember there are plenty of companies who need the odd PCB, but aren't in the PCB business.
Simple power/control boards (weird voltage, multiple outputs) that aren't available off the shelf from RS or Farnell. None of those boards need to be more than two layers. I've designed lens focus control boards that only required a single layer.
Yes of course if you're doing RF or fast serial you'd be daft to do it on a milled board, but they are convenient sometimes.
In the UK, you're looking at ~£50 for a short turnaround from a fab house like PCBTrain. From there a single small two-layer board, 50x60mm, 15 weekday turnaround is £33 plus shipping . It scales very well, but that's not the point for a prototype. Want that board this week? £90. Oshpark is great, but only if you can afford to wait the 20 or so days it takes to get to you.
If anyone can recommend a good, cheap fab house in the UK I'd be interested to know about it!
Perfboard is fine up to a point, but I find it tends to get messy, even for simple boards, and it's not terribly optimal with regard to space. You're out of luck (without bodging) if any component is surface mount or isn't 2.54mm pitch.
Milling is a nice stopgap when you need a single copy of a board that's a bit too complicated for perfboard (i.e. different pitch/smt parts) but isn't worth spending 10x the cost for a professionally made board. With milled boards you can have custom shapes, cutouts and so on. If you're trying to design a board to fit inside some housing with a funny shape and standoff points, milling the board to fit is a nice and cheap.
Technologists Wanted to Create New Apps for Our Cities!
Are you a hacker with a huge heart? Code for America is looking for developers, designers, researchers, and product managers for its 2014 Fellowship.
If you want to make a difference while doing what you love to do, this is your chance — build apps that help municipal governments work better.
Cities are under greater pressure than ever, struggling with budget cuts and outdated technology. That’s why Code for America is connecting talented technologists with municipal governments to create and implement new web apps and explore new ways of resolving local challenges.
During previous years fellows have tackled problems such as criminal justice in NYC, economic development in Santa Cruz, Calif., and 311 in Chicago.
CfA fellows come from a variety of backgrounds and experiences from high-profile positions at Google, Apple, and Microsoft to smaller startups to municipal government.
Why Become a CfA Fellow?
- Gov 2.0 Training. You will start with a crash course in municipal government and gain practical understanding of the vital intersection of government and technology.
- Connections. The biggest names in the tech industry and the Gov 2.0 movement will provide you with unparalleled networking, mentoring, and support.
Professional Development. You will develop lasting relationships, learn new skills and languages in a fast-paced, startup atmosphere.
- Autonomy. Working in small teams with talented individuals you’ll decide what you build and how you build it — from start to finish.
- A Labor of Love. You’ll not only accomplish a lot and make the world a better place, but you’ll have a lot of fun working with other passionate people.
Applications are being accepted until July 31, 2013. This is an 11-month, full-time fellowship located in San Francisco. See http://codeforamerica.org/fellows for more information.
I buy a lot of tickets on United's website (formerly Continental's), and it isn't a great experience – but the idea that this list is the flight's passenger manifest just doesn't make sense to me.
The screenshot shows the point in the ticketing workflow where you give the name (and basic TSA-required details) of the passenger purchasing the ticket. If you're logged in to the website, you can add as many passengers as you want to your account, which might be handy if you purchase tickets for your family or for coworkers. My guess would be that somehow the session got into an incorrect state and is showing the passengers from one or more other accounts.
Also, the form is the same whether you're booking a one-way flight with one manifest, or a roundtrip with many connections where each flight has a unique manifest. I don't understand how the system would be able to deal with these diverse sets of data.
USAA's iPhone check deposit works great. It take about two minutes total to take the photos and submit a check – and have the balance available in my account. The one time I mistyped a number took a 10-minute call to resolve. USAA's website and app could use some UI improvements, but the functionality is there.
The title here is misleading. According to the graphic, Bill and Melinda Gates' net worth, $59 billion, is $2 billion more than the US budget for foreign aid. They have given away $28 billion, 48% of their net worth.
I'm just as interested in knowing what happened after the upgrade. How's performance on 2.3 vs. 3.0? Are there plans to upgrade to 3.1 anytime soon? Has using 3.0 increased developer or ops productivity in any measurable way?
Assuming they were already running Ruby 1.9.x, they probably saw a smallish increase in response times moving from 2.3 to 3.0. I've seen that on two separate, large projects.
There is a drastic decrease in response times with switching from 1.8.7 MRI or 1.8.7 REE to 1.9.x MRI.
