PCB Manufactures in China?

1.9" x 3"

I received my breakout PCB today from jacoh, another board still to come. The quality and registration of the silkscreen is excellent and very cost effective. 

From paypal payment to delivery in my mail box was 14 days.

The PCB software I have been using the past 15 years is by AutoTrax Dex $49, it is fun to use. I upgraded a month ago. The 3D aspect of it is more of an distraction. It is better to create your own footprints.

Not knowing any other software, I like how it lets me know there are errors, like tracks too close to pads. Also if I click a pad it lights up everywhere on all layers that pad is connected. It does have some quirky aspects but there is always a work around.

My second board is four layers to get it down to 3" x 3"  The auto routing feature is like magic and saves enormous time. The above board was hand routed because I needed parts in specific locations.

Christopher

Thank Christopher.  The software looks interesting, but I'd prefer the author spent more time on 2D stuff than 3D.  And he seems to be rather, well, how do I say this?  Colorful?

http://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/free-unlimited-version-of-autotrax-pcb-design-software/

Getting banned from eevblog is quite the achievement!  He was clearly goaded on IMO, but posting someone's personal address for the purpose of retribution is clearly stepping over the line.

dewster you need more color in your life. I would have paid him more over the years for the fun and challenge of using the AutoTrax software. Circuit board layout is the best part of electronics for me, it is mostly logic instead of theory. It always amazes me when I encounter the skills of other intelligent people. I can not be the only one. 0-'

Remember.. I have never worked in electronics so I have nothing to compare against.

Here is the second board 95% Auto-Routed, 4 layers, no way I wanted to route that. The board mounts on left side shoulder by the EWS volume loop. The boards add about 4 ma load to the positive side of the EWS supply.

3" x 3"

The atomic number of gold is 79, Hwy79 refers to the Yellow Brick Road, guess who the Wizard is, it is not Merlin but he may have something to do with this in the future.

Christopher

Edit: Ouch!  dew life is about purpose, having fun and doing something beautiful, all have fallen short of perfection.

Not picking on anyone in particular, but my experience with cowboy coders is that they don't spend nearly enough time doing the tedious work of quality control, so their stuff is buggy and crashes a lot.  And they tend to be overly ambitious when it comes to features, and so over-reach when something simpler and bulletproof would be preferable.  I've seen too many half-baked GUIs with too many half-baked / broken features.

I'm looking at KiCad as it's open, free, and cross-platform, but I haven't played with it much yet.  And I wonder about long-term support.

It always kind of amazes me the electronics industry is made up of so many sleazy, proprietary, and over-priced software tools.  Makes me wonder how anything gets done.