<cyrozap>
On the plus side, MacroFab is pretty awesome. Though, even this simple board was ~$25...
<cyrozap>
Also plus-side, I now have a validated STM32 design that I can re-use.
<cyrozap>
That is, STM32 plus USB plus Cortex-M JTAG.
<lain>
:D
<lain>
<3 macrofab
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<davidc___>
cyrozap: $25 for QTY-1 fab is pretty awesome
<davidc___>
I've been looking at macrofab (mostly, because thats a business plan I've meant to do for many years, but never did :P)
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<lain>
their web interface is awesome
<lain>
it's prettymuch exactly how I envisioned doing it (I've also had plans, but never did it :P)
<balrog>
cyrozap: stick to house parts whenever you can
<lain>
also this ^
<lain>
that saves piles of money
<cyrozap>
The selection of house parts is really limited, though...
<balrog>
yeah, but it's the common passives for which placement fees quickly add up
<davidc___>
I'm gonna try to run an FMC board through them, see how well assembly goes
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<lain>
I've only had one issue with assembly, and it was very early on into their existence
<lain>
and they recognized it before I did, and they made it right. they have since upgraded all their equipment anyway.
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<azonenberg>
davidc___: I worked with a company that did pretty similar stuff until they went under
<azonenberg>
we had a full SMT line
<azonenberg>
and were doing engineering consulting to provide funds for rent and operations until we had enough clients for assembly to run that as the primary business
<azonenberg>
We were breaking even but not able to pay our staff a salary (so gross income exactly covering rent and equipment, maintenance, components, etc)
<azonenberg>
none of us could make a living doing that so several of the key folks got jobs elsewhere after they graduated
<azonenberg>
and the company pretty much collapsed after that
<davidc___>
azonenberg: not the assembly company so much; more the "assembly company with automated web to assembly flow"
<davidc___>
azonenberg: if you had a company that had that, well, you didn't advertise it well :)
<azonenberg>
We didnt want to advertise yet
<azonenberg>
we would have got parallella'd
<azonenberg>
it wasnt stable enough to use
<whitequark>
invite-only?
<azonenberg>
yeah our main client was a startup our founder also worked at
<azonenberg>
we did a bit of work for other folks, did some small scale advertising at a local maker fair
<azonenberg>
but we still had enough manual stuff in the flow that we wanted to scale once we had a more stable process going
<azonenberg>
also had to get a better idea of what the line would cost us to run, etc
<azonenberg>
if we had gotten a bit more funding we could have probably pulled it off
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<DocScrutinizer05>
always that funding issue. Big PITA
<azonenberg>
yeah lol
<azonenberg>
if we had all graduated a little bit later maybe we could have kept it up
<azonenberg>
i had income from grad school research to support me
<azonenberg>
but i knew once that dried up i had to get a real job
<azonenberg>
and the comapny wasnt going to be able to pay me a living wage yet
<azonenberg>
we barely were keeping the lights on :p
<azonenberg>
Also, i should probably get to sleep but i'm not tired
<azonenberg>
have to get up super duper early tomorrow for a loooong day
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