I was wondering if anyone is interested in doing a group buy of PCBs for this project. I'd like to do this project, but i'm not really fond of the whole acid etch thing.

Just for kicks, I punched in some numbers in a pcb site I've ordered from in the past (pcbcart), and if we can get 25 people to commit to this, we can do it for $5 a board. In coming up with this number I'm considering the cost of tooling divided by 25, plus the cost per board, plus shipping to the US, plus the cost of postage to ship to each individual.

The first step would be to get enough people committed to the project, then I would place the order, and ship them out to everyone when they arrive.

I'm definitely not looking to make a profit on this, so the more people that are in, the less it will cost.

Post if you're interested.
PM if interested so I can start a mailing list. Please include your email address.

Link to Project on Hackaday: http://hackaday.com/2008/09/25/web-serv ... rd-part-2/
Link to project files: http://blog.mahalo.com/hackaday/howto/wsbcv3.zip


*UPDATE* 9/26 3pm (est)
So, the response has been pretty good so far. In order to keep the turn around time for this project low, Friday, October 3rd will be the deadline for reserving a PCB. That day, I'll place the order with pcbcart. In one to two weeks after that, I'll receive the boards, I will ask for payment, and your PCB will be shipped.

*UPDATE* 10/3
The order has been placed.

*UPDATE* 10/13
Boards are on their way. Please submit payment if you haven't yet.

*UPDATE* 10/15
Just wanted to inform everyone the boards have arrived and I'll make my first shipment on Friday (10/17) to everyone who has paid. There are a few extra boards up for grabs.

Pricing per board
$5 postage paid to US
$6 postage paid to Canada
$7 everywhere else

Contact me at richard[at]beastmasterelectronics.com if you are interested.

Thanks to everybody for making this happen!

*UPDATE* 11/7
Sorry, no more boards. For those of you that got in on this, enjoy!

Would you also give an estimate with shipping to Sweden?

Rally cool project, I'm in if it's still under $10

Nevermind. I did a quick search, and I could buy something similar to this from Sparkfun.

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=7829
Its a PIC18 instead of PIC24, but it can work.

luwi,

Sending a letter first class to Sweden costs $1.14, but who knows how long it would get there. "Priority mail" shipping costs $11.95, and the estimated time is 6 to 10 days. There are a variety of other options, depending on how fast you want it to get there.

http://ircalc.usps.gov/IntlMailServices ... =7&P=0&O=1

Ordering parts from mouser costs about $35 plus shipping (use their BOM tool and the parts list below for easy ordering).

If we did a group buy of parts, the total cost would come down, but I don't know how I feel about dropping $400 or $500 on parts and then kitting them. I'd rather leave that up to the individual, and just deal with distributing the PCBs.

As far as having someone else assemble them, that's half the fun! I'd rather do that myself.

oops. forgot to attach the parts list.

That looks like a pretty neat device if you don't want to deal with soldering or anything.

Count me in... Looks like a fun project.

pcm

pcm,

Great. PM me with your email so I can get a mailing list going. That goes for anyone interested.

Great Idea! In for one

PM Sent as well.

i'll take 5 pcb's ...in canada.. s&h?

I just came to this forum topic through slashdot about this business card web server. I would definitely be interested in at least 1 board, not sure how many you have intereted at the moment, but we shall see.

I would definitely be interested in 3 PCBs.

there is a place aapcb.com that will do fully assembled pcbs and order parts from digikey for you. alternatively you can send them parts. I have not used their services yet but thought this might be a good use of them.

also, the pcb shop that runs through sparkfun is pretty good. I did a few boards through them and they were awesome. very good quality and $2.50/sq. inch for 2 layer boards and $8.00/sq. inch for 4 layer boards. http://www.batchpcb.com is their website.

are the eagle files out there for this board? or is it not open source despite having all the parts lists available

Perhaps you missed the link for the project archive on hack-a-day's page. The eagle files are in this zip, as well as the source code.

We will be doing a board order only (no parts) for this project. I haven't ever tried aapcb or sparkfun's service. Perhaps one day...