Just noticed these on eBay...

Sure… I am familiar with the free version of EagleCAD and may very well use your files as is or as a starting point for the final design.

I need to give the whole thing some thought before I start anything and it may be a while as so many other projects are in the queue now !

Thanks @Mike_Thornbury !

No worries. While OSHPark aren’t the cheapest place to get boards made, they are probably the best quality for the price. You could get a set of three of those boards for $2.30 delivered, just to try.

I was terrified of SMD soldering, but now just a little scared :slight_smile: now I know I can recover my screw ups.

The cheapest and easiest is the skillet method. Worth a try to see if you want to go that way. A small pot of solder paste will run you about $5 and will do hundreds of boards. Or you can do the ‘drag’ method of getting solder on the pads, then let flux and the skillet do the rest.

Just a quick question…

Did you only give the 2 (sch and brd) files to OSHpark or did you have to use the EagleCAD to generate all the fabrication files I found downloadable on their site ?

Normally you need to generate the Gerber’s from the Eagle file, but OSHPark can take the Eagle files direct.

However - that doesn’t give me the control over the layers that I want - if you notice, I use layer 121 - _tsilk - for my silk screening.

So, I always generate the Gerber files. Of course I could create my files properly in the first place and put the right info on the right layers, but where’s the fun in that? You can download the Gerber files for the project from the OSHPark link, if you don’t want to run the CAM job yourself.

OSHPark provides the files you need to do your DRC and for the Gerbers:

http://support.oshpark.com/support/solutions/articles/106997-cam-job-for-eagle-cad

http://support.oshpark.com/support/solutions/articles/4000019710-eagle-design-rule-files