Welcome to BatchPCB
Rocking and rolling for over 5,000 orders and more than 13,000 individual designs!
The DRC Bot is ready to take your order - use BatchPCB for your next single or multi-piece prototype PCB!
We accept 2 and 4 layer designs with unlimited vias, pads and components. Minimum size is 0.5x0.5 inches and Maximum
is 10x15 inches. Our prices are $2.50/sq. inch for 2 layer boards and $8.00/sq. inch for 4 layer boards.
Please see the FAQ for more details.
News
Tuesday 20 May 2008
New Code Update:
Ok, I finally got the new pre-check code going again. I have added support for several slightly odd Gerber outputs including
Pulsonix, Orcad, FreePCB, PADS and others - should fix a number of strange sizing behaviors that were evident the
old pre-check code. I have also added support to the DRC for 4 layer boards with lower trace/space widths.
And, there is also better support for non-standard file naming schemes.
So, if you turned away before because you got funny sizes when using for example Orcad or Pulsonix or 4 layer board
problems or were unable to submit files with different extension (like all *.TXT ) try us
again now - I am working hard to support any Gerber output I can.
All this new code is live today - again, let me know if there are any new problems and I will straighten
things out for any exceptions. Bug reports and comments are welcome!
Until next time, have fun and enjoy!
Tuesday 13 May 2008
Website updates:
I guess not many people noticed - but we do actually support 4 layer designs .. I know, the FAQ did not
say this but its true. I have updated the FAQ on this and a few other points (Thanks to those that pointed it
out to me ). Also, it has been asked why the minimum sizes are so large even for 4 layer boards - eh, they
aren't. In fact you can use as low as 6mil trace width and spacing on 4 layer boards and 13mil drill sizes.
So, let people know - BatchPCB can get your multi-layer prototypes done!
Also, I have posted new testing code after adding support for some more output types and non-standard
filenaming should work now, along with smarter sizing. It has also been suggested that we add support for submitting a separate board
outline layer file - I am working on this and will include it in the next rev. Until then, the way to do this
has been to simply make an outline in any of the layers - when we layout the boards the outermost line is
what the board will be cut to. The best way to do this is to make the outline in a silkscreen (aka overlay)
layer.
Friday 09 May 2008
New Code Update:
First, Thanks very much to all of you that have been sending feedback and bug reports - this really helps me
make this system better for everyone! I got several really good bug reports with good details. Lee, Timucun,
Stephan and others - I really appreciate the help.
So, now I have fixed the problems from earlier in the week and added a few more touch ups - we are ready to
roll again. However, it is Friday and I would rather be around to monitor things in case of problems so I
am leaving the old system in place for "real" orders - proceed as usual for designs that you want to actually
submit. Monday I will switch over again - but over the weekend those of you that feel like doing a little beta
testing can go Here and try out submitting some designs. These will not
be real submissions - they are only for testing. After this weekend I will remove all of the testing
designs and if there are still no major problems (knock on wood) then I'll hook things up for normal orders.
Note: The bot will not run the second stage DRC on the testing designs so you will not get an
email about it. The part of the process is where the more detailed DRC happens is a separate code base - that is
where the emails come from. The current rollout is the PHP pre-processing code for the website, it does some
basic checks and sizing, makes an product, etc. and then sends it to the DRC box. The detailed DRC is in C++
and runs on a totally different machine - the release of that is still to come - I'll keep you posted on developments.
That's all for now - thanks again for the feedback and have a great weekend!
Tuesday 06 May 2008
New Code Update: I have run into a couple of bugs with the new code - so, we are rolling back to the old system
temporarily. If you have ordered or uploaded in the past day and you notice any problem with an order
please email me at erik AT batchpcb.com
Monday 05 May 2008
Update: After a couple of false starts and wrestling with some glitches and so on, the new pre-check code is
finally rolled out! New designs will go through the new system - please let me know if you have any problems
with this (Thanks to those that alerted me Friday!), or suggestions about how to make it better.
Til next time, Enjoy!
Thursday 01 May 2008
HAPPY MAY DAY!!
New developments: I am wrapping up new pre-check code for design uploads. I had to
push back deploying it to address a couple of glitches, but tomorrow is the big day! Uploading
should be much faster and smoother now (and things like the occasional odd sizing problem should go away ..).
I haven't gotten to all the new features yet - display of images for the design on the
last page is still to come, as is support for bzip2, but tar.gz compression is now supported and
drill file detection is much improved - I hope that this alone will save everybody alot of
headaches. Also, the general work flow is simplified - you no longer have to enter the name
of your CAD software or the format of the drill file (who keeps track of that anyway?) - the new
parser should pick up most drill formats - and it has a modular architecture so I can add
intelligence when/if if fails to detect one. If it does fail to detect a format, you will notice as it will
show
" Drill Format: NoFormatFound "
in the product descriptions. Let me know if that happens and I'll try to straighten it out for you.
I have done quite a bit of testing with this new code - but, I'm human, so if you
notice any bugs please report them to support AT batchpcb.com. Don't
be shy - I like bug reports.
Until next time, enjoy!
Monday 14 April 2008
Its been a hectic couple of weeks - just get oriented here and figuring out how BatchPCB and
the DRC Bot work is a big job. But, I've made a lot of progress on it and
although it isn't quite ready to make live yet, I have rewritten the code
for the website that does the initial integrity checks when you upload
a design. Here is what happens: on the website, during the submission
process there is code that does a couple of basic checks on the design
to keep you from submitting something that will not work, confirms filenames, and then it creates
an estimate of the size and cost of the board. Well, its fairly simple
right now and it misses some things - like if you forgot the solder mask
layer or the drill file, for instance. And, it is very particular about
what format it will accept - Zip and Zip alone and files must be in the
root of the zip archive. And, its a bit slow.
So, among the improvements will be:
- Format flexibility - yes, you Open Source/*nix people will be able to submit tar gzip or bzip2!
- Smarter checking routines for obvious omissions
- Better sizing/estimate algorithms
- (Hopefully) a new feature - display images of the board as the DRC bot sees it ..
That's the news for now - very busy, must get back to work -
there are some more developments, new site design, etc ... but I will get to that
later. That's called a hook I think ..
Stay tuned!
Monday 31 March 2008
BatchPCB is going bigtime! We have received so much demand for services
that we are getting a fulltime administrator - Erik Winn (that's me) will be working on the site and the DRC bot.
So, expect some new developments and improvements in the months to come. You can to write in to me
at erik AT batchpcb.com with feature requests or ideas about improving the site - I can't guarantee that we can do
all of them, but we will definitely take them into consideration.
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