<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif;font-size:12pt"><div><span><br></span></div> <div class="qtdSeparateBR">Adam,</div><div class="qtdSeparateBR"><br></div><div class="qtdSeparateBR">I hope this was not taken as discouragement to SMT or PCB purchases. Quite the opposite, I just wanted to provide my experience in hope that it helps. There are quite a few small run PCB shops around if you search. There are more now then there ever was when I was in the business. As far as SMT, it is a no brainer for production. For small runs, it depends on your skill in assembly of SMT. There are techniques everywhere on the web. These old eyes just prefer to stay away from any soldering, although I still do quite a bit of soldering, just not SMT. In general, I am ok with spending the money for assembled products.</div><div class="qtdSeparateBR"><br></div><div
class="qtdSeparateBR">Having worked with many start up products in my Electronics Assembly career, I always recommend that you pay for the expensive small runs and perfect your board design. Test, Test, Test!!! This will save you loads of time and possibly money on production runs. The good news is that small run PCBs are pretty darn cheap these days and from what I am seeing getting cheaper. I suspect it will not be long before we all just print the board with conductive ink on various substrates. I personally want to see conductive paths built into 3-D printing. I have not heard of anyone even trying this, but it seems like an obvious next step.</div><div class="qtdSeparateBR"><br></div><div class="qtdSeparateBR">In any case, I applaud your effort at creating a product and wish you the best of luck in making it happen. Please keep us updated and continue to ask questions on this list. I think we all love to hear from the inventors on this list, I know
I do.</div><div class="qtdSeparateBR"><br></div><div class="qtdSeparateBR">John Vaughters</div> </div></body></html>