Online PCBs with parts, free PCB software.

Oh how interesting, this looks like a direct competitor to

which has offered a similar service (but without any boardstuffing) for several years now. Perhaps the extra competition will bring down the cost of both of these services (but I hope not the quality, expresspcb's boards have always been good for me).

[snip]

Has anyone given Pad2Pad a try yet? I've installed the software and checked it out and it seems pretty decent for the kind of simple hobby work I do. Much more polished than Eagle, which desperately needs some UI polish.

The prices are pretty reasonable, much better than most of the domestic board houses, but still not as good as Olimex. But being closer is enough to get me to give them a try.

Any experiances yet? DK

Eagle is certainly lacking in that department. However, Pad2Pad didn't look like it had any facility for checking against a netlist? This quickly becomes a limiting factor, even with a dozen or so components. One really wants to be able to input a schematic and see whether the nets on the PCB match it.

Dear David,

Pad2Pad does support checking of your design against netlist (Board | Design Rule Check), but in current version you have to input netlist manually (either by using Logical Connections tool or in Nets | Edit Nets dialog). Import of netlists will be introduced in posterior versions.

Sincerely, Pad2Pad customer support.

You *really* want to start saying "future versions" instead of "posterior versions" unless you want to get behind in your work.