USB PCB Business Card

Step 5 Manufacturing the PCB

You can achieve a really nice "DIY" feel if you etch the PCB yourself, but I choose to go for a "professional" look by sending my PCB design to a PCB manufacture.

Seeed Studio offers a service that can get me 10 pieces for $28 plus shipping, and it takes 5 days to manufacture, plus shipping time. I think this is an extremely good deal.

I have a CAM job (see attached) that you need to load into the CAM processor inside Eagle, running this CAM job will generate a collection of PCB Gerber files that you need to send to Seeed Studio (or another company) in order to get your PCB manufactured. Zip up the file, and email them to the company (after you pay).



Please be aware of the file that your bitmap layer goes into! If you select the bitmap layer in the copper gerber file, then the bitmap will become a part of the PCB's copper. If you select the bitmap layer in the silkscreen gerber file, then the bitmap will become a part of the PCB's silkscreen.

Please use a Gerber file previewing tool before sending it off to manufacturing. I personally use Gerbv http://gerbv.sourceforge.net/

For kicks, I also made some non-USB business cards/keychains, see picture above (I forgot why I blurred the picture). The smaller size made these dirt cheap.