I recently had to design and build a prototype for a new product my company was working on. I knew exactly what I wanted to build and could easily source all the components required for the circuit however, most were only available in surface mount packages. There was no easy way for me to first build a prototype of the product to prove my design without expending a significant amount of time and money having the circuit professionally built.
Home computers and simpler programming languages have increasingly made software development more accessible.
The advent of 3-D printers has made mechanical engineering more accessible.
The advent of Surface Mount Devices (SMD) has made electronics design less accessible.
Don’t get me wrong, surface mount technology is a fantastic step forward and makes a lot of the things we take for granted possible. However, it does pose problems for engineers or hobbyists alike who want a inexpensive, timely way of building small volume/one off designs. Oh for the halcyon days where everything was available in through hole packages!
This site is intended to try and go some way to address this problem and also share ideas and experiences when developing hardware/firmware today.