Homebrew PCBs

Alan Marconett wrote:

>The board size is probably DESIGNED as a roadblock intentionally.  BUT I
>think it's really GOOD marketing to make at least one level of "full
>product" available so that potential users can give it a good tryout.  Also
>
>Yeah, it's a shame to have to "squash" a good design down into too small an
>area, but it keeps one on one's toes!
>
>  
>


  The fact is, it does unduly penalize those who would want relatively 
simple schematics but need larger unused areas.  It'd be nice if you 
could design everything on the small board, but then break the rules and 
spread things out as needed, only after the area rule break you can't 
add new parts.  Problem is then you could simply load up the small 
board, break the rules, then do what you want.  Hard to figure a way 
where people can't cheat easily.  Complexity limit as in others is just 
as bad, you also can't deeply test things without a lot of parts..

  But that leads to exactly what it needs, an area * complexity limit.  
Stay below the bounds and you can do what you want, for larger size 
boards you are limited to a maximum complexity.  That would allow the 
people with the $49 version to do exactly what is overly limited, making 
larger size boards that simply need spacing for large components but are 
still rediculously simple and should hardly qualify as needing the $200 
per module version.  And if you had to choose at the outset for larger 
board or small board but no complexity limit, that should be easy enough 
to program in.

Alan

  PS: Lately I sort of feel like I've gone straight from the round table 
to the Alan convention..