Quote from: ryepdx on May 14, 2013, 08:10:12 PM

Quote from: TomKeddie on May 14, 2013, 06:51:35 PM

Is this Colin Fitzgerald you're talking about? I emailed with him a few weeks back about a small personal run of these boards. He'll be at Vancouver Mini Maker Faire in early June, seems to know his stuff.

Yup, that's him! How'd you find him?

"How'd you find him?"

Not sure if you're asking me, how I know him or how did I find his work!

Colin is on the local hackerspace mailing list and has answered various SMT questions from people like me over the last few years. I got into a thread with BkkCoins about him being from BC and mentioned I had asked Colin about just doing my Avalon asics for me (I was thinking of hand soldering the rest but given they're 0402, seems unlikely). I guess Bkk forwarded the stuff to you that Colin sent me - I pointed him at Bkk's threads and github.

So in summary, I think Colin is genuine person who is very helpful and seems to know a lot about SMT. I've not used his operation for anything. You can see some of his posts at https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!searchin/VancouverHackSpace/colin$20fitzgerald

Unfortunately he is located about 11 hours drive east of here in Kimberley (north of Montana, not north of Washington) so visiting him is not really an option. I am hoping to meet him in a few weeks at the local Maker Faire. I suspect his location makes him somewhat competitive (rural areas have lower costs). I also suspect that since the business is fairly new he might be more available.

One other thought, have a chat to Paul from pjrc.com, he is OR based and seems to have a lot of experience with SMT production houses. I worked with him years ago on his mp3 player, a smart guy.