Plans? What are they? I've never had any plans for anything! In 25 years of writing commercial software I never even once got a specification from a customer. They always wanted me to tell them what they wanted.

I hadn't thought of brass as a screen. Not a bad idea. Not sure if I can afford a laser powerful enough to punch it though. I'd have to etch it.

I envision picking up components from the reel with a vacuum head on a robot arm, then holding them over a camera with some vision recognition software to square them up (that's where the tiny worm & wheel come in) before plonking down on the pasted-up PCB.

I bought the large worm & wheel (£18) because - like Mount Everest - it was there. I didn't have any particular use for it, but I had a hunch I'd find one. When it arrived I was really delighted with the quality, and I'm sure it will be adequate for the job.

As regards Tribbles point about volume: yes, and I can indeed rattle out boards manually at a rate of knots if I have to. But now that I'm liberated from the shackles of somebody else's factory I'm planning new products which I intend will go well, and anyway somebody's got to give the Chinese some competition! Once you've got a production line set up of course, it's easy to switch from one product to another. You just load the appropriate product code, and away you go.

Ian