I am working on building a 240 W Forward converter and the progress is steady but slow. I just bought a 16 pin SSOP chip from Linear and other parts including transformers and inductors . I have to get down to soldering and PCB design as some of the parts are SMDs. I need help getting cheap PCBs since its about $100 for 4 PCBs using Express PCB. any advice?
You can get little adaptor PCBs to let you use the SMD chips in DIP footprint. Personally I think it is dumb to buy chips in SSOP if you don't have experience and equipment to work with them.
And for the smarties, "forward converter" is a standard term for a SMPS that has 2 or more isolated coils on the inductor, like the one in your PC PSU. It's actually the opposite of a "flyback converter".