Where do you get your PCB's printed?

[j0563]

Im ready to have my pcb design printed up. My first order will be for 10-20, but I will most likely be ordering approx. 15-20 per month after that.

It's a simple 3"x3" 2-sided design.

Who does everyone recommend? I'm looking for decent quality with, of course, a good price!

 

[gbrusseau]

ExpressPCB. high quality and free design software.

http://www.expresspcb.com/

 

[retepsnikrep]

www.pcbcart.com

I was very impressed, and they asked some sensible questions about the files I uploaded to ensure there was no confusion.

The first batch may be more expensive but it includes a one time tooling fee.

Your repeat orders should be well in budget.

Peter

 

[MORA99]

I use these...

www.olimex.com for low volume prototypes (160*100mm minimum order, multiple projects ok, no setup charge) 30EUR a bit slow shipping

www.goldphoenixpcb.biz for medium volume prototypes (about 100USD for 1000sq cm, multiple projects ok for 30$ ekstra)

And pcbcart for production, their prices get really low when the tooling is payed off.


oh, and www.batchpcb.com for small prototypes, although 10$ fee for each order is added, at 80*100 olimex becomes cheaper.

 

[j0563]

www.pcbcart.com

I was very impressed, and they asked some sensible questions about the files I uploaded to ensure there was no confusion.

The first batch may be more expensive but it includes a one time tooling fee.

Your repeat orders should be well in budget.

Peter

I was looking at pcbcart... they are my top pic as of right now. For my 3"x3" board, my quote is only $3.39/ea. in qty. of 20 with a one time tooling charge of $44.07... seems reasonable if I only have to pay a little over $3 for each board in future orders!

What kind of turnaround time have you seen with pcbcart to your location (which country)?

 

[Rooster]

I recently used pcbcart for the first time and was fully satisfied.
The delivery time to the US was about 10 business days, if I remember correctly.

On a side note I used 'Kicad' to develop the schematic and pc board files.
It is a free package and I would also recommend that.

 

[gbrusseau]

Hmm, PCBcart. You must be out of your mind giving your credit card number to someone in China!!

 

[MartinM57]

I used www.ezpcb.com last year - great quality, good price and quick delivery.

Yes, they're in Beijing, but I paid with Paypal...

 

[hax]

@gbrasseau

I have used pcbcart for 3 to 4 years now for both my work and for play for close to hundreds of orders. No problems at all with using credit card or TT or any other payment. They are a reliable company here for the long run.

If you are scared you can use paypal which they accept.


Incidentally, most companies in China for production qantity runs require full payment up front. You wire them $3000 and then simply expect the product to turn up. The first time you do this it is very daunting. But after a while it is second nature. Every once in a while things go wrong but not very often and that is the cost of doing business.

 

[demonicpicaxeguy]

Incidentally, most companies in China for production qantity runs require full payment up front. You wire them $3000 and then simply expect the product to turn up. The first time you do this it is very daunting. But after a while it is second nature. Every once in a while things go wrong but not very often and that is the cost of doing business.

you're not wrong about the daunting bit, i've had to start ordering stuff from china and hongkong simply because the local suppliers in australia are either robbing customers with their highway style prices, or insanly long lead times,
the first order i placed i was wondering if anything was going to show up, which it did by the promised time

as for pcb's i was looking around at the local people that do it and they all wanted hundreds just for 1 or 2 pcb's , so now i just do it myself using the photoresist method and plain reflex printer paper and a laser printer, i develop the photo resist in cold "draino" and etch in ferric chloride,

 

[Dave E]

I had my first pcb made just a couple of weeks ago. I used ExpressPCB without a hitch. Good quality boards, easy to use software for both PCB layout and schematic. Last week, I placed my second order with them.
They supply an e-mail confirmation of order and another e-mail containing tracking info when your order ships. Just 3 days from placing the order to having the boards in hand.

Dave E

 

[womai]

I have used both ExpressPCB (dozens of board designs) and and recently PCBCart. Here is my take on it:

ExpressPCB:

The good:

• Their free design software is quite capable and easy to use, although lacking a few important advanced features (especially some sort of design rule check, as well as checking the layout against the schematic).
• Manufacturing capability is good as long as you don't need more than four layers, any special plating, or inner cutouts on your boards. I.e. very limited range of choices.
• Design submission is fully integrated in their software and absolutely foolproof. You get exact pricing in real time and thus can easily tweak your design to minimize cost.
• They have very tight turnaround times, i.e. their manufacturing and delivery was always on time. Recently they were even faster than they said (for a larger quantity where I chose 10 day turn they delivered after about half that time), probably business isn't too good for them right now either.
• If you can fit your design on their Miniboard size (approx. 2.5 x 3. inches, no soldermask, no silkscreen), that's the best value and even beats PCBCart price-wise.

The bad:

• Especially for larger orders they are very (VERY!) pricey compared to PCBCart. I.e. they give you their design software for free but then charge you extra for fab (and you can't go around them because their software only submits to them, i.e. does not produce e.g. Gerber files). (You can get the Gerbers for an extra $60 fee after you ran the first batch of your board through them).
• Setup fees for anything but non-silksceen 2-layer boards is quite high. Especially 4-layer with silkscreen borders on highway robbery.
• Boards are untested. So far I had several boards with manufacturing defects (etch defects). This happened on several different designs so it's not a freak accident. E.g. on my Picaxe scope I had to scrap 4 boards out of a total of around 100 (2 separate batches).

PCBCart:

They need Gerbers, so you need some software that can produce such files. The free version of Diptrace (limited to 250 holes) is a good choice for a start. (I own the full version).

So far I only had good experiences with them:

• Very low cost especially for larger orders. (ridiculously low compared to ExpressPCB). Go for longer lead times - 10 or 15 business days - if you want to minimize cost further.
• They also have instant online quotes so it's easy to play around with parameters like board size, number of layers, plating, etc.
• At the same time, amazing range of choices. E.g. you can get gold plated contacts for virtually no extra money (try it in the online quote tool!). You can do multi-layer boards. Soldermask and silkscreen in different color for no added cost. They fully test the boards.
• Yes they are in China, but no they are not a shady outfit that will steal your credit card and never deliver. In fact, I had several questions and they answer typically within a day or less - and the person there is knowledgeable both technically as well as in the English language. Once I submitted a wrong file and was easily able to clear it up by email before it went to fab.
• So far manufacturing quality was flawless (and the gold plated finish is MUCH nicer than solder finish), the boards look absolutely professional. As for defects, none so far (but keep in mind my history with them is shorter than with ExpressPCB).

Hope that helps with your decision.

Wolfgang

 

[lanternfish]

ANy suggestions for a New Zealand company?

 

[retepsnikrep]

I was looking at pcbcart... What kind of turnaround time have you seen with pcbcart to your location (which country)?

I go for the 15 day option (Includes Shipping time) and they arive wiithin 15 days in UK. Enough said. Very good.

 

[fred_b]

importing the gerber files

I too used ExpressPCB for prototyping but am now ready to produce a larger quantity. I paid $60 for the Gerber files and received them fine.

I was hoping to import them into Diptrace. All layers imported but the drill file. Diptrace support told me that Diptrace cannot import drill files.

Can someone suggest another program that I should look at using or a good way to work around this issue to get the holes into my layout (in Diptrace)?

Thank you

 

[Mycroft2152]

Fred,

Have you thought about "laying over" diptrace patterns on your files?

Send them to me and I'll give it a shot.

Mycroft2152(at)gmail(dot)com