Hi folks - am about to send my first project to a printer. I see lots of folks using OSHPark. I like that they are domestic and seemingly high quality.
However, I know it might be stupid but I don’t love purple boards. I want my boards to look “standard professional”…green and white. Does anyone have a recommended manufacturer for prototypes and small runs of hobby projects?
I was looking at PCBWay and JLCPCB; but I prefer not going the oversees route if I can find something reasonable otherwise; just seems like it’d be less hassle staying domestic.
Copying is also a lot harder if you send gerber instead of design files as gerber is missing a lot of design information. (A design would include the schematic and additional fields. The gerbers do not even contain info what feature belongs to a footprint meaning one need to use software to reconstruct even this most basic info.)
JLCPCB has been quite good for me they even caught a disconnected trace I missed (must have accidentally deleted it after running DRC).
They seem to have better mask alignment than steedstudio/itead. I have an SOIC part that the mask was screwed up for on the others that’s fine on JLCPCB.
They are also quite fast… as long as you don’t tick too many options.
OSHPark has been my Go-To manufacture, only because the consistency I get means that I am the one making the mistakes. I am in no way affiliated with the company other than that of a satisfied customer.
I had some MCPCBs made by PCBWay. Good results, fast and cheap. Don’t be afraid to use the Chinese guys - competition keeps them working hard to keep customers happy.
I’ve also used Seeedstudio with no issues.
Over the last 20 years or more I have used at least half a dozen different vendors of quick-turn prototype boards. Compared to state-of-the art, all of my boards were quite mundane, not exotic nor at the edge of a manufacturer’s capabilities. Every vendor delivered an acceptable board, constructed according to the Gerber files and instructions I sent. Don’t be afraid to shop around for price, delivery time, or fabrication capabilities. (These factors change on a month-to-month basis.) Chances are, the vendor you select can do the job for you.
I don’t want to hurt Waldo, but a joke comes to my mind:
A worldwide survey was conducted by the UN. The only question asked was:“Would you please give your honest opinion about solutions to the food shortage in the rest of the world?”
The survey was a huge failure…
In Africa they didn’t know what “food” meant.
In Eastern Europe they didn’t know what “honest” meant.
In Western Europe they didn’t know what “shortage” meant.
In China they didn’t know what “opinion” meant.
In the Middle East they didn’t know what “solution” meant.
In South America they didn’t know what “please” meant.
And in the USA they didn’t know what “the rest of the world” meant.
A case-study:
In the past weeks I (from Hungary/EastEurope) ordered a board+assembly from Shenzhen/China the first time. Probably it’ll be the last time as well:(
In local (domestic: Hungary) manufacturer it would be ~1400EUR for 5 weekdays terms. It is ~800EUR from China including DHL shipping, so I gave it a try.
They promised 2-3days for PCB manufacturing, which seemed fine. The only problem, that I ordered full assembly (with place+reflow of ~400 SMD parts), but importing electronic components into China is a huuuge deal: receiving neccessary components from Farnell (which is next morning to-door in Hungary) took 2+ weeks in China. So from paying the order by bank card to putting your hands on the populated boards will be more than 1 month (I don’ have them yet!!!). So it is unacceptable for a proto board…may be good for smaller/larger series.
So my advice: go check local manufacturer.
It doesn’t matter. They may still order from the same channels than you do yourself, even if it sounds strange. Even some big ones which tell you they have channels.
FYI folks I ordered some from JLCPCB and from OshPark. JLCPCB gave me 5 boards for $2+$17 and arrived 3 days after I placed the order. Quality seems fine.
OshPark gave me 3 boards for $40 and I’m still waiting. Supposedly sent to the fab and will be back from fab “around 8/15”.
that is where the Chinese are winning some of these games, as long as you pick the DHL shipping, there are not many parts of the world where it takes much more than 1 week, been using allpcb for the past while because they surprised me with a large order to door in 5 days, but may have to see how the others fair after hearing the promise of 3 days.
edit: I will add if your doing large assembly runs, it can be faster to order the parts locally and ship them to the assembler, but it takes a while to get this process locked down.
Difficult parts are selected and defined in BOM by Farnell, Digikey etc. order codes. (Resistors, capacitors, maybe simple connector can be replaced. I usually don’t define non-important parameters. E.g: 4k7 0603. No power rating, no R tolerance…, so easy to find a surrogate).
But no Chinese manufacturer dares to replace “serious” parts with a China-made substitute, so they need to order from the original manufacturer. And it seems managing import is not easy for them.
I will add if your doing large assembly runs, it can be faster to order the parts locally and ship them to the assembler, but it takes a while to get this process locked down.
No! I suggested this to the Chinese staff member (I collect all the parts and send them in a pack by DHL), but he/she said, it didn’t help: my package must undergo exactly the same tricky import administration.
