Hello everyone I was just wondering what some good usa prototyping companies that do the $2 for 5 or $5 for 5 deal or what ever seems like a good price. I just recieved my first order from JLCPCB and the boards are completely useless to me after I inspected them. The reason they are useless is because for some reason they did not put any solder mask on the back of my boards to allow me to solder my through hole components to. I checked my gerber files that was in my zip file and it shows them in the zipped files front and back solder masks and it shows it on their 3d render of my boards that were uploaded from the gerber files. I’m quite upset that my first ever order and pcb designed came out pretty bad.
I’m looking for US companies only now because this has seriously put me behind on my project I’m working on because I have 10 pcbs that are completely useless to me.
Check out the PCBShopper tool at https://pcbshopper.com/
You enter the basic details (board size, number of layers, quantity, and other details. The site will give you price quotes for many manufacturers, then choose from the list the manufacturers that are from wherever you want.
As for a specific manufacturer, I’ve liked the quality that I’ve gotten from OSHPark. (I just checked their website to double check the prices and saw they have a new “After Dark” extra service (clear mask on black substrate), only costs a longer lead time compared to their regular service which is with purple soldermask.) Their prices for regular service is $5/sqin gets you 3 copies of your board. I’ve had boards as small as 0.5"x0.5" made. (Yes, those only cost me $1.25 for 3 boards.) Their standard shipping is free around the world. But, if you have large boards they can get expensive. (For example, the same 100mm square board for $2 deal that JLCPCB has will cost you $77.50 at OSHPark. And you get 5 boards out of JLCPCB instead of only 3 from OSHPark.)
I’ll second @craftyjon’s suggestion for Aisler and @SembazuruCDE’s note about OSHPark. Both are good consolidating manufacturers (and friends of KiCad).
Also, bad experience with one manufacturer in China is not the same as all manufacturers in China are bad. Political boundaries have little to do with PCB quality. In that vein, I have had good experiences with PCBWay, NextPCB and JLC in China.
My personal favorite is OSH Park You drop your Kicad PCB file directly onto their main webpage. No need to create Gerbers! They are generally more expensive than the Shenzen board mfgs but the quality is much better.
well with being on a budget I’m having to keep an eye out on how much I spend on this project, so if i can get boards at a cheaper price I’m going to look more towards that option for now. I did find out what happened with my order though and it has been corrected. I accidentally selected the 1 layer side but thought I changed it before I placed my order but the change to 2 layers didn’t save for some reason. So that would explain why I only had solder mask on 1 side of my board. OOPS!!! Lesson learned but I was able to solder my components to the top of the boards and give them a test go and setup.
Everything went well, everything worked like it should. Just need to replace and change a few things like the resistors spacing because the one I selected was a little tighter than the resistors body and wouldn’t let me put the resistor flush to the board and a few other little tweaks and movements. I’m about to setup the gerber files for the 2nd revision of my boards to be made and printed and as of right now I’m going to keep using JLCPCB since it wasn’t an error on their part but only of my own fault.
I just received another order from www.allpcb.com and the quality of all boards is great, as usual.
Trust me, I have been working in this field for a long time and so far, they are the best I have found in terms of quality, delivery time and price.
Moreover, if they detect any issue in your board or if they have any doubt, they will send as many emails as necessary before start production.
As i’m in Europe, i never tried US manufactorers, mainly because the high taxes.
note: corona is just another flu, use adequate body protection and take other measures as defined by health authorities, nothing more to worry about.
Regards
I tried OSHPark PCB service previously but was unhappy with the cost. A friend pointed me towards Seeed PCB https://www.seeedstudio.com/fusion_pcb.html and that turned out to be a great choice.Printed circuit boards at affordable prices, with a very reasonable 2 days lead time. I was also impressed with the customer service of them, professional and patient.