Seeedstudio PCB fab?

Has anyone use Seeedstudio for PCBs? The price is about the same as dirtypcbs but they don't have the "fuck you, round eye" attitude.

Yes, I use them a lot for prototyping. Generally very good. The China Post shipping option can take a couple of weeks but it is very economic if you are not in a hurry.

Cheers

Ian

I have used their service in the past when they offered some shipping discounts.
The quality of the PCB is the same like almost all Chinese prototyping houses. 
Can't say anything negative about but expect to receive their monthly news letter
once you have ordered 

Cheers,
Carsten

I have used iteadstudio, which has similar prices and most likely use the same och factory. Nothing bad ever, have done maybe 5-10 orders during past 4 years.

SkunkFunk said:

I have used iteadstudio, which has similar prices and most likely use the same och factory. Nothing bad ever, have done maybe 5-10 orders during past 4 years.

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I agree, these two are remarkably similar. I have used both with no problems.

Cheers

Ian

FWIW the dirty boys screwed up the hole sizes (too small) on my last order, but they're all so cheap it's hard to get angry for prototypes. For production it would be unacceptable.

JR

JohnRoberts said:

FWIW the dirty boys screwed up the hole sizes (too small) on my last order, but they're all so cheap it's hard to get angry for prototypes. For production it would be unacceptable.

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I was going to use them for this thing I'm working on now, mainly because it doesn't fit the rules for Accutrace's low-cost service and I'll have to pay $100 for tooling. Then I read your thing about the wrong hole sizes and started looking for alternatives. At least Seeed doesn't think I'm an asshole.

Anyways, the Seeed price looks to be about $100 when shipping is included, and the Accutrace price is $215 including tooling and shipping, qty 10. Accutrace communication is excellent, and I've never had a problem with their boards.

I suppose my conundrum is this (forgetting the whole notion of encouraging outfits like Dirtypcbs): the cost of the parts going on the board is not trivial. A fab mistake found after stuffing could render the board useless, and that's a lot of money in parts wasted. It's all SMT, and while pulling parts from the board is possible, I'd rather not go there.

I'd rather have PCB errors be my fault than the fab house's fault.

For the record I've used dirty several times and this was their only mistake... I may use them again depending on how they respond to my complaint.

I forget the name now, but the previous chinese source I used to use for prototypes had a copper adhesion problem with one batch,,, they stonewalled me when I complained... I guess that is par for the course when buying budget services half way around the world, sight unseen.

I expect they all have the ocassional bad day.

JR

Andy Peters said:

Has anyone use Seeedstudio for PCBs? The price is about the same as dirtypcbs but they don't have the "f**k you, round eye" attitude.

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Well, last night I submitted Gerbers to them, and paid too, and this morning I see that they were bounced because of some reason that is utterly unclear. Their descriptions of what formats they accept are in the form of Wiki posts submitted by users. So I sent a note asking for clarity. If what they send back is crap, I'll pull  the job and demand a refund. I don't need to waste time if they can't do something simple.

-a

Andy Peters said:

Andy Peters said:

Has anyone use Seeedstudio for PCBs? The price is about the same as dirtypcbs but they don't have the "f**k you, round eye" attitude.

Click to expand...

Well, last night I submitted Gerbers to them, and paid too, and this morning I see that they were bounced because of some reason that is utterly unclear. Their descriptions of what formats they accept are in the form of Wiki posts submitted by users. So I sent a note asking for clarity. If what they send back is crap, I'll pull  the job and demand a refund. I don't need to waste time if they can't do something simple.

-a

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Did you use the standard naming conventions for the various Gerber layers or did you use the default ones created by your PCB package? Did you include the board outline on every layer. Most PCB manufacturers expect files to be in this format. Here is a link to the Seeedstudio Gerber file requirements from their help  page:

http://support.seeedstudio.com/knowledgebase/articles/493833-what-is-gerber-file

Cheers

Ian

ruffrecords said:

Andy Peters said:

Andy Peters said:

Has anyone use Seeedstudio for PCBs? The price is about the same as dirtypcbs but they don't have the "f**k you, round eye" attitude.

Click to expand...

Well, last night I submitted Gerbers to them, and paid too, and this morning I see that they were bounced because of some reason that is utterly unclear. Their descriptions of what formats they accept are in the form of Wiki posts submitted by users. So I sent a note asking for clarity. If what they send back is crap, I'll pull  the job and demand a refund. I don't need to waste time if they can't do something simple.

-a

Click to expand...

Did you use the standard naming conventions for the various Gerber layers or did you use the default ones created by your PCB package? Did you include the board outline on every layer. Most PCB manufacturers expect files to be in this format. Here is a link to the Seeedstudio Gerber file requirements from their help  page:

http://support.seeedstudio.com/knowledgebase/articles/493833-what-is-gerber-file

Click to expand...

Yep, I used the Protel extensions, which Kicad happily generates.

It turns out that the problem was that Seeed uses an ancient (and likely cracked) version of Cam350 to process the Gerbers for manufacture, and that version doesn't support the Gerber "Extended Attributes." Accutrace, of course, is happy with the modern Gerber format.

I sent them two designs. One is a two-layer 165 mm by 90 mm board with a lot of analog stuff, with connectors on one edge and a micro off to the side. I would have used Accutrace but since there are a lot of parts on the bottom of the board, I really needed a bottom-side silkscreen, and that bumped me out of their low-cost option. Basically, I would have had to pay $100 for tooling.

The second was a smaller board which would have been fine with Accutrace, and in fact the price for the ten units was $40 exclusive of shipping, and Accutrace would've been $40 inclusive of shipping. Oh well.

When the boards arrive, I'll report.

-a

I just ordered another board from the dirty boys... (love that $14 price... I'm cheap).

I had an email exchange with a human about their hole screw up on my last order and he was pleasant if not very helpful. Oddly they had two different files with the correct drill sizes in my zip file. I doubt they use many human touches in their process.

This time I used their "Dirty" CAM routine in Eagle so it returned all the Gerbers with their idea of proper names. I had to run some drill related ULPs to create the drill configuration file before their CAM would run without error messages.

Fingers crossed... When I talked to the help guy, he didn't even know how they determined the drill sizes, apparently all automated from the gerbers and two drill files their CAM generates.

I am more optimistic this time, my past prototypes used gerbers I generated using a different CAM routine that I had to rename after processing so they would take them.

Reviewing the gerbers with a gerber reader I noticed that their CAM merges the dimension layer with the copper layer, a problem for a few of my parts. But I fixed that too... I am running a pretty old version of eagle (4-03)

JR

UPS tells me that the boards I ordered from Seeed will be here tomorrow. That's ten calendar days from order to delivery.

Dirty PCB tells me my ($14) order shipped airmail from Hong Kong 2 days ago, so I'll expect the PCB in 1-8+ weeks.....

I hope the hole sizes are right this time.  ;D

The good news about being old is the weeks fly by....

JR

Andy Peters said:

UPS tells me that the boards I ordered from Seeed will be here tomorrow. That's ten calendar days from order to delivery.

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Nice ! do you use "fast shipping" option ? I use the regular shipping  month ago, about 5 week (they say 4 to 8 week if I remeber)

By the way, did someone use 4 layer design with seeed ? I have a 4 layer board to order soon.

Best
Zam

JohnRoberts said:

Dirty PCB tells me my ($14) order shipped airmail from Hong Kong 2 days ago, so I'll expect the PCB in 1-8+ weeks.....

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Is this that airmail you once told me about, that uses those really small airplanes that fit right into overseas shipping containers?

Gene

Seeedstudio has a 30% discount offer that ends today.

Cheers

Ian

Gene Pink said:

JohnRoberts said:

Dirty PCB tells me my ($14) order shipped airmail from Hong Kong 2 days ago, so I'll expect the PCB in 1-8+ weeks.....

Click to expand...

Is this that airmail you once told me about, that uses those really small airplanes that fit right into overseas shipping containers?

Gene

Click to expand...

Perhaps... The good news is I can keep myself busy in the mean while.

JR

ruffrecords said:

Seeedstudio has a 30% discount offer that ends today.

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Of course they started that offer after I received my boards.

-a

I just discovered another problem with the 3+Weeks free shipping delay...  In the time I was waiting I figured out how to do something that I thought was impossible before (apparently it wasn't).

I don't mind the $14 but now I feel like I need to wait for delivery to see if they got the hole sizes right this time, before re-ordering.  8)

JR