Chinese PCB manufacturing

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radiance

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 4, 2004
Messages
3,228
Location
the Netherlands
Does anyone here has experience with dealing with Chinese PCB manufacturing firms?
So far it looks cheap although the gerber viewers they're using are always messing up my design.
How's the communication?
 
I've used at least three different ones so far. Granted, only for small batches, and not much communication was required, but i can't really complain. Maybe just about the shipping costs of the express courier options 😁

If memory serves, some designs in the last batch did have a couple of weird features in their own online gerber viewer, but the actual physical boards came out exactly as intended, so...
 
There are many cheap PC houses in China.

Modern PCB fab is pretty automated so as long as your gerber files are good, you should get what you asked for.

There are multiple discussions on this forum with forum members sharing their experiences.

JR
 
I'll quote myself here:

A colleague recommended jetek-pcb - Jetek-PCB - a small-ish operation in Shenzhen city. Sent them some artwork to be printed, and in an hour got a confirmation mail back, pointing to a number of possible problems in my layout, asking if I wanted to revise before continuing. Now THIS is the type of support you really wish for when using 1992-vintage PCB layout programs like I do - but it also shows a general attitude towards QC that is reassuring. Their prices are not the lowest around, but not higher than perhaps +/-50% from the rock-bottom-lowest. I think they compete on quality aspects rather than price - but still very, very far from what I used to pay locally :eek: , even considering a good half of their price is the shipping. Their usual turn-around-time, when no hurries is specified, is around one week from I send the files until I have the PCB's in my hand (Denmark).

If you try them, you will want to communicate with their guy Ivan Mao - fluent English, deep technical knowledge.

..and years later, I'm still very happy with them..

/Jakob E.
 
Does anyone here has experience with dealing with Chinese PCB manufacturing firms?
So far it looks cheap although the gerber viewers they're using are always messing up my design.
How's the communication?
I've ordered literally hundreds of boards from JLCPCB in the last 6 months and have been very happy with the speed of service and quality. And the prices are so low it seems impossible.
 
but i can't really complain. Maybe just about the shipping costs of the express courier options 😁
As I mentioned above, JLCPCB has served me well, and their freight options are incredibly reasonable. They usually have 3 or 4 freight options for me (to the US) and the cheapest one (which claims to be 1 day or two slower than the fastest one) gets me my boards in 4 days (NorthEastern US). I order stuff all the time that ships from inside the US and I don't get it in 4 days. Especially after someone sabotaged our postal system.
 
As I mentioned above, JLCPCB has served me well, and their freight options are incredibly reasonable. They usually have 3 or 4 freight options for me (to the US) and the cheapest one (which claims to be 1 day or two slower than the fastest one) gets me my boards in 4 days (NorthEastern US). I order stuff all the time that ships from inside the US and I don't get it in 4 days. Especially after someone sabotaged our postal system.
Granted, it's been a while since my last order, but it's not all that rosy over here in the EU. I see shipping costs between $13 and 12-18 business days, and $45 and 4-7 business days. Plus at least one or two days for the whole customs BS (reporting the package, paying the fees as well as the post's unavoidable "storage fee"), and the local transit...
 
Granted, it's been a while since my last order, but it's not all that rosy over here in the EU. I see shipping costs between $13 and 12-18 business days, and $45 and 4-7 business days. Plus at least one or two days for the whole customs BS (reporting the package, paying the fees as well as the post's unavoidable "storage fee"), and the local transit...
Yeah, fair enough.

I didn't know where you lived. I think the most I've ever paid for freight from them about was $25 for 300 small-ish boards. About 3x3 inches.

Anyway, the long and short of it is I have been beyond thrilled with their quality, service, and pricing.
 
Granted, it's been a while since my last order, but it's not all that rosy over here in the EU. I see shipping costs between $13 and 12-18 business days, and $45 and 4-7 business days. Plus at least one or two days for the whole customs BS (reporting the package, paying the fees as well as the post's unavoidable "storage fee"), and the local transit...
Yep, sadly true.
 
As I mentioned above, JLCPCB has served me well, and their freight options are incredibly reasonable. They usually have 3 or 4 freight options for me (to the US) and the cheapest one (which claims to be 1 day or two slower than the fastest one) gets me my boards in 4 days (NorthEastern US). I order stuff all the time that ships from inside the US and I don't get it in 4 days. Especially after someone sabotaged our postal system.
I have used JLCPCB for all my prototypes and have been completely satisfied. Never a problem here in the US.
 
I've been usong JLCPCB several times. I used to chose slow shipping to save money, mostly because DHL was asking a big fee for collecting taxes. On a 50€ order including shipping thay asked me to pay something like 20€ for customs and a 30€ fee fpr collecting it...

But on my last order, JLC PCB was offring to collect the taxes themselves, so i didn't have to pay customs at all and DHL delivered my package in 2 days.

Don't know if they do this for every country though, i'm in France.

Cheers,

Thomas
 
I've been usong JLCPCB several times. I used to chose slow shipping to save money, mostly because DHL was asking a big fee for collecting taxes. On a 50€ order including shipping thay asked me to pay something like 20€ for customs and a 30€ fee fpr collecting it...

But on my last order, JLC PCB was offring to collect the taxes themselves, so i didn't have to pay customs at all and DHL delivered my package in 2 days.

Don't know if they do this for every country though, i'm in France.

Cheers,

Thomas
Same for me (not surprizing as I'm also in France). It seems like a minimum 50€ for shipping and handling. That's why I postponed my last order - less than 10€ for material, till I have other PCB's to order.
 
Chinese suppliers are undoubtedly cheap but somewhat variable in quality. I now use AISLER based in Germany. Almost as cheap as China but much easier to communicate with and consistently better results. They also support direct input of files from many CAD packages.

Cheers

Ian
 
Thanks Ian! Definitely looking into this as well.
I stumbled upon your earlier thread about ethical considerations regarding having PCB's made in china.
Some good points there!
 
I've been using PCBWIN (NOT pcbway) for about 10 years now, they are fantastic, they provide core samples, and no charge for 2OZ copper or different mask/silkscreen colors, as well as TG170 (they do go up a little for TG180). I hav also had some one off PCB "panels" made there for prototyping a front panel that worked out really well. I even have a credit line with them.
 
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