DirtyPCB board house

GroupDIY Audio Forum

Help Support GroupDIY Audio Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Humner said:
Maybe try http://www.pcbway.com/ with DHL shipping option. I had 100 boards made - 3cm x 3cm for $66us including DHL shipping. Hard to beat that.

That is pretty good. Do you find that with DHL you have to pay additional import duties/taxes??

Cheers

Ian
 
never had to pay additional duties/taxes, however I live in Australia so we are still lucky enough to have a $1000 threshold before duties/taxes must be paid.
 
I had to pay the duties plus an extra service charge to DHL for them paying the taxes upfront.
IMHO it's either paying a little extra and receive the boards faster or saving some money but wait longer.

Cheers,
Carsten
 
culteousness1 said:
I had to pay the duties plus an extra service charge to DHL for them paying the taxes upfront.
IMHO it's either paying a little extra and receive the boards faster or saving some money but wait longer.

Cheers,
Carsten
Do you remember by any chance how much you had to pay for duties+DHL's taxes upfront?
 
Sure. The duties were the country-specific 19% German VAT. IIRC something about 10 EUR for the order.

DHL then charged additional 15 EUR for their expenses  :mad:

Carsten
 
culteousness1 said:
Sure. The duties were the country-specific 19% German VAT. IIRC something about 10 EUR for the order.

DHL then charged additional 15 EUR for their expenses  :mad:

Carsten
15 EUR???  sh*t...
 
Pretty much the same in the UK. In my experience DHL add 20% VAT to the cost of the order, including shipping costs, then charge you a fee to collect it. If you use the HK post option it takes a couple of weeks but there are no extra charges. On the other hand, you will find many of the HK PCB suppliers will declare the value at $10 to avoid duties/taxes.

Cheers

Ian
 
Just received an order from pcbway. Fast turnaround with DHL shipping and excellent quality boards. PCB price was good but DHL shipping plus DHL collecting VAT pluss their fee for collecting it more than doubled the price. As usual, I suspect that if I have chosen Hong Kong Post I would have waited three weeks but nearly halved the price.

Cheers

ian
 
Well I have my first screw up to report about Dirty PCB

I have been developing iterative versions os the same PCB and the latest order that arrived today has a hole drilled the wrong size (way too small).

I doubt they want me to return the PCBs to china for them to drill out the hole.

Hole didn't change from the previous version that they drilled correctly.  :'(

JR
 
JohnRoberts said:
Well I have my first screw up to report about Dirty PCB

I have been developing iterative versions os the same PCB and the latest order that arrived today has a hole drilled the wrong size (way too small).

I doubt they want me to return the PCBs to china for them to drill out the hole.

Hole didn't change from the previous version that they drilled correctly.  :'(

JR

Ouch, was it a custom size? They SUCK at anything custom.
 
Rochey said:
JohnRoberts said:
Well I have my first screw up to report about Dirty PCB

I have been developing iterative versions os the same PCB and the latest order that arrived today has a hole drilled the wrong size (way too small).

I doubt they want me to return the PCBs to china for them to drill out the hole.

Hole didn't change from the previous version that they drilled correctly.  :'(

JR

Ouch, was it a custom size? They SUCK at anything custom.
It was 3/8" diameter hole in the middle of a round PCB

There may have been a conflict with a component keepout area, or close pads, but they got it correct in the previous cut.

Not sure I can easily drill out 3/8" hole in a 1" round PCB... :eek:

JR
 

Attachments

  • OD1apix.png
    OD1apix.png
    9.4 KB · Views: 16
JohnRoberts said:
Not sure I can easily drill out 3/8" hole in a 1" round PCB... :eek:

How many boards do you have to drill?

http://www.harborfreight.com/3-piece-titanium-nitride-coated-high-speed-steel-step-drills-91616.html

I'm somewhat serious. You already have a pilot hole for centering (assuming it is in the right place). These things are good at staying centered and not walking if you come in nice and square. Just come up with a soft clamping rig to hold those little half-dollars while on the drill press. Go in until the next larger step touches, deburrs nicely.

The quantity is important, it determines the complexity of the jig, to minimize total time of jig building plus rework.

FWIW,
Gene
 
I'd have to buy a drill press too... not going to happen.  :(

What I need is a reamer
2743a13p1-abbr.png


When I was a kid we had one with a T-handle and it was perfect for enlarging holes in soft/thin metal (or a fiberglass PCB) by hand.

My Roper Whitney hand punch  has a 9/32 punch and die set so that may be close enough (to 3/8), certainly easy enough.

They drilled a 1/8" pilot hole, perhaps got distracted or confused*** and didn't finish the job. Even if a sloppy drill shaved a pad here or there, no problemo.

JR

*** There is interference between a keep out border around the hole and some nearby component pads, but they should have just drilled the hole.  it's supposed to be a dirty PCB, not an unfinished PCB..
 
JohnRoberts said:
I'd have to buy a drill press too... not going to happen.  :(

When I was a kid we had one with a T-handle and it was perfect for enlarging holes in soft/thin metal (or a fiberglass PCB) by hand.

They still make them:

http://www.harborfreight.com/t-handle-reamer-66936.html

I can't vouch for the quality of this particular item, others are available elsewhere for around 10 bucks. Handy for one-hole things, change a pot and the new one has a larger shank,  3/8" to 10mm in about 10 seconds.

Or go with the stepped bit in a drill, put on a leather glove and make the "OK" sign to hold the boards by the circumference,  and have at it. You indicated that precision wasn't important here.

Trying to help,
Gene
 
Gene Pink said:
JohnRoberts said:
I'd have to buy a drill press too... not going to happen.  :(

When I was a kid we had one with a T-handle and it was perfect for enlarging holes in soft/thin metal (or a fiberglass PCB) by hand.

They still make them:

http://www.harborfreight.com/t-handle-reamer-66936.html
exactly....  perfect tool for many DIY tasks.
I can't vouch for the quality of this particular item, others are available elsewhere for around 10 bucks. Handy for one-hole things, change a pot and the new one has a larger shank,  3/8" to 10mm in about 10 seconds.

Or go with the stepped bit in a drill, put on a leather glove and make the "OK" sign to hold the boards by the circumference,  and have at it. You indicated that precision wasn't important here.

Trying to help,
Gene
Already sorted.... My roper whitney 9/32" punch is close enough, and I used my dremel with an end mill tool to open up one hole the rest of the way, but I need to be careful with the dremel I don't slip and trash some traces.

Not complaining too loud for the price... but will give them my feedback.

JR
 
Well I'll have to wait for Chinese new years to be over to tell them, but it looks like at least 2 of the 3 holes are under sized.

I checked the drill data txt file and it clearly states correct drill sizes and inches.

I'll have to wait weeks to share this with the dirty crowd...

JR 
 
Rochey said:
Welcome to working with China.

Bear in mind btw - that they are merely a front for a bunch of Taobao suppliers.
It's hard to complain too loudly for the price, but they got the hole sizes correct last time...

I may ask them to try again, after new years (mid feb?).

JR

PS: I've actually been to China,,, and indeed this is the kind of problem that can occur when you don't have local representation, while things like PCB are pretty hard to screw up, they managed to.  :eek: I actually had a 3D injection molded plastic part tool machined in China, while I worked through a company with experience doing that before.  Again I provided a very specific 3d cad file for the finished part.
 
Back
Top