Ordering PCBs cheaply?!

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Oliver B said:
For Cheap PCBs, I absolutely recommend PCBWay.com (  Only $5 for 10 boards ), and you will get a $5 coupon when becoming a new member. So, my first order is free. 8) 8) 8) Best company for PCB prototype !!

Except cheapest shipping to UK is $17.

Cheers

Ian
 
I just recently had some really good experience with allpcb.  (www.allpcb.com)

Very affordable and super fast:
Ordered Monday, delivered Friday in Vienna, Austria.
This comes at a price though, shipping to Austria starts at $24 with DHL. 
There is a slower option with HongKong Post that starts at  $9.

10x10cm boards are 5$ for 10 pieces. 

There is a 5$ bonus for new registrated users.

The quality is very nice, silkscreening looks good also with small letters and is positioned very precisely, as are the drillings and solder masks.

 

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JohnRoberts said:
In general a single gerber is a single PCB,,, The PCB house is fairly automated so handles a single consolidated design as one.  If they have to handle multiple different gerbers, it is by definition multiple PCBs.

The PCB house cares first about their labor and second square inches of PCB stock...  What you do with it after you get it is not their concern.

JR

+1
Generate a single gerber package (or whatever - ODB++ etc depending on your software capabilities and what the pcb fab can accept)  and that should be fine.
The pcb manufacturer doesn't need / want to see your schematics or understand the functionality of you design.
as for V-scoring etc. - do you need it ? Just leave enough clearance around your circuit block such that you can cut the FR4 (I assume) with a junior hacksaw or 'Dremel' Type Tool. It cuts easily.

If the issue is that you now have the designs separate and it's tricky to stick them together then you should be able to do it at the gerber stage with a gerber editor (though may need to pay for it !) or a good pcb fab should be able to offer that service - at a cost but not as much as treating it has multiple individual circuits.
 
Use "mouse bites" which are little bridges with holes to make them "breakable" like this:

mousebites.png


The grid in this graphic 0.025 inches so you can work out the dimensional details. There's no standard tool for creating these bridges. You just have to create one and then copy and paste and then bridge all of the gaps. It's all dimension layer.

Then use DirtyPCBs and submit it as one board. The result is like this:

Developing PCBs for the most using constructions: is it interesting?

Other board houses might support mouse bites too but I've done this twice with DirtyPCBs and I have been very satisfied.

As for ribbon cables you can save a LOT of space using FPC cables:

Molex FPC 1mm

like Molex 15167-0243 but there are many varieties of contacts, contact orientation and length of course.

For connectors I use Molex 52271-0879 but I'm moving to 52030-0829 because they can be inserted in 4 different orientations which minimizes conflicts (especially if the pin assignments are symmetric).

Here's an example:

IMG_2790.jpg


This might look a little nuts but it works fine. I run all digital, leds, relays along the bottom of the unit using FPC cables like this. In this pic I didn't bend them nicely but you can fold these cables completely over on themselves (they're actually quite tough) so that they can run at just about any angle and still be flat. With some practice it can be much neater.

I don't use ribbons for audio though. For audio I use conventional hook-up wire or shielded cables where appropriate.

For board-to-board you might consider conventional breakable headers like this:

hdrbridge.png


In this particular example I used Molex 929834-07-36 headers which are much longer than the conventional breakable headers. They come in other lengths of course but this one is 1.25 inches overall so it can span 3 boards. With female receptacles on the ends the boards can be separated. Probably need to mockup with Sketchup to get it right though.
 
For a small order, I'd suggest working with a company that does both board fabrication (drilling, plating, and etching) and assembly.

There are lots of companies who offer that kind of service. Personally, I get boards from Seeed Studio Fusion (https://www.seeedstudio.com/fusion_pcb.html) and they do have pcb assembly service. By all means check around and see what other companies are out there though. When you find one that sounds good to you, talk to the salespeople, let them know you're new to the process, and find out what they need from you in terms of information, parts, and files.
 
tonzauber said:
I just recently had some really good experience with allpcb.  (www.allpcb.com)

Me too. I used to use seedstudio but I had several cases of poor silk screening and poor hole tolerance. No such problems with allpcb.com

Cheers

Ian
 
Floti said:
No one using JLCPCB?? The cheapest in my opinion and the pcbs are really good!

Not tried them myself, but the real trouble with all these cheap ones is the shipping cost. It hardly matters if your 10 off 100mm  square boards cost $2 or $5 if the shipping cost is $23. To minimise cost you can always go by China Post but you will have to wait about 4 weeks for your boards.

Cheers

Ian
 
It seems like that cheap post takes less than 4 weeks to US... or did when I used it in the past (I'm cheap and patient).

It sounds like this special (cheap) postage rate deal is being revisited as it creates an unfair advantage for some merchants... so may go away in the future.

JR
 
Well, with shipping (UPS) included I´ve reduced the price per PCB to less than the half by using JLCPCB. I used to use PCBcart before. Also the production times are ridiculous. My PCBs are rather large, almost 50x10cm. I did my last order by JLCPCB a friday night and the next wednesday they were already there. With PCBcart they would have gone to production 3-4 days after ordering them.
 
Floti said:
Well, with shipping (UPS) included I´ve reduced the price per PCB to less than the half by using JLCPCB. I used to use PCBcart before. Also the production times are ridiculous. My PCBs are rather large, almost 50x10cm. I did my last order by JLCPCB a friday night and the next wednesday they were already there. With PCBcart they would have gone to production 3-4 days after ordering them.
I checked out PCBcart and they are quite expensive; $40 for five boards of 100mm x 100mm plus shipping. No wonder you found JLPCB a lot cheaper. There are now quite a few Chinese PCB manufactures offering similar deals to JLPCB.

Cheers

Ian
 
It seems quite a few people have made suggestions for PCB fab houses.  Would you mind talking a bit more about positive experiences with turnaround times? JLPCB sounds too good to be true.

For example, I've been using dirtypcb's with good success in terms of consistency, and a VERY reasonable cost for my large (270mm) non-standard pcb geometries but you have to pay an extra $25-$50 to get it turned around in two weeks and then another $25 for 5-day shipping from china.
 
In my experience all of these fab houses wind up at the same price. If the boards are cheap the shipping is high, if the boards are high then the shipping is cheap. I've used PCBway, AllPCB and JLC who I've now stuck with.  Their communication is good and you can add items after manufacturing has started at minimal shipping cost.  Only issue seems to be that 500 series (and other odd shaped boards) don't show up in the gerber viewer, aren't automatically approved and usually require an additional stage of review. So that bugs but it's not enough to keep me away.
 
My own favorite, "Jetek PCB" - http://www.jetek-pcb.com/ - has a rather fast turnaround time: Last I ordered on a Monday and received PCB's on Wednesday the next week - 9 days total. And that was including them detecting and correcting a trace that was unintentionally crossing edge of a single-side drill.. Apart from that, they also offer a "fast" option, that I haven't tried (never needed it faster than they do on standard)

Regarding pricing, I think that competition is so strong that prices has stabilized on a minimum, and if it's cheaper in one place, then shipping is more expensive (or other similar regulation..).

Jakob E.
 
"Jetek PCB" has a rather fast turnaround time
Ok thanks, I may try them out!

The one thing I can say for dirtypcb's is they appeal to my lazy side.  I can upload an eagle .brd and poof,  all the layers are split for review on their website.
 
My input boards for my Toft mods are rather large (ca. 50 cm long) and oddly shaped and my last order by JLCPCB took 3 days from ordering to having them physically at my place, and I ordered them on a saturday.
 
I recently had a good experience with pandapcb.com

There were some issues with my file and their engineers caught it, causing a delay. But better than getting crap.
 
That is such good service when they catch an error.

Makes you want never to change supplier, because you know that you have a guy right here that knows his ways around..

Jakob E.
 
;)
They also sent cracked boards that may have been misfits from QC. I’ve never seen that before.

 
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