500 VPR Style PCB Fabrication

[Bertu]

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for a place to fabricate a very small number boards for a 500 series unit in the US? I know about oshpark.com, are there other places to consider?

Also, does anyone know if there is a template for such boards for Kicad? Something that would have the board shape and dimensions and the connector pads already set up?

Thanks!

 

[Lee_M]

Are you set on sourcing them from a US manufacturer?

JLCPCB (China) make good quality boards, and the price for 10 PCBs (including shipping, customs, etc.) usually works out a lot less than buying domestically. At least, that's what I've found here in the UK.

 

[Bertu]

I am mainly concerned about overseas shipping times, those seem to be pretty bad right now. I saw that the can ship via DHL, do you have any experience how long that takes these days?

Do you know if they can make custom board outlines like for a 500 series board? That wasnt clear to me on their web page.

Thanks!

 

[Lee_M]

I am mainly concerned about overseas shipping times, those seem to be pretty bad right now. I saw that the can ship via DHL, do you have any experience how long that takes these days?

I don't know tbh, I know that shipping has been fairly quick in the past from them (even the budget option), but I haven't ordered any boards in a year or so.

They can apparently offer 24 hour turnaround for green solder mask (2 days extra if you want another colour) nowadays, and the DHL express shipping options are all quoted as 3-5 business days when you get to the checkout. If you want ENiG finish you'll probably have an additional wait time, as they do that in batches once they have enough orders.

Assuming you're happy with green soldermask and you don't want any fancy finish, you should be able to get them inside of 2 weeks.

Do you know if they can make custom board outlines like for a 500 series board? That wasnt clear to me on their web page.

Yeah, that won't be a problem at all, I've had similar style boards (smaller, using 10-way card edge connector) made in the past and they turned out perfectly.

As long as you've got a gerber file for it, they'll be able to do it.

 

[Brian Roth]

One thing to keep in mind is that commercially manufactured 500 modules typically use hard gold plating for the contact fingers. ENIG gold plating isn't nearly as hard.

Bri

 

[Bobby Baird]

You can use this template. Just import the 500_Series_Edac.pretty folder into your footprint global libraries, and 500 Series EDAC_conn_01x15.kicad_sym into your global symbol libraries.