Avoid PCBway

[rs20]

"There's no such thing as bad publicity"? 

[mrpackethead]

I don't think they make money on freight.

If you dont' like their DHL/Fedex pricing, you can put your own shipping account details in their system now and you can pay the freight company directly. It does'tn change the pcb pricing.

[poorchava]

The quality of the boards is perfectly adequate for pretty much anything. Obviously, you wouldn't use them for stuff like hardcore RF, life support, automotive stuff, insulation resistance meter or something, but aside from such extreme cases they are perfectly fine.

I think it's worth noting, that they seem to actually be reading the additional notes which you can add (in my case: place factory numbers on sacrificial part of the panel)

IMO if 'old crew' of chinese PCB joints (Seeed, iTead, Elecrow, Elecfreaks and whoever else) has to adjust their offerings or they're gonna loose A LOT of customers. Obviously, all of them have something special they also do, which PCBWay doesn't (iTead sells it's own hobby boards, Seed offers some proven PCBA (Dangerous Prototypes use them AFAIK), Elecrow still has the cheapest possible 4-layer service at $23.9 + S&H while PCBWAY starts at $65 + S&H).

[sergioag]

I started using them a few months ago. So far, I've done about 4 orders with them, each one with increased complexity, though all 2 layers only, and without any issues.

I can only compare to Seed, which I used before. The copper layers is just as fine as Seed. In the solder mask, they appear to have some kind of issue with cleaning, as I always find some "fibers". Nothing serious, but it shows. As for the silkscreen, Seed is definitively superior on this one, though Pcbway is more than adequate for me.

In case you were wondering, I was a happy customer from Seed. I only stopped using them because they repeatedly sent my order using Fedex instead of DHL as I had selected (DHL doesn't charge me any clearance fees, while Fedex charges about $90 per shipment, so it was hitting me hard). Even further, they told that "DHL doesn't ship to your country", even though they had shipped to me using DHL. Pure bullshit.

At least PCBway ships with DHL, which is fine for me. I would prefer to save a few bucks with Hong Kong Post or similar, but our local post office is unpredictable: it can take anywhere from 2 weeks to 4 months. I cannot afford that.

[mrpackethead]

Funny, i expressly want them to ship with FEDEX over DHL, because we get them in 2 days versus 7.. it really depends where in teh world you are!

[wraper]

From the serious issues I found, they sometimes left fingerprints on the solder mask. Likely at the moment when it wasn't hardened yet. Otherwise they had been better quality than elecrow in any other way.

[technotronix]

I don't think they are scammers. I always had a good experience with them.

[sergioag]

Funny, i expressly want them to ship with FEDEX over DHL, because we get them in 2 days versus 7.. it really depends where in teh world you are!

Exactly! Here both of them deliver in about the same time. But for small packages (up to $200), DHL charges you nothing, while Fedex charges $90. I'm not talking about taxes (up to $200 we pay no taxes), but only brokerage fees.

[rx8pilot]

Planning my first test order with PCBway for some prototypes. No major rush and no special technical specifications. Let's see how it goes.

[wraper]

Planning my first test order with PCBway for some prototypes. No major rush and no special technical specifications. Let's see how it goes.

Better try pcbwin, completely different level of quality and a bit cheaper.

[mrpackethead]

Planning my first test order with PCBway for some prototypes. No major rush and no special technical specifications. Let's see how it goes.

Better try pcbwin, completely different level of quality and a bit cheaper.

My experience with pcbwin was terrible, but your right a completey differnet level of quality. - It was terrible.

[LukeW]

10x boards, 10cmx10cm or slightly smaller, 2-layer, silkscreened, soldermasked, HASL, 6/6 rules.

$1 USD per board. About AUD$35 for the shipping. All up AUD$50, total, including shipping.
Yes, the shipping does seem disproportionate, but this is for a small purchase of boards, and I want it done rapidly.
I think it's fair.

Boards in my hands 6 days after designing them. Boards of acceptable quality, functional as expected, fabricated as designed.
That's my experience with PCBWay.

So, do you know of any alternatives that can do the same job as this "scam" as you put it, cheaper, and just as fast? I'd like to hear what you recommend.

[sainter]

Wanted to ask someone that sent them orders in panels. They charge per panel, without accounting pcb count in a panel ? or do they add an additional fee for v-scoring or tab-routing ? Just had an idea to order some SMD adapter boards, and the price sound good.

[wraper]

Planning my first test order with PCBway for some prototypes. No major rush and no special technical specifications. Let's see how it goes.

Better try pcbwin, completely different level of quality and a bit cheaper.

My experience with pcbwin was terrible, but your right a completey differnet level of quality. - It was terrible.

Dunno, I didn't see shite like fingerprints on the soldermask, or heavily knife "edited" tracks which BTW were shorted anyway in one occasion (instead of marking bad board) unlike PCBway. Can you share what particularly was bad, and was it really PCBwin because they opened a website very recently? https://www.eevblog.com/forum/manufacture/anyone-tried-pcbwin/msg1045424/#msg1045424

[mrpackethead]

If i remember correctly the boards i had made, had really bad etching, it looked like it was overetched to me.

i've had a lot of boards from pcbway. 1000's and i've had very little issues with them.. 

[julian1]

This video, covers a PCBWay 4 layer board with controlled impedance traces and some other fancy stuff. I thought the fabrication was pretty impressive for the price,

https://youtu.be/c8_JnJcHIVg?t=45s

[TheRevva]

Based upon a prior post in this thread made by free-electron (who is someone with a metric TON of experience and is therefore one of the few that I feel I can genuinely TRUST), I placed my PCB order with PCBWay for 125 * PCBs
With this being my first ever 'offshore' order for PCBs, I made sure it was pretty straightforward for PCBWay - for example, my design uses somewhat lethargic 50/50 mil design rules!
The PCBs are 400*27.94mm and are populated purely with through-hole parts - Not a single SMD in sight!

Basically, they're simple LED segments for fairly large 7-segment displays that we use as the time / speed displays at my local drag strip - They need to be fairly large given that much pf the viewing audience is about 1/4 mile away!
The original ones that were purchased in 2004 before I became involved have seriously suffered from the ravages of humidity and what I consider to be exceedingly poor PCB design
They were single sided PCBs with ridiculously thin (6mil?) bare copper tracks devoid of any solder mask and they SHOULD have been given a nice laquer coating!
(The supposedly sealed enclosures they reside in bear a striking resemble a colander which doesn't help much... LOL)
Since this 'upgrade' is being 'funded' by poor old me, keeping the total costs to a bare minimum is a STRONG driving force

I'm VERY encouraged by the PCBs I've received
- The drill registration looks excellent (unlike some I've seen pix of in this forum)
- I ordered them with a black solder mask which didn't cost $0.01 extra (I know how Dave 'dislikes' black given his past, but it was quite a logical choice for an optical PCB with 56 ultra-bright LEDs)
- The amount I paid was, by far, cheaper than anyone else I could find (which, given the quality of boards I've received, is VERY comforting)
- Many PCB fabs don't (or didn't at the time) allow such a long (400mm) board in their online quoting system
- I ordered 125, but they supplied the 'overage' which gave me an additional 9 boards - BONUS!

If anyone wants to see some pix, I'll see what I can do on a phone camera (but don't expect much...  Did I not mention the black solder mask? LOL)

My next task is to locate a 'small army' of volunteers down at the dragway to help with hand-populating all these boards and soldering 16375 points... <I _DID_ mention I am keeping costs down right? Grins>

I'll definitely be using PCBWay again for my next little project which will be a far better 'test' of their capabilities as it involves a 144pin TQFP, a small army of 0603s and a handful of through hole stuff using 6/6 design rules

In summary, free-electron wasn't joking when he stated their quality is great.
Thanx for pointing me in a good direction

[DerekG]

I have used PCBWAY, both for prototypes & for production quantity (1000 circuits).

I only had one small problem which PCBWAY rectified within 8 days. The production boards were panelised with 2 boards per panel (V groove to separate them).

The solder paste stencil that was originally supplied was for a single circuit only. I took a picture & sent it to PCBWAY & a correct 2 up solder paste stencil arrived 8 days later at no further cost to ourselves.

So it appears to me that if they make a mistake, they are quite willing to fix it quickly at their expense.

[Chumanista]

@TheRevva: Wouldn't it make sense to use SMD diodes and find some place with a pick&place to rent cheap?
Soldering this amount of LEDs by hand seems like a nightmare.

[Macbeth]

@TheRevva: Wouldn't it make sense to use SMD diodes and find some place with a pick&place to rent cheap?
Soldering this amount of LEDs by hand seems like a nightmare.

He did say he has volunteers, it's much easier for an amateur to solder through hole than SMD. Hell, it could even be "fun" !

[Roy]

I'm in the US. I've used Seeed Fusion through https://www.seeedstudio.com/fusion_pcb.html three times for the $9.9 qty 10 deal for two-layer boards, the shipping cost is $11 using EU POST

[rx8pilot]

Just placed an order for a design that is 5 different small designs that will be separated after placement. They charged extra for the multi-design layout but it is still less than half the cost of the lowest cost I could find in the USA.

This is my first order to a non-USA based fab house. If it works well - I have to wonder how the USA companies are coping with this extraordinary disparity in pricing. Is my design going to be sold or otherwise distributed? Is the quality going to match what I have been getting in the USA?

First week of Jan, I guess I will know.

[bitseeker]

Is my design going to be sold or otherwise distributed?
...
First week of Jan, I guess I will know.

That is a very good question. I'd be interested to hear what happens after some time has transpired.

[Bud]

I was ok with the quality of their boards but found some white residue stuck in the vias, which seemed to be leftovers from the washing process or something. It can only be seen when inspecting the board under the microscope but still the cleaning process could be better.

[ebclr]

US Quality is probably higher, but quality / price ratio will be a total China advantage