pcbshopper.com - a PCB price comparison site

[rea5245]

Hi Miguel,

I would love to add Eurocircuits, but I haven't been able to figure out their pricing. The first part is simple: making a change on their form sends a query to their server and an XML response comes back. But it's not obvious how prices in the XML correspond to the prices displayed on the page. There must be some JavaScript that massages the numbers. It's going to take some reverse-engineering to figure it out, and for now there are better ways for me to improve PCBShopper with less effort.

But Eurocircuits is on my list of things to do. Someday.

- Bob

[Kjelt]

Eurocircuits is very good, used them multiple times but not nearly in the same ballpark moneywise as the other sites unless you want a lot of boards (>30).
For a few boards the difference in price is huge, eurocircuits start at around €90.- no matter what you choose.

Thanks by the way for this very nice pricecomparison site, looks very good.
If I might be so bold, it would be great to have an indication of shippingcost to Europe included in the comparison, doesn't have to be spot on just an aproximation 

[rea5245]

Adding more countries is on my list of things to do. In the meantime, I'd like to point out that PCBShopper can still be useful to people outside the US. The cheapest board manufacturer in dollars is likely the cheapest in your currency. And all the Chinese manufacturers will charge roughly the same to ship to your country, so the cheapest manufacturer will probably be the cheapest source even after factoring in shipping.

Of course, it's impossible to compare shipping costs from US companies with shipping costs from Chinese companies. And it's nice to know what your absolute costs will end up being. So I know that none of this is a substitute for having PCBShopper support other countries. So as I said, it is on my list of things to do.

- Bob

[miguelvp]

Eurocircuits is very good, used them multiple times but not nearly in the same ballpark moneywise as the other sites unless you want a lot of boards (>30).
For a few boards the difference in price is huge, eurocircuits start at around €90.- no matter what you choose.

Yes big difference but depending what of their services you choose. It's expensive with their standard pool and their PCB proto. But with their Bindi Pool is very competitive.

Bindi pool 2" x 2" 2 layer quantity 5 would be $9.58 per board total of $66.81 shipped.
For quantity 50 then $2.25 per board $133.01 shipped (big difference as you say).

OSH Park $5 per square inch for 3 copies so $20 for 3 boards shipped. But on medium production is $1 per square inch so 50 boards would be $4 per board so $200 shipped.

[Kjelt]

Adding more countries is on my list of things to do.

  looking forward to it 

[Kjelt]

Yes big difference but depending what of their services you choose. It's expensive with their standard pool and their PCB proto. But with their Bindi Pool is very competitive.
Bindi pool 2" x 2" 2 layer quantity 5 would be $9.58 per board total of $66.81 shipped.
For quantity 50 then $2.25 per board $133.01 shipped (big difference as you say).

I have no idea how you get those prices, if I look at the Bindi pool there are a lot of demands, one of them is medium volume which means more then 50 pieces and the second is the size of the board. So if I go to eurocircuits pricecalculator and go below 50 pieces it switches to the standard pool (expensive)
and if I say 100 pieces of 2"x2" it also switches back to standard pool. Maybe you have a different site, I look at eurocircuits.com in Belgium (europe).
And again for very good quality medium amounts of boards I do use them but for prototyping small amounts of test pcb's I switch to the asian manufacturers and hope it arrives. for me it is hobby so there are no deadlines and $ is the main factor.

[miguelvp]

I use the same site: http://be.eurocircuits.com/shop/orders/configurator.aspx
Maybe because I'm located in the US?

Yup, if I change to France it changes me to the Standard Pool 

Ooops sorry didn't pay attention and you are on the Netherlands, but same thing from the Netherlands.

[Kjelt]

I have no idea but you,re example costs you €49 and in my case it costs €82 exact same order.
And they are located less then 200km away from me.
Oh well their loss, if they don,t fix it i keep ordering prototypes in asia 

[rea5245]

PCB Shopper now estimates shipping costs to almost all countries around the world. You can see some details at http://pcbshopper.com/announcements/ or try the improved calculator at http://pcbshopper.com.

- Bob

[jimjam]

I vote for making this "Sticky", or a topic that gives us a list of pcb making services out there.

[motocoder]

This is great. Thanks very much for creating this, BOb.

[nitro2k01]

Someone mentioned these sites to me in passing-by. No idea if they're legit, or the same as any other of the listed sites, but after investigating these, you might want to add them to the comparison.

http://www.pentalogix.com/
http://www.custompcb.com/
http://www.sunstone.com/

[rea5245]

Someone mentioned these sites to me in passing-by. No idea if they're legit, or the same as any other of the listed sites, but after investigating these, you might want to add them to the comparison.

Thanks, nitro. I'll add them to my list of things to do. I actually added Sunstone a while ago, but my queries of their web site broke and I haven't found a solution yet.

I'm not a regular on this forum. The best way to give me suggestions like this is to go to PCBShopper.com and click on Contact Us.

- Bob

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

Hi thanks for making it quick to do comparisons.

One thing sorting by price ascending should IMO  have "Contact manufacturer for
shipping costs." at the end of the list not at the start.
There are a few ways you could do this, but it would be useful.

[rea5245]

Someone mentioned these sites to me in passing-by. No idea if they're legit, or the same as any other of the listed sites, but after investigating these, you might want to add them to the comparison.

http://www.pentalogix.com/
http://www.custompcb.com/
http://www.sunstone.com/

Sunstone is now included in the PCB price comparisons on PCBShopper.com. Thanks to the staff at Sunstone for helping me troubleshoot the problems I was having.

- Bob

[PedroDaGr8]

Someone mentioned these sites to me in passing-by. No idea if they're legit, or the same as any other of the listed sites, but after investigating these, you might want to add them to the comparison.

http://www.pentalogix.com/
http://www.custompcb.com/
http://www.sunstone.com/

Sunstone is now included in the PCB price comparisons on PCBShopper.com. Thanks to the staff at Sunstone for helping me troubleshoot the problems I was having.

- Bob

I messaged them on Twitter a week ago, asking when they would return to PCBShopper. They responded thta they would look into it. Guess they already were.

[zapta]

Just got this search result. Free PCB manufacturing and shipping. Too good to be true?

[rea5245]

Just got this search result. Free PCB manufacturing and shipping. Too good to be true?

It's not "too good to be true". They require you to post your project on their web site, documented to their satisfaction, and then they'll buy some boards for you. There's a size limit and a quantity limit. Basically, they're spending 10 or 20 bucks to get you to put some quality content on their site.

It's good, but not "too good to be true".

- Bob Alexander

[miguelvp]

That's just perfect for me, just ordered 20 PSoC 4200 in 28 pins SSOP for $20 free shipping and I need to make a breadboard adapter and maybe even add a 40 pin connector (not all used) and I don't mind they having such a simple board public.

[miguelvp]

That's just perfect for me, just ordered 20 PSoC 4200 in 28 pins SSOP for $20 free shipping and I need to make a breadboard adapter and maybe even add a 40 pin connector (not all used) and I don't mind they having such a simple board public.

Don't know how I could screw up an order but I ended up with 20 40 pin QFN packages

When you click to add the item to the cart, the description and the part number go away and the chip is referred by an internal inventory item number of some sort that has nothing to do with the chip for visual confirmation that it's the right chip.

I opened a case with cypress and will reorder maybe just 5 SSOP ones (this time making sure it's the right part) at least if it was the 44 pin QFP I could drag solder it.

Maybe I should just use this opportunity to learn how to deal with reflow oven only parts and use an old skillet or something like that.

[zapta]

Maybe I should just use this opportunity to learn how to deal with reflow oven only parts and use an old skillet or something like that.

+1  ;-)

You can also use hot air station or even hand soldering (have longer pads and use good Tacky paste).

[rea5245]

I've added a major new feature to PCBShopper.com. You can now specify how quickly you want your boards to arrive.

Up until now, PCBShopper quoted prices based on the manufacturer's default lead time (the time between when you submit your order and when the boards are manufactured), and it showed you multiple shipping options. But if you were in a rush to get your boards, there was no way for you to indicate that you were willing to pay more for shorter lead times. Now there is.

In the Printed Circuit Board Specs form, there is now a field labeled "Boards arrive in". If you leave this set to "Default time", PCBShopper behaves as it did before: it quotes prices for the manufacturer's default lead time. But if you set it to a specific number of days (business days, actually), PCBShopper will quote shorter lead times and/or faster shipping. PCBShopper even figures out the cheapest way to get the boards to you on time, either by paying for faster shipping or paying for shorter lead times or a combination of the two.

Notice that you do not specify the lead time - it's PCBShopper's job to figure that out. Instead, you specify when you want the boards to arrive at your door.

As always, remember that PCBShopper's shipping times and prices are estimates. If you're on a firm schedule, double-check PCBShopper's numbers with the manufacturer. (The shipping prices are estimates, but the board prices are accurate: they come directly from the manufacturers' web sites.)

- Bob

[Wilksey]

Getting 502 Bad Gateway

[rea5245]

Getting 502 Bad Gateway

It's back up again. Must've been tetrion particles in the plasma conduits.

[Kjelt]

It's back up again. Must've been tetrion particles in the plasma conduits.

Bridge to Scotty: install that tetrion particle filter a.s.a.p.