How to order 10-50 pcs of my own pcb design

[001]

Hi! I`m oldschool electican. So sorry for stupid questions


I see banners what says '10 PCBs for $2' and similar
Is it real?

Can I order manufacturing 10-50 my own pcbs? What price is affordable? What way is reliable?

My pcbs wery simple - 1-2 layers and mask acuracy of 1.5mm is satisfactory for me 

[Richard Crowley]

It appears to be real.  But note that the downside is delivery time (and sometimes shipping costs). It is not unusual for delivery time to be 3-4 weeks or even longer.  And it is not unusual for the shipping price to exceed the actual cost of getting the boards made.  Although it appears that some clever vendors are exploiting government-subsidized "free shipping".  Perhaps shipping to Russia may be somewhat faster and cheaper since you are "right next-door", only a few 1000 km/miles away.

[rea5245]

Check out PCBShopper.com. It's a price comparison site for PCB manufacturing. You enter your board's specs, click "Get Prices", and you'll see prices, including delivery costs, from up to 25 PCB manufacturers, including the best known companies in Asia, North America, and Europe. You can also read and write Amazon-style reviews of the companies.

Disclosure: I run the site.

- Bob Alexander

[001]

Thanx!

But who experienced in small pcb orders?

I wanna be deal with safe manufacturer, not swindlers/rogues
Who is who in China?

[ataradov]

Everything you see on PCBShopper is reliable to an extent. Or just go with PCBWay. They are annoying with their spam, but cheap and reliable.

[Richard Crowley]

You should find many real customer reviews on the PCBShopper.com website.  I would consider them to be reliable.
My perception is that MOST of the vendors are in China.

[rea5245]

Everyone on PCBShopper's price comparison list is a well known company with many years' experience filling small order for hobbyists. Many of the companies also fulfill big orders for corporate customers.

I get requests from many small, unknown companies to be added to the price list. I could spend my entire life writing code to add companies that no one has ever heard of. I don't do that. One of my criteria for a company to be added is that they be fairly well known. Also, I never accept money for companies to be added to the price list. Companies pay for ads on PCBShopper, but the price comparison list is "editorial content": it's not paid for and it's purely my judgement which companies should be on the list.

- Bob Alexander
  PCBShopper.com

[Mjolinor]

I use dangerous prototypes and have never had any problems. If I need it I will pay for expedited shipping but I am not usually that desperate.

I have had maybe half a dozen different boards off them in a variety of specs and not had a duffer yet.

[asmi]

I'd be wary of what shows up on pcbshopper website and double-check everything with the actual fab as there are some discrepancies. For example, it shows easyeda as the cheapest option when I select 4 mil traces/8 mil drills, but they can only make 6 mil traces/12 mil drills (which you can clearly see on their website).
I personally use mostly PCBWay and allpcb. I prefer PCBWay because they offer free selection of soldermask colors, and I like their status tracking - many fabs work kinda like black box, where you throw in order on one side, and eventually it falls out the other end, with very little visibility on what's happening inside.

[rea5245]

I'd be wary of what shows up on pcbshopper website and double-check everything with the actual fab as there are some discrepancies. For example, it shows easyeda as the cheapest option when I select 4 mil traces/8 mil drills, but they can only make 6 mil traces/12 mil drills (which you can clearly see on their website).

I take PCBShopper's accuracy very seriously. PCBShopper gets its prices by querying manufacturers' web sites, so it's inherently accurate and when a manufacturer changes its prices on its web site, PCBShopper picks it up automatically and immediately.

But sometimes, manufacturers change their capabilities without letting me know and without changing the back-end code on their site. As soon as I find out about these changes, I fix PCBShopper very quickly - usually in 24 hours or less.

For example, I have just fixed PCBShopper's reporting of EasyEDA's 4 mil trace/8 mil drill capabilities (i.e. PCBShopper no longer shows EasyEDA as an option for those specs). Not to brag, but I fixed this problem 20 minutes after it was reported.

There's a Contact Us link on PCBShopper's site. I urge everyone to use it when they find an error on PCBShopper. Your e-mail will not vanish into an opaque bureaucracy. PCBShopper is just me, and I'm very responsive.

- Bob Alexander
  PCBShopper.com

[asmi]

I take PCBShopper's accuracy very seriously. PCBShopper gets its prices by querying manufacturers' web sites, so it's inherently accurate and when a manufacturer changes its prices on its web site, PCBShopper picks it up automatically and immediately.

I didn't mean to offend you, it's just the reality of things, I always try to get in touch with the actual company I will be contracting to do some work as intermediates may not be up to date with the end manufacturing. I had some issues in the past where I would get a quote from intermediate agent, which would end up rising twofold because pricing structure at the manufacturer's end had changed.

But while we're on a subject, please take a look at OSH Park - it shows up too for 4/4/8 mil request, while they only offer 5/5/10 mil process. Also allpcb shows up for 6-layer board with 4/4/8 mil process while they can only do 5/5/12 mil.

[rea5245]

But while we're on a subject, please take a look at OSH Park - it shows up too for 4/4/8 mil request, while they only offer 5/5/10 mil process. Also allpcb shows up for 6-layer board with 4/4/8 mil process while they can only do 5/5/12 mil.

Fixed. Thank you for letting me know.

I didn't mean to offend you, it's just the reality of things,...

I'm not offended, and I agree that prices should always be double-checked with the manufacturer - I even have a note on PCBShopper to that effect (the Disclaimer at the bottom of the page, where probably no one ever sees it).

But when someone finds an error on PCBShopper, I would rather have them contact me so that I can fix it, rather than posting on a forum where I might never see it. (I try to keep an eye on eevblog's forums, but I can't guarantee even here that I'll see everything anyone posts about PCBShopper.)

- Bob Alexander
  PCBShopper.com
 

[MarkF]

I just received 5 pieces of each of 3 PCB designs from Elecrow. The boards were all okay except one which had a little piece of copper eroded out of the side of one trace. But for $1 per board, I can't complain.

Also, it took 3 weeks from order date until I received the boards.

[Psi]

Yeah, elecrow are totally fine.

The only bad thing about elecrow that i've come across is their black color solder mask is crap now (it used to be fine).

It's definitely not good enough to use as a front panel for a product your selling.
The black mask has bubbles/marks on it that makes it look terrible. (electrically it's totally fine)

I questioned them about this, they apologized and remade the PCBs at their expensive.
However their replacements PCBs were only slightly better.
So yeah, they cannot do nice looking black solder mask, ya just have to accept that.

[hamster_nz]

Seeed Studio (https://www.seeedstudio.com/fusion_pcb.html) have a good PCB service that I have used a few times. Pricing is on size, from $1 each for a 50mm x 50mm 2-layer board (qty 10).

At such a low price expect them to give you exactly what your files ask for, even if it is obviously wrong. This definitely not a 'full service' price - you have to expect to do all the work, they just.make the boards.

They can even do assembly for you if you use their standard parts.

Would plan on doing 10 boards as a test run, then order a batch of the Rev 2 boards which are 100% once you have built them up - way better than bodging 50 boards because you can't get the cap or transistor in the footprint that was in the library...

[Mjolinor]

I don't know about other manufacturers but Seeed (dangerous prototypes) don't care what's on the PCB as stated, so if there are 10 boards on a 10x10 cm you end up with 100 boards.

For example I have a board that can fit three on a 10x10 so ended up with 30 PCBs. As these were for an ESP12 it is easy to add pads for general use so the PCB I have is easily usable for prototyping other stuff.

[pilleya]

That is pretty handy, I tried doing that with PCBway and JLC/EASYEDA but they raised the price, they won't let you have multiple boards in the 10x10 panel for prototyping. TBH doesn't make much difference as for production stuff I do lead-free anyway which isn't an option with the whole $5 prototype thing.

[bsudbrink]

Another "vote" for Elecrow.  They currently have a 10 for the price of 5 sale going on.  I ordered three different designs.  It took a little more than two weeks to arrive.  Pretty good quality.  I actually got a lot more than thirty boards.  I got ten of one design, fifteen of the second and nineteen of the third.  I guess that they just filled up a sheet that would otherwise have been empty?

[asmi]

Allpcb currently runs free shipping to US/Canada promo till Nov 23rd - this is BIG! Grad while you can! Now you can actually have $5 boards cost you 5$ flat.

[NorthGuy]

I saw an ad for $5 PCB on PCBWay. The specs are no good, and if you change anything it is no longer $5. But 100x100mm is actually a big board. So I decided to design a simple board to the specs - I used mostly TH component and designed ancient sparsely populated 100x100mm board. I ordered 10 of them. It is $5, but the total was $18 which included economy shipping to Canada and $2 PayPal surcharge (sic!). Quality was actually better than I expected. So, it's absolutely real.

[asmi]

I saw an ad for $5 PCB on PCBWay. The specs are no good, and if you change anything it is no longer $5. But 100x100mm is actually a big board. So I decided to design a simple board to the specs - I used mostly TH component and designed ancient sparsely populated 100x100mm board. I ordered 10 of them. It is $5, but the total was $18 which included economy shipping to Canada and $2 PayPal surcharge (sic!). Quality was actually better than I expected. So, it's absolutely real.

I like that they allow a fair selection of soldermask colors for free. To amortise shipping changes it's better to order several boards in one go, or order boards along with stencil as it's $10 and they cut it to size themselves (so they won't have to ship big 19x29 cm sheet which is mostly empty).

[phil from seattle]

I've had good luck with PCBWay.  Just got a 50x100 mm board done with them. Boards are cheap, shipping not so much. 10 boards with DHL shipping was $27. I received them in 6 calendar days. I like that you can track the progress in the fab. My other vendors don't give that level of detail. Never had a problem. Their black solder mask is pretty good, by the way. I'm not in love with their silkscreen quality, though. Done maybe 10 boards through them so far.

For small boards, I use OSH Park. They are pretty good, use a USA vendor. Pretty variable in their delivery times. I've had 7 to 14 day service.  One last August took 20 days but most are closer to 10ish. They quote 14 days. Two layer costs $5/insq for 3 boards with low cost shipping.  I did have one dud from them (solder mask covered all the pads) which they made good on.

[mrpackethead]

Absolutely agree with this advice. 

I'd be wary of what shows up on pcbshopper website and double-check everything with the actual fab as there are some discrepancies. For example, it shows easyeda as the cheapest option when I select 4 mil traces/8 mil drills, but they can only make 6 mil traces/12 mil drills (which you can clearly see on their website).
I personally use mostly PCBWay and allpcb. I prefer PCBWay because they offer free selection of soldermask colors, and I like their status tracking - many fabs work kinda like black box, where you throw in order on one side, and eventually it falls out the other end, with very little visibility on what's happening inside.

[EncomLab]

I've been using SEEED Studio for a year or so and around ~1000 boards total across 7 different designs.  I live in Ohio and it takes 8-14 days from the time I submit my Gerbers until the DHL package is at my door, and since all my designs are under 10cmX10cm I pay less than $30 US including shipping.  Never had a defective board, screenprint is always good and I'm very happy with their service.  My last order I only paid shipping as I received a "good customer" coupon

[noras]

you can get sponsorship from pcbway as you are a teacher,free to get the pcb