PCB Manufacturing Australia - Suggestions

[Andrew-Jacobs]

Hi All,

Getting back into this field after some time away from it, Suppliers have changed a lot in Melbourne, Almost none left now, Local .. Looking for a good Aussie supplier ?

The major concern is not cost, I need good quality and reliability firstly.

Do you guys have suggestions please ?

Cheers

Andrew

[Kean]

As in bare PCB, or PCB assembly?

No bare PCB manufacturers in Australia, at least ones targeting "normal" users.  There are some specialist ones, such as Iconic PCB (a member here) and defence contractors.
I've used Circuit Labs/PCB Zone in NZ a few times, and they have pretty good turn around.

http://www.iconicpcb.com/
http://www.pcbzone.net/

There are still quite a few assembly companies around.

[beanflying]

I used to deal with http://www.precisionet.com.au/ going back a long while (yes I am old ) Seems that at least some of their work is done offshore then imported but they used to do a great job and still seem to do some in house in Melbourne.

[Kean]

I used to deal with http://www.precisionet.com.au/ going back a long while (yes I am old ) Seems that at least some of their work is done offshore then imported but they used to do a great job and still seem to do some in house in Melbourne.

I've used them in the past (6+ years ago), and they did a good job.  Pretty sure they send everything offshore now - like 99% of "local" manufacturers.

[tycz]

Andrew-Jacobs,

Try Lintek. They have a factory in Queanbeyan, NSW.

I last used them about five years ago and the quality and service was good. At the time I think they were the only PCB factory left in the country.

[Kean]

Try Lintek. They have a factory in Queanbeyan, NSW.

Prototyping service starting at $290 + testing + GST + postage - not a huge cost for a business, but certainly not for hobbyists!
http://www.lintek.com.au/products-and-capabilities/#prototype

specialising in the production of microwave and high frequency printed circuit boards

Yeah, these are the guys I was trying to think of - certainly sounds like they're targeting research and defence applications.

[Andrew-Jacobs]

Thanks for the info guys, Will go thru all the post and give the links a look, Thats a great help..

Has anyone used Ourpcb Australia or Pcbfast ? They seem to both be local to me here in Melb... Just looking for bare pcb's.. Ourpcb seems pretty cheap and have an online order system by the looks, not sure if they are REALLY local or china re seller ..

Many thanks

[digsys]

... Has anyone used .... or Pcbfast ? They seem to both be local to me here in Melb ...

We've used PCBFast for many many years. Std 7 day delivery and qty pricing is reasonable. Faster delivery or multi-panels starts to get pricey,
but expected for OZ. Quality is excellent.
I had to stop using them a couple years ago, because our runs were mostly 20-50x of 4-5 designs. We went to PCBWay (China) etc when quotes
for our runs were ~1/4 of local cost. Just couldn't justify it.

[Andrew-Jacobs]

Has anyone used Ourpcb Australia or Pcbfast ? They seem to both be local to me here in Melb... Just looking for bare pcb's.. Ourpcb seems pretty cheap and have an online order system by the looks, not sure if they are REALLY local or china re seller ..

OurPCB uses a Chinese fab as backend. The fab is called UniWell Circuits.
OurPCB=WellPCB=UniWell

Their quality is good, both forum member asmi and I have good results with them.

Cheers i'll give the online order a go on Ourpcb Australia, I'll be the test dummy .. lol .. Will let you guys know what happens, Thanks for your help ..

[Kean]

Prototyping service starting at $290 + testing + GST + postage - not a huge cost for a business, but certainly not for hobbyists!

Are you kidding? 6mil spacing/width, 20mil/36mil vias, 1.6mm-only thickness, green soldermask, HASL, for $290? JLC makes the same spec for $2 plus 12mil/20mil vias!

For $290 I would expect 4mil, 8mil/16mil and board thickness from 0.4mm to 2.4mm plus free ENIG and matte soldermask, even the $290 is Australian dollar or Canadian dollar.

I wasn't implying it was competitive pricing, or a good specification, but it is probably one of the last real PCB services actually available in country.  If you're a business and don't want to send a design off to China, then $300-odd is a small price to pay.  It probably won't even arrive quicker.  Obviously they can't compete with the ridiculously cheap $2 boards now available.  Just the labour cost to handle sorting and shipping orders would be more than that.

Thanks for the info guys, Will go thru all the post and give the links a look, Thats a great help..
Has anyone used Ourpcb Australia or Pcbfast ? They seem to both be local to me here in Melb... Just looking for bare pcb's.. Ourpcb seems pretty cheap and have an online order system by the looks, not sure if they are REALLY local or china re seller ..

Pretty certain that both are just local represenatives of China fabs.  But at least that means you may have someone in the local timezone and who can communicate in better English.

[mrpackethead]

OurPCB does a great job.

and so do several of the Chinese Fabs.

[Sean Yang]

Well, I'lll put in a good word for ICAPE Group PCB. If you don't mind sourcing overseas. It's a French PCB trading company, and they do supply to Australia.

I have not a had a manufacturing related issue in using them since Jan 2016. I have designed and purchased quite a few different board types over the years, and the only issues ever seen were my design issues - fonts too small, fonts placed over pads (the pads win), and the very occasional design error, of which I've made about 4 I think, most involving a trace that I gave 2 different names and didn't catch when I was reviewing the schematic and board layout.

I only design double sided boards, but sometimes need to reverse engineering and re-build some old 4-6 layer boards and I've done some pretty complex cards with parts on both sides to really pack things in.
smaller boards (2 layer, green, solder mask, white stencil)
10 boards, 5cm x 5cm max, $9.90
10 boards, 5cm x 10cm max, $14.90
10 boards, 10cm x 10cm max, $19.90
larger boards
5 boards, larger than 10cm x 10cm, varies by size
5 boards larger than 20cm x 20cm
5 boards, larger than 30cm x 30cm

They also do small batches of cards, so a check of 30 cards vs 3 10-lots may be less expensive as an example.
There are 3 shipping options too, from slower airmail to faster DHL.
Boards are generally in shipping 4-5 days after file upload.
A couple of files you can upload to use in eagle, one for design rules checking, and one for creating the Gerber files they will use for manufacturing.

The quality of the boards are quite solid and no burs at the edges. You can check out some sample  boards I reversed and re-built @
http://www.ChinaPCBcopy.com