What are some good PCB houses?

[MoighonFweeman]

I'm planning to start making actual circuit boards for my projects rather than using perforated boards. However, I'm not quite familiar with any PCB manufacturing houses. So, could anyone recommend a low-cost, low-quantity manufacturer? Turnaround time and available features are both irrelevant. Heck, I could even go without a silkscreen if it lowers the price. So far, the only place I've heard about is Osh Park, but their 5 dollars per square inch price is a bit much.

[Monkeh]

OSHPark is pretty cheap unless you're doing larger boards.

http://pcbshopper.com/

Punch in what you need, see what comes out.

[lutkeveld]

Seeedstudio all the way

[SL4P]

... or PCBCART
http://www.pcbcart.com/

[zapta]

For small boards oshpark. For larger elecrow.  As said earlier, PCB Shopper is your friend.

[rdl]

Interesting place that pcbshopper.com, I punched in a simple 3"x4" 2 layer, green mask board and the second cheapest option was a USA based company. They were $3 more than the cheapest, but the delivery time was 40 days sooner.

[Tac Eht Xilef]

Seeed and iTead both have initial set up fee.

Not for their prototype/small orders services.

If you want to make small boards, they will be more expensive than OSHPark.

That depends on size, number, & shipping method/location.

Without ENIG, find pitched components can almost be impossible to solder without bridging.

Define "fine".

Reflow, or hand-soldering 0.35~0.4mm pitch? I'd mostly agree (but it's not that much more difficult with HASL). Hand-soldering 0.5mm? Not really any difference...

[matseng]

Without ENIG, find pitched components can almost be impossible to solder without bridging.

Say what?  How can ENIG vs plain old HASL affect bridging? It's the soldermasks job to handle that problem.  TQFP's with 0.5 or 0.45 pitch is perfectly handsolderable with HASL.

ENIG looks nicer (at least before soldering), and also gives a more even surface for better placement/yield when pick-n-placing. But for handsoldering I'd actually prefer HASL since I can tack down the parts without any additional solder, the tin already on the pcb together with the surface coating of the pin is usually enough to tack it down using a clean tip on the iron.

[kjs]

Without ENIG, find pitched components can almost be impossible to solder without bridging.

Say what?  How can ENIG vs plain old HASL affect bridging? It's the soldermasks job to handle that problem.  TQFP's with 0.5 or 0.45 pitch is perfectly handsolderable with HASL.

ENIG looks nicer (at least before soldering), and also gives a more even surface for better placement/yield when pick-n-placing. But for handsoldering I'd actually prefer HASL since I can tack down the parts without any additional solder, the tin already on the pcb together with the surface coating of the pin is usually enough to tack it down using a clean tip on the iron.

Full agreement from my side! For the few occasions I do assembly with a soldering iron HASL is the better choice (and I do a lot of 0201's and 0.35mm pitch IC's). However, if there are IC's with a flag which has to be soldered or for faster assembly I go ENIG and a stencil. Much faster and easier to just place the components onto the board and run it through the machine than individually soldering the components. Much nicer solder joints too. There HASL is worse as the stencil won't lay as flat on the surface thus you will end up with different amounts of solder paste than planned.

As for PCB houses: I had good experience with Elecrow for small quantities and their quality is OK. For anything larger and if quality counts I use ITL Circuits in Canada. However, their minimum job is 4 panels 18*24" but for that quantity they are as cheap as China suppliers and I never had a quality issue with them.

[JohnnyBerg]

I used most Chinese PCB fabs (well actually they are frontends to the real fabs) mentioned on pcbshopper. Just punch in your needs, and go for the cheapest one. Quality does not differ much (if et all). I suspect, there are only a few factories behind. I know for sure that Seeed has there own in Shenzen. But quality from Seeed does not differ from Elececrow.

[8086]

Seeed and iTead both have initial set up fee. If you want to make small boards, they will be more expensive than OSHPark.

Also, those companies don't have free ENIG finishing, they will charge about $20 or higher for ENIG finishing.

Without ENIG, find pitched components can almost be impossible to solder without bridging.

They don't have inital set up fees for the prototyping service (seeed fusion pcb etc). I have found OSHPark to be more expensive every time I've compared, for my situation anyway. For example a 2 layer board, 5cm x 5cm, let's call it 2x2 inches for the sake of comparison - this costs $20 from OSHPark and you get 3 boards. The same (including ENIG) costs $29.90 from Seeed and you get 10 boards for that price. Of course it depends on what you need, where you are, yadda yadda etc blah blah. Of course without ENIG those 10 boards from seeed only cost $9.90 - which is half the price of OSHPark PLUS 7 extra PCBs!

Without ENIG, find pitched components can almost be impossible to solder without bridging.

Say what?  How can ENIG vs plain old HASL affect bridging? It's the soldermasks job to handle that problem.  TQFP's with 0.5 or 0.45 pitch is perfectly handsolderable with HASL.

I agree it is perfectly do-able to solder 0.5mm pitch parts with HASL board finish, but soldermask is out of the question for most of these budget services as the minimum soldermask sliver width/clearance specified is too thin to fit between pads, so after they do DRC you usually end up with the whole run of pads being soldermask free zone.

I usually get ENIG anyway, it's a much nicer finish and not much more costly.

[JohnnyBerg]

but soldermask is out of the question for most of these budget services as the minimum soldermask sliver width/clearance specified is too thin to fit between pads, so after they do DRC you usually end up with the whole run of pads being soldermask free zone.

Really? And what let you to that knowledge?

Hmm .. wanted to post a picture, but it is hard to get good focus with 0.5mm pitch 

[rx8pilot]

I use Sunstone Circuits. Competitive, but not the cheapest. Quality has been TOP NOTCH and service is amazing. Using them since 2009-ish and they have never messed up once. Probably about 75 different designs or so.

They cannot do micro-vias which is a bummer since blind and buried vias are pretty expensive. May consider other houses that can do the laser micro vias.

[matseng]

I agree it is perfectly do-able to solder 0.5mm pitch parts with HASL board finish, but soldermask is out of the question for most of these budget services as the minimum soldermask sliver width/clearance specified is too thin to fit between pads, so after they do DRC you usually end up with the whole run of pads being soldermask free zone.

Most of the cheapos I used most often manages to put soldermask down to 0.60 pitch using their own dru's. But I actually have in my hand a board with 0.50 with thin slivers of soldermask between the (slightly shrunk) pads, but I don't remember who I used for them. It was either Seeed or Smart-Prototyping. 

[8086]

but soldermask is out of the question for most of these budget services as the minimum soldermask sliver width/clearance specified is too thin to fit between pads, so after they do DRC you usually end up with the whole run of pads being soldermask free zone.

Really? And what let you to that knowledge?

Hmm .. wanted to post a picture, but it is hard to get good focus with 0.5mm pitch 

What led me to that knowledge? Personal experience.

Granted, sometimes you do get lucky and you get the soldermask you asked for, not always though. I've found that more often than not the soldermask between pads is simply removed when pitch is <=0.5mm, despite being present in the design. Perhaps my pads are slightly wider than yours, possibly.

[matseng]

Hmm .. wanted to post a picture, but it is hard to get good focus with 0.5mm pitch 

This is the best I got using my cellphone put next to the oculars of my microscope.  0.50mm pitch for a OLED connector on one of my boards.

[matseng]

But we are digressing here....  Does really ENIG help with unwanted bridging compared to HASL, with or without soldermask between the pads?

[wreeve]

But we are digressing here....  Does really ENIG help with unwanted bridging compared to HASL, with or without soldermask between the pads?

I suspect only if you don't take into account the extra solder left on the pads vial HASL. It also sometimes doesn't allow components to sit flat; which might be crucial for LEDs.

[8086]

But we are digressing here....  Does really ENIG help with unwanted bridging compared to HASL, with or without soldermask between the pads?

I suspect only if you don't take into account the extra solder left on the pads vial HASL. It also sometimes doesn't allow components to sit flat; which might be crucial for LEDs.

Exactly this, the extra solder would be the issue, and the fact it is less "flat" for placement. Real world, I haven't seen a huge difference between the two, at least not until you start using QFNs or 0.4mm pitch parts and lower etc.

[rea5245]

Interesting place that pcbshopper.com, I punched in a simple 3"x4" 2 layer, green mask board and the second cheapest option was a USA based company. They were $3 more than the cheapest, but the delivery time was 40 days sooner.

Yes, that surprised me too: a US manufacturer being cost competitive with the Chinese (at a specific size and quantity). It's something that I wouldn't have even checked for if I were shopping on my own. It really highlights the value of PCBShopper.com.

US and European companies also become price-competitive if you specify in PCBShopper that you want to get your boards quickly.

- Bob

[MoighonFweeman]

To everyone who has mentioned PCB Shopper:

THANK YOU

How have I not found that website yet? 

[tonyarkles]

But we are digressing here....  Does really ENIG help with unwanted bridging compared to HASL, with or without soldermask between the pads?

I have a design right now with a 48-pin 0.5mm pitch part on it, and I have had no end of trouble trying to solder it properly (either with an iron or with a reflow oven). There have been two problems: bridging, even with a clean iron and no additional paste; and missing the pad/not wetting, where the chip seems to slide down the edge of the HASL layer instead of melting into it. One side of the chip will be reflowed in the right place, and the other side has the pins shifted by half (the pin centres end up at the centre of the spacing between the pads).

I have a batch of ENIG boards coming from China, hopefully they'll be less problematic in the reflow oven and I can get on with my life

[matseng]

Is that on a pcb with "proper" leaded tin or the ROHS crap that have been forced upon us?

[zapta]

Is that on a pcb with "proper" leaded tin or the ROHS crap that have been forced upon us?

That's the problem with HASL, it's not lead agnostic and may not match the solder paste used.

[codeboy2k]

Does anyone know if these cheap services do single layer boards ?  I have a few low speed or analog designs that sometimes can be done on 1 layer, SMD, with 0-ohm jumpers as needed.  Doesn't need a ground plane.   If I put 1 layer into pcb shopper sometimes it comes back with a suggestion for a chinese shop, and requesting me to choose the 2-layer service.

If it's truly cheaper, I'll go for a 1 layer board for one-offs and prototypes.