What are some good PCB houses?

[tonyarkles]

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.

63/37 tin-lead, from what I can tell from the board house's site. Worked great down to 0.8mm, but crash & burn at 0.5mm. I've managed to get two boards to work, but it took a lot of trial and error, and I'm still not particularly convinced that everything is working reliably.

[zapta]

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

63/37 tin-lead, from what I can tell from the board house's site. Worked great down to 0.8mm, but crash & burn at 0.5mm.
[/quote]

IIRC Elecrow's HASL is lead free. I use it with leaded paste and leaded reflow profile. That mix is probably not a good idea.  OSHPark's ENIG doesn't have this problem.

[rea5245]

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.

If company X offers both 1 and 2 layer boards, their price will be sometimes be lower for the 1 layer board (but not always).

But if company Y offers only 2 layer boards, and company Y is just cheaper than company X, then company Y's 2 layer board will be cheaper than company X's 1 layer board. That's what you're seeing on PCBShopper.com.

So get a 2 layer board from company Y.

- Bob

[nctnico]

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

Complete nonsense. Just use extra flux and a big soldering tip.

[nctnico]

Even then you should use extra flux. IMHO a soldering iron is a much better choice because you need a lot less heat to solder the parts. I only use hot air for removal and soldering parts with a large copper slug onto 4 layer (or more) boards.

[codeboy2k]

But if company Y offers only 2 layer boards, and company Y is just cheaper than company X, then company Y's 2 layer board will be cheaper than company X's 1 layer board. That's what you're seeing on PCBShopper.com.

So get a 2 layer board from company Y.

- Bob

That's what I was thinking too. In that case, I'll do it like that.  Thanks!

[JohnnyBerg]

Even then you should use extra flux. IMHO a soldering iron is a much better choice because you need a lot less heat to solder the parts. I only use hot air for removal and soldering parts with a large copper slug onto 4 layer (or more) boards.

I never manage to be economical with the solder when I use the iron. However, when I use hot air I get very nice joints.

Oops going of topic ..

[rx8pilot]

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

Complete nonsense. Just use extra flux and a big soldering tip.

Agree....I have hand made a couple thousand PCB's with hundreds of components each and down to .4mm pitch. Maybe 1 in a hundred had a soldering problem and that was due to a crooked placement.

[Siwastaja]

Soldering fine parts is easy and "safe", it's only about how much time it takes... When you begin (or haven't done it for some time), you end up needing to fix bridging with desoldering braid and solder individual pins. And then you may suck out too much solder and need to add some, then you add too much, it goes to wrong places, etc... No harm done, and no need to panic, it just takes time but the result will be just fine even that way.

First time I soldered a 0.5mm pitched 100-pin component, it took me two hours or so..... Bare copper (DIY PCB). No flux, expect what's inside the Multicore solder. And no experience.

That being said, when you gain enough experience, you can totally solder a 100-pin 0.5mm pitch component in less than 10 seconds, just dragging the soldering iron over fluxed pins, adding just the right amount of solder. But it takes time to reach that.

I don't know if gold plating really helps here that much, I doubt it. I have never ordered ENIG. 99% of the time, I do my own PCBs (down to 8/8 mils & 0.4mm pitch & 0402 components), and when I randomly need to order the PCB's (for example, need more than two layers), I'm not investing any extra in ENIG, being poor...

I accept the idea that gold plating might be a nice thing and maybe it makes some things a bit easier. But really necessary? No way.

[rfbroadband]

http://www.eurocircuits.com/

[Jeroen3]

http://www.eurocircuits.com/

Which is a bit expensive for diy use. For larger quantities they compete with the chinese houses, but they are more reliable in order process terms.
They offer known shipping and processing times, and they have extensive error feedback. Which can be annoying sometimes. You can even upload PCB files for some eda's directly instead of gerbers.
For a company, eurocircuits is the place to go for protoytypes or single run projects. For personal use, only if you run 20+ boards for some non-profit project.

All my personal stuff goes to iTead. But the lead time is variable from 11 days (fastest ever) to more than 30 days. With the added surprise of possible customs fees.