Author Topic: PCBWay mini-review  (Read 57407 times)

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Offline Corporate666

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Re: PCBWay mini-review
« Reply #25 on: June 17, 2015, 05:18:33 am »
I ordered boards from them - a mix of 1.6mm and 0.8mm.

Quality of the PCB's seemed reasonable, although I got green soldermask - so can't speak to the "white issue".  But my problem with them was 2 fold.

1) They only validate uploaded files within a 3 hour window (9am - 12pm China local time).  So I uploaded files around 1pm (their time) on Tuesday.  They validated 2 out of 5 the following day... then validated the other 3 the next day.  So it was Friday morning before I could actually check out and place the order.

2) They claim 5 days processing time.  Well, it was 11 days from the date I placed the order until they shipped the boards.  When I queried them on this, they said "Oh, sorry, we had a worker holiday here, we were closed 2 days".  OK, but that doesn't explain why it took 11 days, and they should tell clients about such holidays that impact schedule commitments. 

I might give them another shot for an order that isn't too critical and see how they do, but like many Chinese companies - don't rely on the commitments and claims they make on the website.
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Offline zapta

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Re: PCBWay mini-review
« Reply #26 on: June 17, 2015, 02:59:59 pm »
I might give them another shot for an order that isn't too critical and see how they do, but like many Chinese companies - don't rely on the commitments and claims they make on the website.

Some competitors have simpler ordering process. With elecrow for example, you upload the file and pay. The next day somebody looks at it an contact you if there is any issue. If not, then it just goes straight for production.
 

Offline Corporate666

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Re: PCBWay mini-review
« Reply #27 on: June 17, 2015, 07:51:31 pm »
I might give them another shot for an order that isn't too critical and see how they do, but like many Chinese companies - don't rely on the commitments and claims they make on the website.

Some competitors have simpler ordering process. With elecrow for example, you upload the file and pay. The next day somebody looks at it an contact you if there is any issue. If not, then it just goes straight for production.

My usual CM has excellent online ordering with instant quoting, and I can choose "exotic" features like filled+capped vias, specify my panelization/fiducial requirements and plating type and thickness online.  In this case, I had some prototype boards I needed in a hurry and PCBShopper showed these guys as the fastest.

So the one thing that drew me to them ended up being the thing they failed to deliver on.   Not off to a great start in the (highly) competitive world of PCB fabrication.
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Offline coflynn

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Re: PCBWay mini-review
« Reply #28 on: June 18, 2015, 06:59:57 pm »
Quote
So the one thing that drew me to them ended up being the thing they failed to deliver on

Yeah, I had earlier tried some 4-layer PCBs and paid the rush fee... but it ended up a number of them failed e-test and it took them a while to get back to me in asking if they should just ship the OK boards or wait to remake the PCBs, so it took a few extra days. But my last 'regular' order ended up being done in my hands in ~9 calendar days (at least 4 of those are shipping) which is pretty good.

The time difference with China combined with need to pay after approval does often add a few days, since when they get approved it's normally midnight or later here. Then once I pay they might not start processing until the next business day (in China) as the payment was received towards the end of their day. I agree it's needless and they could just per-authorize payment instead, but such is life.

Quote
Those silkscreens are awful.

I'd be curious to see the Seed boards then! I had compared a number of silkscreens, and the white silkscreen didn't look that much worse than any other PCB with what I assume to be digital printing (noticeable dots). The high zoom level greatly exaggerates the edges... looking at the PCBs they look like solid lines. The black silkscreen (on white soldermask) is noticeably lower quality though. Something with the white soldermask I assume affecting the black silkscreen ink I assume?
 

Offline rollatorwieltje

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Re: PCBWay mini-review
« Reply #29 on: June 18, 2015, 08:39:50 pm »
This is what Seeed looks like, this is the smallest I would go on silkscreen with them. The text in the table is 0.8mm high with 0.118mm trace width. It's just readable, but the limited resolution is very visible.
 

Offline PeterL

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Re: PCBWay mini-review
« Reply #30 on: July 24, 2015, 10:29:08 am »
Well, I also gave PCBWay a try. It was for a very simple pcb, only through hole stuff, and I really didn't care about how the silkscreen was gonna come out.
This was also my first Circuitmaker project, and Circuitmaker's default text for designators is much finer than what I'm used to in Altium. But since I didn't bother, I didn't change it.

I received the pcb's just this morning, and I must say, I'm really surprised by the result of especially the silkscreen. Just look at the little 'K' next to LED1. This is only 0.5mm high, and the lines themselves have a width of 3 mil.

They also milled the internal slots properly, which was my biggest concern. 
 

Offline VeriEdILA

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Re: PCBWay mini-review
« Reply #31 on: July 30, 2015, 11:07:58 pm »
Agreed ISO Standards are available to read for " proper PCB lay out agreed "

quote
once you are the DRC checker, you are no longer the pcb wrecker.
 

Offline matseng

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Re: PCBWay mini-review
« Reply #32 on: August 01, 2015, 11:30:04 am »
I received the pcb's just this morning, and I must say, I'm really surprised by the result of especially the silkscreen. Just look at the little 'K' next to LED1. This is only 0.5mm high, and the lines themselves have a width of 3 mil.
That is really some quality silk.  I wish the other elcheapo fabs was able to do silk like this...
 

Offline markg735

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Re: PCBWay mini-review
« Reply #33 on: August 27, 2015, 10:08:39 pm »
So I was looking to get some lower cost PCBs for my project and found PCBWay. So here is my data point: My PCB is 2 layers and mostly through hole. Some of the spacing is critical and I have my rather elaborate logo in the silkscreen layer. I placed my order on a Thursday night and got a friendly engineer named Lynne who said everything looks good.

Much to my surprise the PCBs arrived in the US (Florida no less) Tuesday morning. According to their website they seem to work the weekend. I built a few up and they worked fine. I can't get over the quality I got for the price. And my elaborate logo came out looking really sharp. Sharper than some of the domestic prototypes I had built. There were a few knicks in the solder mask but not in a critical area and electrically the PCBs passed all my tests. I chose green solder mask although they offer blue for free as well I believe.

I also reworked a pad a few times on purpose to see how they would stand up to reworks and the pad stayed on the board through my abuse.

The turnaround is quick enough and their price low enough I would definitely say give them a shot.

 

Offline fivefish

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Re: PCBWay mini-review
« Reply #34 on: August 27, 2015, 10:30:36 pm »
Been using PCBWay since last year, I've ordered 10+ jobs from them, totalling several hundred boards. No complaints here. The only downside is the DHL shipping... expensive. But at least you get a tracking # and you pretty much receive it 2-3 days after they ship it out. I also like with PCBWay, you can do combined shipping and that's one way of saving money.

I used to use PCBCart, but their prices have slowly gone up over the years, and I HATE the setup fees for 1st time ordering of the board, and possibly new setup fees if dramatic revisions done to the board.  If you're spinning and doing lots of revisions to the board, I just HATE those setup fees. So I left them, but used them for a good maybe 5 years. Their quality also seems to have gone over the years, vs the first year I tried them. A few times, I had to complain and they had to redo the boards, as the hole sizes turn up too small.

I tried SeedStudio, but their ordering process isn't straightforward and easy as PCBWay.
 

Offline Selectech

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Re: PCBWay mini-review
« Reply #35 on: August 28, 2015, 02:53:05 am »
Put an order into Pcbway last Sunday evening, got the boards back today + a frameless stencil.

Everything looks good, so all in all quite pleased with their service & quality. Two more items went in this evening so I hope the quality and service is maintained.

Like a lot of folks, I do use PCBcart, Myro and Sitopway. I needed some quicker turn for a project and decided to give Pcbway a test. Seems to have been a good choice.
 

Offline mrpackethead

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Re: PCBWay mini-review
« Reply #36 on: September 06, 2015, 07:52:14 am »
Yup!

Looks about as crappy as the ones I got from them.  I complained to them about it and his response was, "Sorry about that, we had a new guy working that area". I asked for some type of a credit since I had to reorder the boards, He stopped answering my emails.

I will never order form them again. I may go back to Sitopway or look for another.

I'm getting pretty good results out of Sitopway.   This review is interesting because i seriously had thought about giving them a try. Seems folks are reporting a pretty mixed bag.. Not sure if thats something i want from a PCB fabricator.
« Last Edit: September 06, 2015, 07:59:18 am by mrpackethead »
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Offline Psi

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Re: PCBWay mini-review
« Reply #37 on: September 06, 2015, 08:21:53 am »
This was from elecrow a year ago

There was a solder mask alignment issue, but it didn't cause any problem with the 30 or so boards i made.

Interestingly, you can see where the board test probes touched each pad.

I still like elecrow, they are a good compromise of cost vs quality and can make boards really fast at a pretty reasonable extra cost



« Last Edit: September 06, 2015, 08:26:51 am by Psi »
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Offline rs20

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Re: PCBWay mini-review
« Reply #38 on: September 06, 2015, 10:33:04 am »
Woah, your solder mask expansion is enormous. Is that what you specced? A mistake, or am I missing something?
 

Offline Psi

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Re: PCBWay mini-review
« Reply #39 on: September 06, 2015, 11:15:49 am »
i cant remember exactly, but i think that was me who expanded it completely on that QFN. The sliver was just too small.
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Offline T3sl4co1l

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Re: PCBWay mini-review
« Reply #40 on: September 06, 2015, 08:03:10 pm »
Also quite narrow pads for a QFN.  IPC says +0.03/-0 mm against part pads for that dimension.

That leftmost QFN pad actually has mask on the pad, nasty.  Don't suppose you specified "no soldermask allowed on pads" so you can tell them to redo it.

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Offline Psi

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Re: PCBWay mini-review
« Reply #41 on: September 07, 2015, 05:45:07 am »
I drag solder them myself , so I have made some tweaks to make assembly easier.
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Offline T3sl4co1l

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Re: PCBWay mini-review
« Reply #42 on: September 07, 2015, 06:01:50 pm »
Ah, there you go.  Manufacturing should always have the final say in these things! :)

Tim
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Offline david-IT

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Re: PCBWay mini-review
« Reply #43 on: March 17, 2016, 03:21:10 am »
So I was looking to get some lower cost PCBs for my project and found PCBWay. So here is my data point: My PCB is 2 layers and mostly through hole. Some of the spacing is critical and I have my rather elaborate logo in the silkscreen layer. I placed my order on a Thursday night and got a friendly engineer named Lynne who said everything looks good.

Much to my surprise the PCBs arrived in the US (Florida no less) Tuesday morning. According to their website they seem to work the weekend. I built a few up and they worked fine. I can't get over the quality I got for the price. And my elaborate logo came out looking really sharp. Sharper than some of the domestic prototypes I had built. There were a few knicks in the solder mask but not in a critical area and electrically the PCBs passed all my tests. I chose green solder mask although they offer blue for free as well I believe.

I also reworked a pad a few times on purpose to see how they would stand up to reworks and the pad stayed on the board through my abuse.

The turnaround is quick enough and their price low enough I would definitely say give them a shot.
The same reason for me that i choose pcbway,here is my friend's project,wonderful
« Last Edit: March 17, 2016, 09:55:29 am by david-IT »
 

Offline DrTune

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Re: PCBWay mini-review
« Reply #44 on: April 09, 2016, 07:59:42 pm »
My 2 cents - I just got a 2-layer back from PCBWay and it was fast and cheap ($12 for 10 boards, the DHL shipping was twice that but hey it was quick).  Looks fine, exactly as specified - I used green soldermask and no complaints about alignment or resolution of mask, silk or drills.  Impressed by the speediness.

Just submitted a larger, 4-layer high-speed USB board couple of days ago - it's 93mm x 55mm (with DHL it came to $75 for 10) - not as cheap of course.

I do like:
a) Their website is good - love that they show you time/date of all the manufacturing processes as it happens
b) Fast
c) Cheap
d) Good customer service - with my USB board I asked them about their stack-up because I want (roughly) 90-ohm diff traces and they send me a nice word doc with all their stackup options and dielectric constants etc. Then when I submitted the board they emailed and checked to see if I wanted a proper impedance controlled board (I said no; I'm cheap and I calculated the appropriate trace spacing/width for their stackup... correctly I hope ;-) but I appreciate the attention for a mere $49 order.

So far I like their stuff, and they're pretty much the cheapest as well (at least for small volumes like this).  Of course my enthusiasm may wane if the 4-layer boards have issues ...
 

Offline mrpackethead

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Re: PCBWay mini-review
« Reply #45 on: December 19, 2016, 06:20:00 am »
To be fair, I'm sorry to say but your layout doesn't look very good. :(
Quote

Thats what i was thinking as well.     I just had a good look at multiple boards that i have had from pcbway. and none of them look remotely like those.  The Silk Screen registraiton is great. Mind you i dont' lable a lot of parts since its all too small to read and a machine is placing them anway.. 

are you usign some odd ball font. Those dont' look like Stroke Fonts?
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Offline MaximRecoil

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Re: PCBWay mini-review
« Reply #46 on: December 21, 2016, 09:51:42 pm »
Wow, the silk screen looks amazingly low-rez.  Almost like it was done with an inkjet printer or something?
It also looks like the frame (or the board) may have shifted during printing.  Looks a bit smeared.

A good inkjet printer is capable of quality that appears perfect to the naked eye, especially when printing on a smooth/non-porous substrate. They are commonly used to make the film positives used for burning the screens for silkscreen printing. A film positive printed by my Epson Stylus Photo 1400 looks like it was printed by the hand of God; razor sharp lines, angles, and curves; though under magnification you can see it isn't perfect (nothing ever is perfect under magnification).

I'm guessing the printing on the OP's boards looks at least okay in person, to the naked eye, but it's definitely not particularly high quality. They are probably using a high speed mode on their printer instead of the highest quality (much slower) mode.
 

Offline xzswq21

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Re: PCBWay mini-review
« Reply #47 on: December 15, 2017, 02:11:31 pm »
Also quite narrow pads for a QFN.  IPC says +0.03/-0 mm against part pads for that dimension.

That leftmost QFN pad actually has mask on the pad, nasty.  Don't suppose you specified "no soldermask allowed on pads" so you can tell them to redo it.

Tim

Dear
how much solder mask should I use for a SMD board?
in my board I have many QFN, LFCSP(OpAmp/ADC/DAC), 0603 Res/Cap/Inductor.

Thanks
❤ ❤
 


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