[Experience] OSH Parks customer support

[eV1Te]

I was so positively surprised by OSH Parks support that I felt that I had to write this thread. 

I have ordered several PCBs through them before, without any problems whatsoever. But this time I ordered a board with a very irregular board-outline (see attached images), and the final boards was cut/routed-out incorrectly so that the edges had been cropped slightly.

I contacted the support and asked if this was an error on my part or if it was the PCB fab. To my positive surprise they admitted their error directly and refunding me the whole amount while at the same time producing new PCBs and shipping then free of charge via priority mail! 

This is probably the first time in my life that I have ever gotten a refund and a new product at the same time! 

The reply I got:

...Oh, shoot. Sorry about the trouble there. Our system didn't handle the outlines on the edge quite right, so it got panelized closer than it should have to other boards. Not a common issue, and usually we catch and correct them.
Definitely an error on our side though...

...Refund's been put through for you. I've also just reran the new set, and marked them to ship Priority mail.

-Dan

[jwm_]

Oh yeah, they are awesome. I am pretty sure they are running on almost no profit margin as it is more about helping the community and grew out of a hackerspace. Laen just really enjoys when he sees osh park purple in peoples hackaday entries or around on the web.

Here is one of mine where I made good use of the 'no minimum order' rule, I ended up with a bunch of surplus 74hc14s in TSSOP after a bulk order and decided to make them breadboardable. tiny schmitt trgigger -> schmitt mite -> schmite.

https://oshpark.com/projects/lOp0dEdl

In retrospect I should have stuck 3 rows of pins on each side, turns out there is a whole lot you can do with just schmitt inverters and some passives. 

http://www.musicfromouterspace.com/analogsynth_new/ELECTRONICS/mickeymouselogic.html

[zapta]

In a weird way, screwing and then fixing is appreciated more than not screwing in the first place.

[c4757p]

On rare occasion, yeah, because many companies aren't nearly as good at fixing their mistakes.

[zapta]

On rare occasion, yeah, because many companies aren't nearly as good at fixing their mistakes.

If they wouldn't screw the order in the first place, it wouldn't be appreciated as much, even though it would be a more desirable outcome. My inner Mr. Spock says it's weird.

[BradC]

The reality is that sooner or later *everybody* makes a mistake. It's a lot more reassuring knowing you are dealing with a company that has an excellent track record of fixing their errors.

It's more a shame that on average the company response is so bad that excellent service like this becomes newsworthy rather than the norm.

[chicken]

Not sure what you mean by "average company". Except for the near-monopolies mega corps pretty much everyone I deal with offers great service and owns up to their mistakes.

But yes, definitely recommending OSHPark.

[Mechatrommer]

maybe you helped them discover a bug/mistake/shortcoming in their system, with their mission of 0 mistake they appreciate you and you get 2X amount of pcb for free (half of it are slightly cropped) i'm sure the cropped version still usable, for testing or discounted price for early birders.

[eV1Te]

The reality is that sooner or later *everybody* makes a mistake. It's a lot more reassuring knowing you are dealing with a company that has an excellent track record of fixing their errors.

It's more a shame that on average the company response is so bad that excellent service like this becomes newsworthy rather than the norm.

I agree, I was truly positively surprised when i gut the reply back from OSH Park, which probably tells me more about the type of service that one normally receive when ordering stuff online.

[marshallh]

I met Dan last year while camping, I'm not surprised that you got the response you did. Oshpark has always been pretty good, but their troubles are always with the various fabs they are using and keeping the specs straight.
Occasionally when I absolutely need a board done by a certain deadline I run the same gerbers thru 2 shops (incl. oshpark) and that way if one of them screws up I still get the job done. No outfit is infallible!