Any experience with JLC PCB house in china?

[firewalker]

Just fine.

[cgroen]

Just fine.

And when you then contacted JLCPCB, what was their answer ?

[LubosD]

BTW, it seems they started charging for same design panelization.

I need to re-order a design they previously manufactured for me (size: 75x36mm), 1x2 panels, so it still nicely fits into the 100x100mm limit.

Well, now it bumps the price from $2 to $12, so I'll have to panelize manually in KiCad.

[firewalker]

Just fine.

And when you then contacted JLCPCB, what was their answer ?

Didn't contacted them yet. It's a minor issue for a prototype board.

I will send them an email for the heads up.

Alexander.

[thm_w]

This time there was an error on the silkscreen of my boards.

It should be like this:

][img]https://i.imgur.com/dAv2rI1s.jpg

Not like this:

][img]https://i.imgur.com/2utgxuIs.jpg

Whats is the width of silkscreen line around U1 and J2? Maybe the preview isn't showing it properly, but it seems thin.

Realistically the automated silk crop should be OK and produce this design properly, but, there are some slightly unusual aspects of your silkscreen design. So maybe it screwed up along the way.

[alexig]

Placed an order a yesterday and it looks like they changed their test procedure for larger order quantities, maybe to save time.

If you order 50 or more boards, they charge you around $16-20 (sometimes more, depends on board size) to fully test your boards otherwise it's a random test.

[bugrobotics]

I've ordered a number of prototype boards from JLPCB.  Other than silkscreen issues where small text looks a bit blurred I haven't had any issues.  Excellent value IMO.

[sashz]

Their cheap price is just a fake - they are all cheating. Now I'm in China, I ordered one pcb for $2 from them with delivery via SF express ($3 and this is the real cost of delivery). But a supplementary payment of $6 was added to the final price, which is more than the specified cost of manufacturing and delivery. Okay, i have added a second pcb - ups, the price is $5 and +3$ for supplementary payment - now the final price: Merchandise Total: $7, Shipping $3, Supplementary $9.  Haha. Another popular service PCBWAY, more than doubles the cost of delivery - $ 7 per 800 grams, but the real SF express price is $ 3 per kilogram. And i don't write anything about panelization payments. So, just business, no charity or cheap prices.

[cgroen]

Their cheap price is just a fake - they are all cheating. Now I'm in China, I ordered one pcb for $2 from them with delivery via SF express ($3 and this is the real cost of delivery). But a supplementary payment of $6 was added to the final price, which is more than the specified cost of manufacturing and delivery. Okay, i have added a second pcb - ups, the price is $5 and +3$ for supplementary payment - now the final price: Merchandise Total: $7, Shipping $3, Supplementary $9.  Haha. Another popular service PCBWAY, more than doubles the cost of delivery - $ 7 per 800 grams, but the real SF express price is $ 3 per kilogram. And i don't write anything about panelization payments. So, just business, no charity or cheap prices.

"Just business", what did you expect ?
You could also just go back to home-etching, much cheaper 

[sashz]

"Just business", what did you expect ?
You could also just go back to home-etching, much cheaper 

Of course, they must be honest and write real prices for their services without hidden fees. Next time I will try to pick up pcbs directly from their factory (if I don't find another cheap factory).

[wb0gaz]

This has been a very helpful and informative thread - thank you to the many authors. I began with JLCPCB early 2019, and so far good results.

I now wish to create panelized PCB artwork/gerber files for a project, using JLCPCB for production. How are the v-groove lines included in the artwork? Goal is to have several areas on the board that can be separated by bending the board material to break at the groove (this has been shown within this thread, but it was not clear how to represent the v-groove locations).

 I do not wish to have JLCPCB panelize for me - I wish to have the panel boundaries included in my gerber file. I understand that each v-groove line must extend the entire width or breadth of the board - this is OK for my application.

The software I am using (copper connection, no longer available) allows me to create a line within the board perimeter, where the line is in the same layer as the board outline. Is this the correct way to generate a v-groove in the artwork for JLCPCB?

Thank you for any relevant advice!

[janekm]

Their cheap price is just a fake - they are all cheating. Now I'm in China, I ordered one pcb for $2 from them with delivery via SF express ($3 and this is the real cost of delivery). But a supplementary payment of $6 was added to the final price, which is more than the specified cost of manufacturing and delivery. Okay, i have added a second pcb - ups, the price is $5 and +3$ for supplementary payment - now the final price: Merchandise Total: $7, Shipping $3, Supplementary $9.  Haha. Another popular service PCBWAY, more than doubles the cost of delivery - $ 7 per 800 grams, but the real SF express price is $ 3 per kilogram. And i don't write anything about panelization payments. So, just business, no charity or cheap prices.

If you're in SZ, try ordering directly from their Chinese websites, not their International ones. If you want to find the lowest possible prices... browse around on Taobao and ask some factories on there for quotes. From my friends in SZ who are obsessed with finding the very lowest possible price, I gather the lowest prices can be <30RMB including delivery (yup... more than $2... $2 is really more of an advertising gimmick as you rightly noted  )

[FrankBuss]

Does anyone know if JLCPCB support edge plating? In a recent video Dave said, that you can just add it as a comment when you order the board, because there is no checkbox at the JLCPCB order page for it. But how much does it cost, if they support it?

[Chris56000]

Hi!

Time for me to join the party!

After yet more night's ranting from my friend about the non–progress of his Z80 Microprocessor Test Board at home, I decided to have a look at what JLC had to offer.

They were offering a Chinese New Year free shipping promotion (alas now ended!) at the time my gerbers were ready, and they quoted me about £8.60 for five copies of my friend's design, 115 mm long by 95mm high (landscape format), so at that price I certainly wasn't going to mess about with chemicals & waste materials trying to UV process or try and CNC the things, so away the files went and we got the completed boards back last Friday – I submitted the order on Sunday 17th in the evening and my friend received 'em via DHL Friday in the UK.

Absolutely no quality issues at all – the only issue was that the silkscreen was a bit fine and difficult see unless you worked in bright daylight or under an illuminated magnifier, but I suspect that was down to wrong text width/height settings in my Design Spark software, and JLC's viewer didn't make it clear how fine the silkscreen was!

Can anyone whose used D.S. advise me on the best height & text width to use please?

My next design for my friend's Z80 CTC board went to them last night and a third one for his memory control will go today!

One little tip to anyone using RS's Design Spark – make sure you include the *.mop file in your gerber file RAR or the holes don't show up in JLC's Gerber Viewer!

Also for some reason they don't like a zip (from WinRAR) –I always get an error message submitting a zip file to 'em!

Chris Williams

PS!

Even allowing for postage & PayPal's runious currency conversion rate, the cost per board came out @ about £2.65 each, bearing in mind that one of a similar size & quality from Elektor's PCB Shop or E.P.E. would be at least three times that and you get spares to experiment with or even just give away (or even bung on fleabay!) I'm not complaining!

I'll have to learn how to trace over magazine artworks in my Abacom Sprint Layout now!

[thmjpr]

It looks like they may be ending JLC + LCSC combined shipping soon. For now at least, the additional shipping cost is heavily discounted.
Wonder why customs is an issue, I could see US duties having an impact but that should not affect other countries.

[OwO]

I would like to see 4/6 layer board prices reduced instead. Very few serious designs actually use 2 layers.

[MarkF]

I have been using Elecrow.
Looks like about the same price.  But, they don't put their serial/id number on the PCB.

But, Julian Ilett uses them all the time.
   https://www.youtube.com/user/julius256/videos

[sotos]

I have been using Elecrow.
Looks like about the same price.  But, they don't put their serial/id number on the PCB.

But, Julian Ilett uses them all the time.
   https://www.youtube.com/user/julius256/videos

What’s the problem with that? The serial number.

[MarkF]

I have been using Elecrow.
Looks like about the same price.  But, they don't put their serial/id number on the PCB.

But, Julian Ilett uses them all the time.
   https://www.youtube.com/user/julius256/videos

What’s the problem with that? The serial number.

Maybe I misspoke here.  I believe it's more like arbitrary order number???
It doesn't increment for each PCB.

Anyway..  I don't want my silk screen cluttered up.  It's like graffiti on your PCB.
If you are okay with it, then go for it.  I'm not.

[MT]

I would like to see 4/6 layer board prices reduced instead. Very few serious designs actually use 2 layers.

So 2 layer boards is fake, mock, trash designs?

[coppice]

I would like to see 4/6 layer board prices reduced instead. Very few serious designs actually use 2 layers.

You haven't produced many high volume designs, have you?

[FrankBuss]

Some high volume Chinese products use even 1 layer 

[bd139]

You laugh but I try and design with one layer where possible. With pin swapping and parts available in different pinouts this is actually quite easy now on low to moderate complexity designs. I did a TH board recently which has 88 parts on and was single sided with no jumpers. Top was ground plane, but that was unnecessary really.

[russian2]

Please forgive me for reviving an old topic but I would like to give JLC PCB assembly a huge thumps up 

While there is the whole mess with component orientation between different standards, JLC PCB  has silently but _correctly_ flipped some of my diodes where flipping was necessary.

[radioactive]

Please forgive me for reviving an old topic but I would like to give JLC PCB assembly a huge thumps up 

Since this thread is revived, I would like to thank JLCPCB for providing such a great service and getting their operation back up and running so quickly after recent unforeseen setbacks.  I hope to continue doing business with them far into the future.