Has anyone used aisler.net ?

[Simon]

I used PCB shopper and found aisler.net They claim to do a 4 layer 95x95mm PCB for 122 euro. Is this possible? Are they any good?

[0xdeadbeef]

Ten (!) 100x100mm PCBs with 4 layers will cost less than half of that (<$50) if done in China, so why should it be impossible?

[Simon]

not really, next best offer from china was 150, this is 7 day turn around. I am sure that with longer leads price goes down. PCB cart wan't nearly 300 for 8 days

[0xdeadbeef]

You didn't mention a time constraint, did you?
Anyway e.g. Elecrow states 5-8 working days (without shipping of course) and 96h rush service adds another $40. You can save another day by additional $20.

[nali]

I just tried them, no complaints. It was a reboot of an old project so a pretty basic 2-layer board mostly THT plus a few SMD parts so not the best to benchmark for quality, but looked fine to me.

I ordered on Oct 5th, they were shipped on 11th and they actually arrived I think about Weds 16th.

[Simon]

I'm amazed that I can upload my kicad file and that they add an option to make a donation to kicad. Yes my boss will be paying the donation.......

[jfiresto]

My first order with them went out for production, earlier today. Mine was also a fairly unambitious, two layer, through hole design. I will closely inspect them with a stereo microscope. If you like, I can post pictures of their workmanship.

[Simon]

I'm ordering tomorrow so thank you for the offer but won't help much

[Simon]

I the end I went to Wurth Elektronik. They were marginally more expensive than PCB train in 10 working days but do it in 6.

I will personally aisler out myself later but I did not want to take the risk on a work project that has a schedule.

[nctnico]

Eurocircuits wants 90 euro for 1 PCB done in 3 days. They have really slashed their prices recently.

[jfiresto]

The boards from Aisler were in my mail box this morning, five days after I ordered them. Overall, their German fab did very clean and precise work. Two boards, however, suffered what appear to be tool strikes, late in production.





I have sent the two pictures to Aisler and am awaiting their response.

[Warhawk]

I've been happy with Aisler. They are a good alternative for OSHpark for EU based customers. Especially when you want the board as fast as possible.
For price, you still need to go to China.

[thinkfat]

I've used Aisler for a couple of small PCBs in the past. The quality is really quite nice. I did have one board where the drilling was a tad off, but that was a one-off, it seems. All other boards were fine. I've done 2- and 4 layer boards.

I'm not super-happy about the turn-around time. They're collection designs just like OSHPark and then sending panels off to manufacturing after filling them. I can order PCBs from China and have them delivered faster than I can get them from Aisler. But their interface for uploading board files and their Gerber viewer are top notch.

Be careful when uploading KiCAD files, they don't seem to check if your copper zones are up to date. I got bitten by that once.

[jfiresto]

Just a late follow up. After getting no reply from Aisler for a few weeks, I e-mailed them again, this time to their general inquiry address, hello@aisler.net.

Felix promptly replied, excused their late reply and resubmitted the design that had suffered tool strikes. The replacement boards arrived ten days later, as promised, and look fine.

[thinkfat]

I've had no luck with contacting them lately. I have a question about their 4 layer stack up that's unanswered for a few weeks now, another one for a board that I wanted to try their new blitz fabrication with that in back late and with ENIG finish instead of HASL.

Not happy with their communication as of late.

[paddi]

Let me just help out right here within this thread  Email is really crowed right now...

Be careful when uploading KiCAD files, they don't seem to check if your copper zones are up to date. I got bitten by that once.

Because of this issue we now re-fill all zones on import.
Anyway, we give a 100% manufacturing guarantee on our Board Inspector renderings. Use the power and check them carefully. After import we generate the final production data immediately so you're able to inspect them.

If you've any questions, feel free to ask. I'm here to help.

Cheers,
Patrick

Co-Founder of AISLER

[thinkfat]

Let me just help out right here within this thread  Email is really crowed right now...

Be careful when uploading KiCAD files, they don't seem to check if your copper zones are up to date. I got bitten by that once.

Because of this issue we now re-fill all zones on import.
Anyway, we give a 100% manufacturing guarantee on our Board Inspector renderings. Use the power and check them carefully. After import we generate the final production data immediately so you're able to inspect them.

If you've any questions, feel free to ask. I'm here to help.

Cheers,
Patrick

Co-Founder of AISLER

Hi Patrick, that is an excellent addition to the import frontend!

While you're here, maybe you can answer the following questions about the 4-layer stack up I sent via email and that still aren't answered:

Could you confirm the data on this page is correct:
https://aisler.net/help/design-rules-and-specifications/4-layer-pcb-stackup

1) Permittivity (epsilon-r): Your stack-up specifies permittivity for the
outer layer pre-preg is 4.28, but the datasheet for ISOLA FR408 says e.g. 3.67
@2GHz for a bareskin stripline.

2) According to the same picture, copper thickness on the outer layers is
0.018mm and 0.035mm on the inner layers. This is quite unusual, typically, the
outer layers are 0.035mm and inner layers are 0.018mm.

A clarification (and justification for deviating from usual practice) would be
appreciated.

[nali]

Let me just help out right here within this thread  Email is really crowed right now...

Is that since I made Felix aware of this thread..?   

Be careful when uploading KiCAD files, they don't seem to check if your copper zones are up to date. I got bitten by that once.

Because of this issue we now re-fill all zones on import.
Anyway, we give a 100% manufacturing guarantee on our Board Inspector renderings. Use the power and check them carefully. After import we generate the final production data immediately so you're able to inspect them.

That's interesting, because I've just had an email saying 3/3 of my boards have failed electrical inspection, yet they pass DRC here. The only thing I can think of is I may have uploaded them with a bad fill? Will you be providing details of how / where they failed?

[paddi]

1) Permittivity (epsilon-r): Your stack-up specifies permittivity for the
outer layer pre-preg is 4.28, but the datasheet for ISOLA FR408 says e.g. 3.67
@2GHz for a bareskin stripline.

Correct is the value from the datasheet. We've to fix the graphics accordingly.

2) According to the same picture, copper thickness on the outer layers is
0.018mm and 0.035mm on the inner layers. This is quite unusual, typically, the
outer layers are 0.035mm and inner layers are 0.018mm.

A clarification (and justification for deviating from usual practice) would be
appreciated.

This is indeed the current stackup, we're working on an improved stackup which will be available in Q1 2020.

Will you be providing details of how / where they failed?

We're working on an online visualization of all checks and fails but for this order we're not able to provide any further insights 

[thinkfat]

1) Permittivity (epsilon-r): Your stack-up specifies permittivity for the
outer layer pre-preg is 4.28, but the datasheet for ISOLA FR408 says e.g. 3.67
@2GHz for a bareskin stripline.

Correct is the value from the datasheet. We've to fix the graphics accordingly.

2) According to the same picture, copper thickness on the outer layers is
0.018mm and 0.035mm on the inner layers. This is quite unusual, typically, the
outer layers are 0.035mm and inner layers are 0.018mm.

A clarification (and justification for deviating from usual practice) would be
appreciated.

This is indeed the current stackup, we're working on an improved stackup which will be available in Q1 2020.

OK, I'm a biiiit disappointed now. You "fixed" the graphics, instead of updating the values you've removed them entirely. The text still reads:

you find all impedances in the graphic below.

Does that mean you'll add the values back or that I need to read through the datasheet of the laminate and prepreg to extract them?

[jmw]

Has anyone worked with them very recently? They haven't answered or acknowledged email questions for over a week, and graphics like their stackup and clearance rules have disappeared from the website. I'm beginning to wonder if they are in some distress.

[thinkfat]

Has anyone worked with them very recently? They haven't answered or acknowledged email questions for over a week, and graphics like their stackup and clearance rules have disappeared from the website. I'm beginning to wonder if they are in some distress.

They may be just busy. I have just ordered and received PCBs from them. You can find the thread in my posting history in my profile.

[Simon]

I'm still waiting for a reply to my email asking why I had to do separate orders instead of one big one and will i receive an invoice.

[cgroen]

I ordered 2 designes yesterday evening (both 4 layers), I was truly amazed of their frontend and gerber viewer, second to none!
The price is somewhat higher than JLC (where I normally get my prototypes from), but combined with a little less for shipping it ends somewhat similar. The big difference (to JLC etc) is that if I want more than 3 PCB of a given order, the price just multiplies (unless "series production" is selected for the order)

I ordered one of the boards with express delivery, and the other just with normal free delivery. As I understand from their website, the 2 boards will be bundled together in shipping so both are sent "express".
I'll report back once I get the boards.
Oh, and email support was stellar ! I submitted these 2 first designs after "normal closing hours" yesterday evening (I was as usual late and there were instant replies from Felix about a couple of stupid questions I had, questions that I easily managed to find answers on their website once I looked....
Crossing my fingers for this one!

[nali]

Mixed experiences TBH over the half dozen prototype boards I've submitted over the past few months. A big problem seems to be that they are a nice front end to outsourced manufacturing so there's basically no in-house quality control. So far I've had:

1. Strike marks from a drill, a bit like if you drill something on tbe bench and the drill breaks through leaving a dinple, one of which managed to strike a track. This was on one of 3 boards, and as I didn't need all 3 wasn't a problem for me.

2. One can upload a design to the "playground" which gives you a day or so to make any changes. As it happened I did change a design so re-uploaded the file - the board was made with the new design just fine, but the stencil was for the old design. Fortunately the change was just 2 x 0603 passives which I hand-soldered afterwards.

3. A board design with 0.15mm track clearance - I got an email saying it had failed electrical testing then I received the boards to find that a) they were 2oz copper and b) under-etched. After nagging I finally got the boards re-made which arrived yesterday 3 weeks after the original order.

I've used them so far as they seem a fair compromise between speed & cost although recent experiences have put me off. I suspect that they've probably over-stretched themselves as a startup relying on a website, processes and scripts to make everything happen and now enjoying a taste of reality.

I did make them aware of this thread a little while ago so hopefully they'll be reading and take note...