What is happening with JLCPB?

[Yuto]

I have always been with JLCPCB and, in my opinion, they have undergone major changes in the last year (2021) that have disappointed me a lot and because this I have been trying PCBWay, ALLPCB, etc. and I would like to share my experience.

First of all let me say the $2 offer for 5 boards is only for the first board order, otherwise the price is $4. I mentioned it because there are too much people used to order only one board and they usually don't know it.

The quality of the silk screen is not the same which is specially noticeable in labels or logos that have thick strokes or filled areas. Everyday it is becoming more and more common to receive the boards with vertical scratches in the silk screen which have certainly not been caused during transport but in their factories during manufacturing, handling or packaging.

Other times some of the delivered boards have strange but patently visible 1 or 2 mm. width lines with an irregular shape from top to bottom of the board very similar to the border of a spill. After the quality complaint process I got the official version: it comes from flaws in the "solder mask ink" but I never had this issue before.

In the past all the boards were sent in the typical vacuum bubble wrapping, but now they occasionally seem to forget it and send some set of boards in regular sealed bags (no vacuum) in the same box with other boards with the classic vacuum bubble wrapping, I didn't really get it.

In addition, if you are willing to save board storage space minimizing the number of unuseful prototypes and after hard work of grouping several designs on the same board the extra costs for this are really ridiculous. Using a real example with DHL 3-day shipping, I'd pay about $68 to get about 500 units (once the boards are cutted) by sending one board for each design (totalling, 9 boards); and $70 to get less than 170 units (once the boards are cutted) just because the extra "engineering" costs for group all the designs in only 4 boards.

Since years ago I used to order boards with the same design repeated, in a 2-row x 1-column matrix by copying and rotating the original design 180º in order to leave, e.g. an edge connector on the outside border. Now, it seems there is a new criteria, new staff or I don't know what but they consider that there are two different designs and pretend to charge an extra cost of $12-13 although it is obvious that the designs are the same and it is easier to manufacture it this way (if the two designs are at 180º the V-Cut between both is a simple horizontal line while if they have the same rotation the cutting of the edge connectors makes the manufacturing difficult). Talking about edge connectors, lately I use to get boards with a lot of scratches in those big plated parts.

Similarly an edge rail with one line of text is considered acceptable but adding 20 extra milimeters and a couple of lines of text or add a gap in order to ease the milling machine to do the outline cut when the design has round corners, may be considered arbitrarily and depending on the day, an additional design and imply an extra cost.

The customer service usually gives only evasive answers, does not help to solve real problems (even if they have simple solutions that the customer may not know but they should) or repeats over and over a template answers without paying attention to the details of the real case until they get you to give up.

Just as an illustrative example: JLCPCB customer service would sent you an email with the subject "Audit failed" saying you board is wrong, the minimum board size for V-cuts is 70x70mm., blah, blah; first time it may shock you because you don't completely understand what are they talking about but a few minutes later you understand they are only asking you to resize the board and reupload the gerber file. That may seems fine but in exactly the same case, same boards, the reply from PCBWay was "Thank you for uploading file on our website, we checked all the files but for number X and Z there are V-cut needed but some V-cut lines do not reach our minimum requirement 75mm., can we enlarge the length of the edge rails to reach 75mm. min?". I'd rather to get the second reply which explains the issue and offers a solution.

Compared to other manufacturers, the longest time PCBWay took to answer a question or request emailed to their support email address was 9 minutes. In the last year JLCPCB consistently takes more than 24 hours to reply anything from me. This may not seem important at times, but apart from the time spent in Live Chat and writing to the support e-mail address, in actual cases it has led to delays of more than 48 hours for the boards to go into production.

The quality claims service is lousy, they apologize a lot but (purposedly?) delay the resolution for weeks, requesting over and over again the same data, the same pictures,... information that they already had from the moment the complaint was registered.

Needless to say that from day one I found the website to be full of flaws. Sometimes the gerbers viewer is not available and you are forced to order the boards without being able to preview them; when order after order is placed, the counter of boards added to the shopping cart is not properly updated (unless you manually reload the web page); depending on the day there are too many "network errors" on different tabs related with orders or billing; when necessary it becomes very complicated to replace the gerber file because you have to specifically request it and wait for the option to appear so that, later on, the gerber thumbnail is always the original one, I mean it is never updated to the new one so you can never be sure that if it really has been updated or when.

I fully understand that many people who handle few orders and/or very simple orders will have no complaints but for me this has been a serious problem for too long.

I appreciate you taking the trouble to have read this far and, if you can spare a few minutes, I would like to know if any of you have had similar problems lately.

[Martin Miranda]

... they are using different machine too. example is two layer board. vs n'th layer board. i use the 4 layer board just because it is alot more better than the 2 layer board. green solder mask vs black also different in terms of quality. YMMV really. 

[rob77]

In addition, if you are willing to save board storage space minimizing the number of unuseful prototypes and after hard work of grouping several designs on the same board the extra costs for this are really ridiculous. Using a real example with DHL 3-day shipping, I'd pay about $68 to get about 500 units (once the boards are cutted) by sending one board for each design (totalling, 9 boards); and $70 to get less than 170 units (once the boards are cutted) just because the extra "engineering" costs for group all the designs in only 4 boards.

WTF ? order some boards from fabs in europe and then complain about pricing 

it's amazing how people are able to complain about a scratch in the soldermask when they pay 4$ for 5 boards...

[Yuto]

WTF ? order some boards from fabs in europe and then complain about pricing 

it's amazing how people are able to complain about a scratch in the soldermask when they pay 4$ for 5 boards...

@rob77, I think you've got one or two things very wrong.

I am not arguing about their prices, I am only talking about the the progressive loss of quality of their products. JLCPCB set their prices according to their own criteria and needs and I respect that as long as there are no arbitrary and unpredictable increases as in any commercial contract. Last year the prices were no different and the quality was superior in every way, both in product and customer service. Don't you think they should honor their sales contract? Or do you think that because their price is lower than other manufacturers they are entitled to deliver the final product to the customers in any condition... or that we, the customers, have no right to complain?

On the other hand I have not mentioned scratches on the solder mask but scratches on several dozen of the edge connector tinned/plated contacts and not on one design/board/order or two design/board/order, but in all orders placed this past year.

Sorry if my message was too long, if you had a bad day or if on a special date like today too much slivovica was drunk.

[MadScientist]

I haven't used PCB fab houses for a while but always used JLC. Sounds worrying

[Bud]

Last year the prices were no different and the quality was superior in every way, both in product and customer service.

You must be kidding, i too used them for several years and Never Ever JLCPCB quality was anywhere close to "superior".

[thm_w]

I received a few two layer boards in December, no issue with the quality, but they were basic designs.

In addition, if you are willing to save board storage space minimizing the number of unuseful prototypes and after hard work of grouping several designs on the same board the extra costs for this are really ridiculous. Using a real example with DHL 3-day shipping, I'd pay about $68 to get about 500 units (once the boards are cutted) by sending one board for each design (totalling, 9 boards); and $70 to get less than 170 units (once the boards are cutted) just because the extra "engineering" costs for group all the designs in only 4 boards.

Can you explain what exactly you are talking about here?
Was the shipping cost too high or NRE too high? Shipping cost is generally based on weight and number of pieces does not matter.

If you are repeatedly having issues with JLC then just move to PCBway. But I get the feeling you will start having some issues with them as well.

Posting some photos might help.

[Yuto]

I haven't used PCB fab houses for a while but always used JLC. Sounds worrying

You must be kidding, i too used them for several years and Never Ever JLCPCB quality was anywhere close to "superior".

Perhaps "superior" was not the most appropriate word but I have also been using them for many years and have only had problems of this relevance during this past year. I recall receiving a batch of boards with no silk screen on the top layer. From my point of view it is too obvious a mistake to go unnoticed during review, data preparation and quality control.

If you are repeatedly having issues with JLC then just move to PCBway. But I get the feeling you will start having some issues with them as well.

So far I have not had any relevant problems with PCBWay.

My only source of information is my own orders and I share my experience only to know how frequent this kind of problems really are.

Posting some photos might help.

I considered it but I prefer not to provide detailed information that can be associated with specific orders and/or accounts.

Can you explain what exactly you are talking about here?

It is not related to shipping costs, I have no problem with them. I was just showing my impressions about the company's policies regarding panelizing different designs on the same board. When years ago I read in their help center about it, I felt they had some paranoia about designers who might use panelization as a money saving strategy. I didn't think much about it but when I considered panelizing in this way, in the actual case of an order where 9 designs (for small size boards) were panelized on only 4 boards, I realized that in my case (and maybe only for this case) it would have been more cost effective and efficient, not to panelize several designs on one board and simply order 9 boards, each with one design, due to extra engineering costs. The final cost, shipping included, is ($2) cheaper; it is not necessary to spend so much time in the panelization which is a two-dimensional cutting stock/cut list problem with significant restrictions due to V-cuts that can only be performed from one side of the board to the other; minimizes potential (and lately almost certain) engineering errors when reviewing the boards and preparing the data; and, by panelizing a single design on a single board (a quick and trivial operation since it is easy to generate an array from a design in today's CAD), the final number of units once the boards have been splitted apart, is much higher (totalling around 500 units instead of just 170).

[rob77]

i think you should try a career in politics... you wrote so many words but still didn't tell what the exact problem is. that's a 100% match for a politician.

[miceuz]

I do 4 layer boards, didn't notice a decline in quality this year except for their human error that made me a stencil from random gerber files, not the ones I provided.

But in general, the picture is that their equipment got old and worn out, we had good times with it though.

[AccountRemovedPerUsersRequest]

I order PCBs from JLCPCB rarely so can't comment much about the original topic. The ones that I have received have had no issues.
But what is interesting is that I can share the story with PCBWay thislast year. I used to order quite a lot products from PCBWay (not just standard PCBs) and before the summer last year(ish) I had very little issues - if any. But something happened - that also reflected to the customer service. When they increased prices quite a lot In November I started to look elsewhere.
And... for the record: I seldom order those $2-4 boards. If I do, they are for random hobby level projects without much expectations for silkscreen quality etc.

A

[thinkfat]

JLCPCB were never what I'd call "excellent". Silkscreen quality has always been so-so, low-res and blotchy, and the solder mask was frequently less than stellar. I've had problems with it flaking off during soldering. I've never had that happen with boards I ordered from Aisler. The pricing for the second design in the same order has always been like this, at least since 2018 when I placed my first order. No news here.

[JLCPCB Official]

We appreciate all comments, whether positive or negative, it takes time for someone to write some thoughts for JLCPCB. We do think correcting untrue comments is also what a company responsible for its customers should do.

"First of all let me say the $2 offer for 5 boards is only for the first board order, otherwise the price is $4. ...... they usually don't know it."
The $2 discount is a benefit that is appreciated by electronic engineers. One item of EVERY ORDER enjoys $2 discount, not only the first order does.JLCPCB continually provides monthly SMT coupons are also to reduce the burden for regular customers after weighing the positions and interests of both the company and customers, JLCPCB always wants to do more and better. If anybody feels that our information is not clear or detailed enough, please directly make suggestions to us. Dear Mr. Yuto, please believe that giving customers preferential benefits from JLCPCB deep heart.

"The quality of the silk screen is not the same which is specially noticeable in labels or logos that have thick strokes or filled areas. ......aused during transport but in their factories during manufacturing, handling or packaging."
Can you elaborate more? The silkscreen issue has been evocated in some other topics during the beginning of 2021 and we have dealt with the issues related to scratches and we are no longer receiving quality complaints about this topic since a while. Even if any accidental issue related to silkscreen occurs we deal with it immediately and we take the appropriate measures to prevent it from happening again and at this point we feel thankful for our customers who were comprehensive enough to give us feedback that led to improve our silkscreen qualityYou don't mind if you can give me the order number, we will investigate further.

"Other times some of the delivered boards have strange but patently visible 1 or 2 mm. width lines with an irregular shape from top to bottom of the board very similar to the border of a spill. "
We require more specific order information to confirm.

"In the past all the boards were sent in the typical vacuum bubble wrapping, but now they occasionally seem to forget it and send some set of boards in regular sealed bags (no vacuum) in the same box with other boards with the classic vacuum bubble wrapping, I didn't really get it."
Basically we use vacuum for some sizes of boards where it is possible to apply the vacuum technique and the sealed bags are generally oriented to small sized designs, if you have ever faced shipping issues with the sealed bags then we can check this out.  No worries about the point of packaging size because we always look for the most appropriate size that protects the goods all the way up to the delivery destination Can you provide me some photos for package can you give me this order number?

"In addition............  if they have the same rotation the cutting of the edge connectors makes the manufacturing difficult). Talking about edge connectors, lately I use to get boards with a lot of scratches in those big plated parts.Similarly an edge rail with one line of text is considered acceptable but adding 20 extra milimeters and a couple of lines of text or add a gap in order to ease the milling machine to do the outline cut when the design has round corners, may be considered arbitrarily and depending on the day, an additional design and imply an extra cost."
The edge rail has to be as simple as possible to minimize the DFM preparation by our engineers, adding slots or illustrations or texts will certainly take time and we do thousands of orders in this industry domain so we basically offer a good quality through time saving (even a millisecond count) once the engineers see your texts and slots they certainly consider it as an extra design (some designs don't have components just silkscreen) so probably what seems basic to you appears as advanced to others, I mean maybe you say what is wrong if you add one or two words on the edge rail! Yes you can but this is an extra task for the engineers. And we already detailed the cases for extra charges to keep customers aware of what they are about to experience. This is definitely not to start charging in 2021. There are also reasons for the above. This may make it hard to cut the board outline and more importantly, this will take a lot more time to pick up and package the PCB. Although by doing this, you just have the one order, this complicates the fabrication of the panel and separation of the individual PCBs, so we will usually charge more for this.

"Since years ago I used to order boards with the same design repeated, and pretend to charge an extra cost of $12-13 although it is obvious that the designs are the same "
Please provide two order numbers and more detailed information, or can't verify.


"Compared to other manufacturers, the longest time PCBWay took to answer a question or request emailed to their support email address was 9 minutes. In the last year JLCPCB consistently takes more than 24 hours to reply anything from me. This may not seem important at times, but apart from the time spent in Live Chat and writing to the support e-mail address, in actual cases it has led to delays of more than 48 hours for the boards to go into production.
Can you provide all order numbers of “In the last year JLCPCB consistently takes more than 24 hours to reply anything from me.” cases? This is related to our reputation and cannot be judged by one or two sentences

All JLCPCB customer services must undergo professional training before they are allowed to stand at the front line. A professional team and a good company rely on the efforts of every employee. Our team is not 100 % perfect, however, our team is working hard to stand for a perfect customer experience. We are willing to review and learn from the actual cases, hoping to truly solve and serve the customer. You mentioned that the customer service of other companies makes you satisfied. It is a great thing to have an excellent peer company. A healthy competitive relationship will make JLCPCB more advanced, develop more steadily, and give full play to its advantages to satisfy customers. We are confident to accept any challenge.

We appreciate every comment. Thank you all for the support and love of JLCPCB. In 2021, we can't have any offline events to see you guys face to face, however, the relationship is closer because of trust. JLCPCB, for customers and be trustworthy! Some gift words for all, open heart, and excite the mind, energize your body, and stay Positively Happy!  Happy New Year "

[SilverSolder]

As good a response to criticism as I've ever seen from a company.

Happy new year! 

[DIYGUY Chris]

Here is another post about "misunderstanding the supplier capabilities" I truly don't know why you guys just run to the cheapest supplier without reading details about the supplier, I don't mean that JLC is not good enough for your orders but I mean that obviously you didn't pay attention to what they are posting in their support guides which is updated from here : https://support.jlcpcb.com/
You break their rules and then you get surprised with the results! I noticed this when I read the point about the edge rail!
Being honest I envy you all because of the cheap prices that you are getting for your orders, few bucks for the good and same for the delivery.

[snarkysparky]

I have always been satisfied with JLC.   For their price I dont expect the best.  Nor would I pay for it.  They hit my price point exactly

[Martin Miranda]

before jlcpcb i used to get my board on DIRTY PCBS and it just works and i am happy  misaligned soldermask, bad printing but it works. as i have said... if you want consistent boards on jlcpcb. don't use a 2 layer board. (personal experience)
https://dirtypcbs.com/store/pcbs

[thinkfat]

before jlcpcb i used to get my board on DIRTY PCBS and it just works and i am happy  misaligned soldermask, bad printing but it works. as i have said... if you want consistent boards on jlcpcb. don't use a 2 layer board. (personal experience)
https://dirtypcbs.com/store/pcbs

I agree. The only problems I've ever had with JLCPCB boards were with 2 layer boards. Those are really focused on getting them out as cheaply as possible. But they're still fit for the purpose.

[Yuto]

As good a response to criticism as I've ever seen from a company.

Happy New Year!

I agree with you. It's a response but I'm not going to get into that game. When their claims department replies "Sorry, it was a mistake by one of our engineers but..." there is little more to add and I'd rather skip the typical "what are you saying? are you sure? no, that has never happened!" arguments. You know, "Admit nothing. Deny everything. Make counter-accusations!"

Here is another post about "misunderstanding the supplier capabilities" I truly don't know why you guys just run to the cheapest supplier without reading details about the supplier,

You cannot understand it because obviously that is not what is happening. Anyway I understand why you can argue like this and if that is what you want to believe, it is your right but unfortunately, for me reality tends to impose itself and, as you can infer by reading the few messages I have written, all or almost all my objections have their origin in the comparison between old and recent orders, in other words, problems that have appeared out of nowhere that are in more recent orders and had never appeared in older orders (I cannot stress this point enough). I don't know the reason, if they have new factories, if the current ones are a little bit obsolete,... but these are the facts and this is why I'm  asking because no matter how many orders I've placed, I'm pretty sure that it is more than likely that these same issues are happening to others.

One more mind-bogglingly absurd example. it is known JLCPCB send an e-mail every time a new order goes into production and, days later, another one to notify that it has been shipped. We assume that this is an automatic process in which a server sends an e-mail once the order changes to that status, so how is it possible that for one of my orders, I never received the e-mail when it went into production but I did when it was shipped? Some will think that it was my anti-spam filter or my spam box (which do not exist), failures in my mail service provider,... in short that it was my fault. I won't go into details but suffice it to say that in my case it is more likely that one day the sun won't rise than one of my e-mails will be lost. At the time I was surprised but given the continuous disappointments with the Live chat and the support service, I assumed that it was not important, that sooner or later the progress of the order would continue and that it was not worth contacting to ask what had happened. Is this a serious issue? No. Is it an important issue? No. Just another drop in their ocean of issues.

On the other hand I don't know why the recurring fallacy of the "too cheap" price comes up again and again. Anyone could say, "you paid 'only' N dollars? then what are you complaining about?" but, unfortunately, the world doesn't work that way - how much would you have to pay to have the right to complain? There is an implicit and explicit contract between supplier and customer, even more after years ordering, and price and quality minimums are included in the agreement. I understand that someone does not like those prices and always has the freedom to opt for other manufacturers but that does not imply that paid a price, the customer has no rights. By the way, including all the extra costs I am paying around $20 per order (for each order in a batch), sometimes more, and shipping costs around $30 and $40 (depending on the number of orders in each batch); not just the $2 or $4 offers.

I have always been satisfied with JLC. For their price I dont expect the best.

I was always satisfied with them and after years I also knew what to expect, until issues not present in any of the previous orders began to arise.

Finally, I do not rule out at all to count on JLCPCB again for new orders, that is why I ask what is going on, why this is happening and how they could fix it, otherwise I would have simply switched to another manufacturer.

[thm_w]

It is not related to shipping costs, I have no problem with them. I was just showing my impressions about the company's policies regarding panelizing different designs on the same board. When years ago I read in their help center about it, I felt they had some paranoia about designers who might use panelization as a money saving strategy. I didn't think much about it but when I considered panelizing in this way, in the actual case of an order where 9 designs (for small size boards) were panelized on only 4 boards, I realized that in my case (and maybe only for this case) it would have been more cost effective and efficient, not to panelize several designs on one board and simply order 9 boards, each with one design, due to extra engineering costs. The final cost, shipping included, is ($2) cheaper; it is not necessary to spend so much time in the panelization which is a two-dimensional cutting stock/cut list problem with significant restrictions due to V-cuts that can only be performed from one side of the board to the other; minimizes potential (and lately almost certain) engineering errors when reviewing the boards and preparing the data; and, by panelizing a single design on a single board (a quick and trivial operation since it is easy to generate an array from a design in today's CAD), the final number of units once the boards have been splitted apart, is much higher (totalling around 500 units instead of just 170).

Its an automated pricing system, if you've found a way to beat it, or optimize for it, congratulations.
I upload individual design and get it fully routed as that is the easiest option for me.

I considered it but I prefer not to provide detailed information that can be associated with specific orders and/or accounts.

This is paranoia, do you think JLC will retaliate against you?
Without posting an example photo its hard to understand what you are talking about, and we have to trust your word as to if these issues are actually serious or not.

[rob77]

ok... so no photo, not order numbers just shitting at a vendor... and it's the user's very first post on the forum... i call this bullshit.

[Yuto]

I upload individual design and get it fully routed as that is the easiest option for me.

Thank you, it is the same thing I have always done and will continue to do. It is 100% clear that it is the easiest, fastest and most economical way.

Without posting an example photo its hard to understand what you are talking about, and we have to trust your word as to if these issues are actually serious or not.

I don't think it has any importance and in any case it would not be possible to publish such pictures to compare when one of the two examples I mentioned corresponds to a real order and the other one is purely hypothetical, the result of the cost calculation after uploading the gerbers and choosing the shipping method.

On the other hand I am not asking you to trust my words, I am 100% sure that other people are having the same problems and these people are the ones I was hoping to exchange impressions with.

In the end this is an internet forum and any information including pictures and videos should be quarantined and scrutinized. I have been waiting for too many months for all these problems to be fixed but I feel the time has come to expose them, share them and check their true extent.

do you think JLC will retaliate against you?

Of course, I am managing several accounts and do not wish to attract any resentment or retaliation against me or the customers on whose behalf I place orders. Obviously I also do not want them to be directly or indirectly identified or have their personal data exposed in any way.

[rob77]

Without posting an example photo its hard to understand what you are talking about, and we have to trust your word as to if these issues are actually serious or not.

I don't think it has any importance and in any case it would not be possible to publish such pictures to compare when one of the two examples I mentioned corresponds to a real order and the other one is purely hypothetical, the result of the cost calculation after uploading the gerbers and choosing the shipping method.

actually it's very important ! post the picture of the defects you mentioned.

[rox77]

i have had similar problems. almost three weeks ago i received some pcbs from jlcpcb, part of a joint order from some users of an internet forum for which we paid $24. the boards were panelized, 5 rows by 5 columns, and surprisingly in the upper left area the silkscreen on the top layer of some pcbs was missing. on the bottom layer everything was in order. the pcbs depend on each other and contain dacs and level shifters, there are about 15 connections and the silkscreen on the top layer is essential to know how to connect them.

i double checked it, both my cad application, kicad, some gerber viewers and the jlcpcb's own gerber viewer showed the pcbs without anomalies with silkscreen printing on both sides so i opened a quality complaint.

day 0: pcbs were delivered. quality complaint including description, pictures of the defective boards, screenshots of different gerber viewers and a video from the output of the jlcpcb gerber viewer.

day 3: i receive a response with an apology, an announcement that they are investigating it and will reply at a later date.

day 4: new message asking how many pcbs were affected and the order number printed on the boards, something known since the quality claim was opened.

day 7: new message to ask again for the order number printed on the boards, sent for the second time a few days before. they also told me that there is no found the problem record in their factory side.
i reply by resending the order number printed on the boards.

day 8: asking again for the printed order number, i reply by sending two new photographs of that area of the boards.

day 11: "Sorry for the the delay in replying, after double checking with our engineer and factory, so sorry that our engineer made mistake mentioned silkscreen area, they have found and fixed the production file just now, don't worry about it."
then they offer me two options to choose from: remake the boards or a coupon to use on my next order.
since the order was not just for me and some users' pcbs were missing, i quickly replied by choosing to have them remade. in my message i suggested that if it'd be convenient and advantageous for them, they could send the remade boards along with another order i had placed that same day. that way they could save money on shipping.

day 12: "Sorry for the inconvenience , remaking order can not be combine shipping with in production order at present, due to the custom policy.
So we arrange remaking and reshipping it in a separated shipping, is it ok??"
i reply them that as they wish, they can remake and shipping them separately.

day 14: "Thank you for your reply, since there is no problem for many other small boards, if we remake, all the other ok boards will be remake again.
Please kindly try to use these boards this time and we refund its cost to you, is it acceptable??"

day 20: today. still waiting for an answer but in short, they had offered me two options, remake the boards or a refund using a coupon for my next orders. i chose to remake them, they confirmed they were going to remake and send them to me separately and only two days later, if i do not misinterpret their answers they back out and the option to remake them seems to be unavailable.

[rox77]

I don't know if it was because of my last post here but I just received a new message from them:
"Thank you so much for ordering from JLCPCB, but we regret to tell you that your order ***** will be delayed due to some of the PCB scrathed during the manufacturing process and it will take about 2 days to be redone/ re-manufactured to ensure sufficient quantity for your order.
We will send your order out ASAP it is completed.
Sorry again for the inconenience caused!"
which contains good and bad news, the good news is that it seems that without prior notification they decided to remake the pcbs, the bad is that due to scratches on the pcbs they are going to delay even more because they are going to remake them for the second time.

[rob77]

very interesting.. another brand new forum user complaining about JLCPCB ...

whooping 24$ for a 5x5 panel...

[thm_w]

i have had similar problems. almost three weeks ago i received some pcbs from jlcpcb, part of a joint order from some users of an internet forum for which we paid $24. the boards were panelized, 5 rows by 5 columns, and surprisingly in the upper left area the silkscreen on the top layer of some pcbs was missing. on the bottom layer everything was in order. the pcbs depend on each other and contain dacs and level shifters, there are about 15 connections and the silkscreen on the top layer is essential to know how to connect them.

So silkscreen was missing in some areas on some of the boards, how many total were affected? Can you post a photo?
Honestly not too surprised I'm sure the silkscreen machine regularly runs out of ink and needs to be refilled.

What you can do is go to your PCB software, print out a copy of the silkscreen, then you have that reference beside you when you assemble the boards.

[Cerebus]

One more mind-bogglingly absurd example. it is known JLCPCB send an e-mail every time a new order goes into production and, days later, another one to notify that it has been shipped. We assume that this is an automatic process in which a server sends an e-mail once the order changes to that status, so how is it possible that for one of my orders, I never received the e-mail when it went into production but I did when it was shipped? Some will think that it was my anti-spam filter or my spam box (which do not exist), failures in my mail service provider,... in short that it was my fault. I won't go into details but suffice it to say that in my case it is more likely that one day the sun won't rise than one of my e-mails will be lost. At the time I was surprised but given the continuous disappointments with the Live chat and the support service, I assumed that it was not important, that sooner or later the progress of the order would continue and that it was not worth contacting to ask what had happened. Is this a serious issue? No. Is it an important issue? No. Just another drop in their ocean of issues.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. SMTP email is NOT an infallible process. I've been sys-admining SMTP mail for well over 1/4 of a century. Speaking as a genuine domain expert I can say that your claim "I won't go into details but suffice it to say that in my case it is more likely that one day the sun won't rise than one of my e-mails will be lost." is utter bull. I'm sorry for being blunt to the point of rudeness but I've had my fill of Dunning-Kruger cases today and I can say with absolute certainty that someone who would make the assertion you have does not know what they are talking about, in fact does not know how email works because so much of the process is out of control of the receiving party that no knowledge person would make that claim.

On the other hand I don't know why the recurring fallacy of the "too cheap" price comes up again and again. Anyone could say, "you paid 'only' N dollars? then what are you complaining about?" but, unfortunately, the world doesn't work that way - how much would you have to pay to have the right to complain? There is an implicit and explicit contract between supplier and customer, even more after years ordering, and price and quality minimums are included in the agreement. I understand that someone does not like those prices and always has the freedom to opt for other manufacturers but that does not imply that paid a price, the customer has no rights. By the way, including all the extra costs I am paying around $20 per order (for each order in a batch), sometimes more, and shipping costs around $30 and $40 (depending on the number of orders in each batch); not just the $2 or $4 offers.

I constantly find myself amazed that JLCPCB can charge what they do and still make some money on the deal. Moreover they turn out decent boards for that price. Go and get yourself a quote from a European or American board house before you start talking about prices. $20 for an order? So what! That's peanuts. That wouldn't even pay for a single 160x100mm eurocard board from an EU/US board house. Basic JLCPCB 2 layer board, 100 x 160mm, 10 off = $17.50. Same order, same capabilities as the JLCPCB process = $232.78 from eurocircuits. Get real, you're getting a bargain for your $20.

You must have heard the statement "You pays your money and you takes your choice". By choosing to pay as little as JLC ask you're implicitly accepting that you're getting "cheap and cheerful" service. If you expect top of the line service, from a top of the line board house you will have to pay for that, and you will pay considerably more than you do with JLC. The $20 you pay to have a set of boards custom manufactured for you, with two silkscreens, two solder masks, and through plated holes would not even buy you a pub lunch in London. I suspect it wouldn't buy you the equivalent meal in Tokyo either.

If you read and interpret their capabilities statements correctly (which frankly can be a bit vague at times and looks like it has suffered a bit in the chinglish department), set those capabilities properly for your board and deal with any DRC issues your boards will sail through JLCPCB. I've pushed 2 and 4 layer boards with 0.5mm pitch ICs on through JLCPCB and have received acceptable results every single time, and I'm a fussy, demanding bastard when it comes to quality. If they pass my informal quality standards (I don't do incoming inspection of them with my Mitutoyo metrology equipment, but I could if I wanted to) then I suspect that they are good enough for anybody. Yes, the slikscreen on the 2 layer prototype process could be better, but on the 4 layer process the silkscreen has been faultless, soldermask pristine, and I really can't see what I'd get better by paying a lot more elsewhere.

The only problem I ever had was on one 2 layer prototype order for 5 boards where they came back "Sorry there is a fault on one board and we don't think it's good enough to send out. OK if we credit you for this board?". So I got a $2 credit on a $2.50 (plus postage) order for accepting 4 boards instead of 5.

[Yuto]

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear...

It was intended to be just a way of emphasizing that it is extremely likely that the e-mail was never sent due to bugs in JLC's servers as well as pointing out that curious skepticism that goes so far as to deny facts because it doesn't fit with their alternative version of reality. Sorry for the surreal touch of poetic license, I never thought it could be interpreted literally.

I constantly find myself amazed that JLCPCB can charge what they do and still make some money on the deal. Moreover they turn out decent boards for that price.

We all understand, we all know that there are other manufacturers, we also know what prices they charge and we choose where to place our orders based on the quality/price ratio required for a design but that is not the point.

During all these years with JLC I have received thousands of boards, and as with other board manufacturers, in very specific conditions with no problems or very sporadic problems. Again, in case you have not read the previous posts, I neither demand nor pretend to demand higher quality standards from them, their capabilities and conditions are published and I know what to expect regarding their products but again, I am just stating that in the last year the number of errors and problems has skyrocketed. Again, in other words because I know perfectly well that it will not be understood by those who do not want to see it, here I am just talking about the huge differences between orders placed with JLC before 2021 and after, that is, comparing differences between orders from the same manufacturer.

Again, as I said I routinely work with JLCPCB as well as other manufacturers according to their capabilities and the requirements of each design. I would like to think that if their problems are exposed, they will have enough room for improvement that I can continue to order from them for the type of orders I usually count on them for.

But well, we can focus on this matter or talk about other "more relevant" as if I had a typo or elaborate sophisticated conspiracy theories about why, after years reading and knowing the cordiality, education and extreme empathy that any new user could expect, I have registered just now to write specifically on this topic.

[Cerebus]

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear...

It was intended to be just a way of emphasizing that it is extremely likely that the e-mail was never sent due to bugs in JLC's servers as well as pointing out that curious skepticism that goes so far as to deny facts because it doesn't fit with their alternative version of reality. Sorry for the surreal touch of poetic license, I never thought it could be interpreted literally.

I constantly find myself amazed that JLCPCB can charge what they do and still make some money on the deal. Moreover they turn out decent boards for that price.

We all understand, we all know that there are other manufacturers, we also know what prices they charge and we choose where to place our orders based on the quality/price ratio but that is not the point.

During all these years with JLC I have received thousands of boards, and as with other board manufacturers, in very specific conditions with no problems or very sporadic problems. Again, in case you have not read the previous posts, I neither demand nor pretend to demand higher quality standards from them, their capabilities and conditions are published and I know what to expect regarding their products but again, I am just stating that in the last year the number of errors and problems has skyrocketed. Again, in other words because I know perfectly well that it will not be understood by those who do not want to see it, here I am just talking about the huge differences between orders placed with JLC before 2021 and after, that is, comparing differences between orders from the same manufacturer.

Again, as I said I routinely work with JLCPCB as well as other manufacturers according to their capabilities and the requirements of each design. I would like to think that if their problems are exposed, they will have enough room for improvement that I can continue to order from them for the type of orders I usually count on them for.

But well, we can focus on this matter or talk about other "more relevant" as if I had a typo or elaborate sophisticated conspiracy theories about why, after years reading and knowing the cordiality, education and extreme empathy that any new user could expect, I have registered just now to write specifically on this topic.

The only reason for pointing out price issues is because you were making such a fuss about the expenditure of $20 and fretting that that entitled you to an unspecified but clearly superior level of service over the plebs ordering $2 and $4 boards. For what it's worth my usual order with them is north of that $20 figure by some way but I'm more than happy with the service I've received. I've also put in dinky "virtually free" $2 and $4 orders because I can, and I've received exactly the same service and quality for those.

You conveniently ignore the point where I say I have had no problems with them, and for the avoidance of doubt I'm talking about the last year. You are the only person making the claim that they have gone downhill in the last year.

There are hundreds of JLC users on the forum, and apart from odd complaints about odd individual orders we're hearing no general complaints about a general decline in quality. Nobody has pitched in to this thread to say "me too". (Rob77's message notwithstanding, that's a complaint about an individual order, not a year long decline over many orders.) That would lead a reasonable person to conclude that the deciding factor is you. Either you're expecting too much (and that would be rich, as I've indicated I've had faultless product from them all year), or you're chucking stuff at them that's out of shape and takes engineering time to fix that hitherto they've had the spare capacity to waste on fixing up your jobs but don't any more as they have got busier, or as has been suggested by the more cynical, that you're a shill for one of their competitors here to kick up a fuss and blacken their name.

Whatever, your case for declining quality doesn't hold up unless a statistically significant number of other people chime in and say "I'm seeing a decline in quality too". So far there is no sign of that, just your lone voice. One swallow does not a summer make, to coin a phrase.

Is there anyone else here whose direct experience leads them to believe that JLC's quality is falling recently? If so, speak up!

[Yuto]

The only reason for pointing out price issues is because you were making such a fuss about the expenditure of $20

The only reason for pointing out price issues is because someone said how could I expect anything from JLCPCB paying only $2 or $4 which was not true.

and fretting that that entitled you to an unspecified but clearly superior level of service over the plebs ordering $2 and $4 boards.

At no time have I ever said or implied anything like that.

You conveniently ignore the point where I say I have had no problems with them,

I was not interested in that because I fully understand that they have no problem with each and every order. For me it is not relevant and, as it is well known and as far as consumer complaints are concerned, it is rare the case where a company has problems with all customers. Even with thousands of claims, a company with millions of customers will always have a majority of customers who will never claim anything.

I also understand that there are simpler orders and others that are more complex and customized. I also don't know exactly the statistics about all the orders they have but I guess there is a big demand for boards that were already made before which usually have no issues like, for example, when someone downloads gerbers from github to order them.

or as has been suggested by the more cynical, that you're a shill for one of their competitors here to kick up a fuss and blacken their name.

The most cynical or the usual trolls or people with conflicts of interest as users who make money for advertising or referring them or community managers, etc.

Their competitors do not need any new user to come here and blacken their name, there are already too many users who repeat the "you have paid for what you get" in a clear derogatory allusion to their low-cost policies.

There are hundreds of JLC users on the forum, and apart from odd complaints about odd individual orders

After signing up and before opening this new theme, I searched and read all about JLCPCB. If I remember correctly for each and every one of the problems I have had during this last year, there is at least one user who has mentioned it before. Scratches, omissions in silkscreen, units without any silkscreen at all, endless and pointless conversations by Live Chat,... and problems that I have never had like a recent post from an user who stated that when his gerbers were rejected, he had just to re-upload the same files to get them accepted.

I also do not know how many users have a constant flow of orders and how many have been in that situation for years and are in a position to notice the differences; or how many are on vacation right now. But yes, it would be nice if in the coming weeks, someone, even what the authors of the posts I have mentioned, say "me too" consciously ignoring that they can be criticized and receive false counter-accusations just for saying what some others do not want to hear.

[rox77]

don't think was a problem with the ink refill, it was no silkscreen on the top layer at all for some pcbs, quoting jlcpcb's message "our engineer made mistake"

i also print a copy of the edge cuts plus solder mask plus top silkscreen layers for the assembly but these pcbs were made to be used in tests and measurements. the silkscreen is essential to set the pins you need for input bits, d0, d1, ... d15, for power supply and output pins

So silkscreen was missing in some areas on some of the boards, how many total were affected? Can you post a photo?
Honestly not too surprised I'm sure the silkscreen machine regularly runs out of ink and needs to be refilled.

What you can do is go to your PCB software, print out a copy of the silkscreen, then you have that reference beside you when you assemble the boards.

[rox77]

me too! although my current relationship with this company is more modest, on average only 1.44 orders per week, one order every 4.86 days

in the last delivery i got 4 orders and i had to open two quality claims. one for random stains during the solder mask application process for which i have a $1 coupon for my next orders and another, as you may have read, for the complete absence of the silkscreen on the top layer on some pcbs due to an engineer's mistake for which they are going to remake them and reship to me in the next days

i prefer not to interact with customer service. for quality issues after days of exchanging emails, they always refer you to the quality complaint form, since then i always go directly to that form, and out of 10 of the rest of my queries, 9 were during the design phase to confirm a limit or constraint that i could not find in the online help because the search tool does not provide answers to very specific questions such as minimum diameter of..., minimum size of.... for the other one, which i really needed and it was a delicate issue for me but imho could have been solved with an easy recommendation, i felt ignored and was told to google it, something i had already done in advance but needed to expand with specific information on the manufacturing process that only jlcpcb knows

The only reason for pointing out price issues is because you were making such a fuss about the expenditure of $20

The only reason for pointing out price issues is because someone said how could I expect anything from JLCPCB paying only $2 or $4 which was not true.

and fretting that that entitled you to an unspecified but clearly superior level of service over the plebs ordering $2 and $4 boards.

At no time have I ever said or implied anything like that.

You conveniently ignore the point where I say I have had no problems with them,

I was not interested in that because I fully understand that they have no problem with each and every order. For me it is not relevant and, as it is well known and as far as consumer complaints are concerned, it is rare the case where a company has problems with all customers. Even with thousands of claims, a company with millions of customers will always have a majority of customers who will never claim anything.

I also understand that there are simpler orders and others that are more complex and customized. I also don't know exactly the statistics about all the orders they have but I guess there is a big demand for boards that were already made before which usually have no issues like, for example, when someone downloads gerbers from github to order them.

or as has been suggested by the more cynical, that you're a shill for one of their competitors here to kick up a fuss and blacken their name.

The most cynical or the usual trolls or people with conflicts of interest as users who make money for advertising or referring them or community managers, etc.

Their competitors do not need any new user to come here and blacken their name, there are already too many users who repeat the "you have paid for what you get" in a clear derogatory allusion to their low-cost policies.

There are hundreds of JLC users on the forum, and apart from odd complaints about odd individual orders

After signing up and before opening this new theme, I searched and read all about JLCPCB. If I remember correctly for each and every one of the problems I have had during this last year, there is at least one user who has mentioned it before. Scratches, omissions in silkscreen, units without any silkscreen at all, endless and pointless conversations by Live Chat,... and problems that I have never had like a recent post from an user who stated that when his gerbers were rejected, he had just to re-upload the same files to get them accepted.

I also do not know how many users have a constant flow of orders and how many have been in that situation for years and are in a position to notice the differences; or how many are on vacation right now. But yes, it would be nice if in the coming weeks, someone, even what the authors of the posts I have mentioned, say "me too" consciously ignoring that they can be criticized and receive false counter-accusations just for saying what some others do not want to hear.

[Cerebus]

Let me ask that question again: Is there any other person here seeing declining quality from JLC over the last year who has not signed up to the board for the first time in the last week?

[zaan]

We order at JLC at work (Since 2018, now about 90+ orders from 2 layer up to 6 layer and 70u copper)

I compared them different other manufacturers where we have ordered: NextPCB, AllPCB, PCBWay, PCBCart, Aisler, MultiCB, Eurocircuits

Occasional scratches do happen (not only at JLC) but they were not critical in any way on my orders. JLC support is very helpful in my experience and are willing to send you coupons if a board is not the way you have expected.

What is my/our experience?
We as a company and myself as a maker will keep ordering at JLC. Compared to others the quality is good. Our 6 layer 70um PCBs are really complex and all of them worked so far.
The processing time is really fast and it is the fastest way for us to get PCBs at a really attractive price.

PCBA is another topic for a different discussion. (In my opinion a very nice service from JLC. Competitors can´t offer those lead times right now)

In the picture attached you can see this 6 layer PCB from JLC with a BGA and clearance of 0.2mm, this is not an easy task for a manufacturer at 70um copper. Maybe the silkscreen could be sharper, but it is fine for us.

[asmi]

Let me ask that question again: Is there any other person here seeing declining quality from JLC over the last year who has not signed up to the board for the first time in the last week?

I had a few orders from them over past year, and while the quality wasn't perfect compared to some other fabs I work with, I didn't notice any change over that period of time - I would say it's the same as it has always been, with a bit of a hit-and-miss, but never to the point that it made boards unuseable for the intended purpose - i.e. prototypes. Like I said, I use a more upscale fab for my production needs because my customers are willing to pay up for high quality (and it makes less of a headache for me in case I need to rework/repair boards after assembly, because JLCPCB's soldermask generally can not withstand rework in my experience), as well as for prototypes with RF or complex analog sections - again because of the soldermask, as these sections typically require a lot of tuning (==rework) cycles to get it to work properly, but that is not to be construed as my complaint about JLCPCB's quality - you get what you pay for, and they are clearly provide a product for a price, and it's hard to overstate the importance of having such services on a market, as it opened possibilities for so many people who simply can't afford - or are not willing to pay - higher end services.

So you can count my voice contrary to this claim. I only wish they would change their 6 layer stackup to make it suitable for high-speed desigs - make cores thinner, and instead use thicker prepregs in the middle of the stackup, something like on attached picture.

[Cerebus]

So you can count my voice contrary to this claim. I only wish they would change their 6 layer stackup to make it suitable for high-speed desigs - make cores thinner, and instead use thicker prepregs in the middle of the stackup, something like on attached picture.

As I was reading that I was thinking "OK for you but I can never imagine I'd need 6 layer unless I was pushed" then I realised that I might not strictly need it but I might use it. With the low prices available now there's a sort of reverse version of "opportunity cost" going on - I've started using 4 layer for designs I could surely produce successfully on 2 layer*, but because it costs so little more to jump to 4 layer and get power and ground planes I do. Perhaps I'll find myself applying the same logic to 6 layer in the future.

*The one literally sitting on my screen as I type fits exactly those criteria. It replaces a THT board that was 2 layer (and much bigger) but circuitry wise (i.e. topology wise) it's very similar to the board it emulates, so I know that a 2 layer board is (1) doable routing wise, (2) probably has perfectly adequate signal integrity wise. (Mixed signal - analogue at DC with 2MHz current switching, digital at 20MHz.)

[Yuto]

The offer for 4-layer is for boards up to 50x50 mm while the offer for 2-layer is for boards up to 100x100 mm. Because of this, since my orders usually include panelized boards or multiple designs per board, I will stick with the 2-layer boards whenever possible.

in the last delivery i got 4 orders and i had to open two quality claims.

That is, 2 quality complaints in a recent batch of 4 orders. Problems with soldermask, screen printing,... and for errors recognized by JLCPCB. Interesting.


Apparently, the factors affecting the likelihood of ending up with an issue include the frequency of orders, panelized boards and/or boards with multiple designs.

It does not hurt to recap on what I am considering as a progressive deterioration in quality of service: problems with silkscreen, soldermask, packaging, scratches, quality complaints and also problems with customer service.

It seems that customers who tend to place few orders, of single boards without panelizing and without multiple designs per board, do not tend to appreciate differences in quality. If by "quality" we mean receiving boards in the same condition as before 2021, if I had placed only a few orders myself, I might not have noticed any difference. It's purely a matter of statistics.

[Mangozac]

It seems that customers who tend to place few orders, of single boards without paneling and without multiple designs per board, do not tend to appreciate differences in quality. If by "quality" we mean receiving boards in the same condition as before 2021, if I had placed only a few orders myself, I might not have noticed any difference. It's purely a matter of statistics.

I strongly disagree. Almost all of our designs are panelised (mostly by JLC but many also by us if it's anything other than a simple v-groove OR different boards). We've had tens of thousands of 2-layer boards from JLC over the past 2 years and have not noticed any overall decline in quality. Yes, there has been the occasional less than perfect silkscreen but frankly for the price nothing unacceptable. They did screw up a stencil one time but customer service was quick to resolve it and send us a correct replacement.

[RPX]

I am a customer since 2019 and I have routinely ordered circuit boards for assembling clones of peripherals for old microcomputers from the 80s, but generally my orders are few and far between. In the past year, I have had two incidents involving silk-screening and scratching, but since I assumed that if I complained, the most I would get was a coupon for a few cents, I didn't waste time complaining. Previously I have never had an incident.

[cgroen]

Here we go again....
I have just received my order number 240 from JLC (95% 4 layer, the rest 2 layer). This 240th order in fact had a problem (se later on).
I started using JLC in september 2017.
Last year (2021) I had a total of 78 orders with them.

Not a SINGLE one of these 240 orders where at fault (of course I have had the "sorry sir, one of your boards are defect, would you like us to redo the order or discount you the one board?" questions (less than 5 in total), but the boards I have received has all been perfect.

I'm not saying that the silkscreen could not be "more perfect", but for the price you pay, they are more than perfect.

As I wrote, the 240th order I "received" was in error (this is first time since I started using JLC). I received "my boards" this monday, only problem was that the boards were not mine! Somehow they got swopped in shipping at JLC (the paper slip with my order number was correct, it was "just" the boards them self that was wrong. The unlucky thing was that the boards I got did not have the usual JLC internal order number on it, so I could not pass that on. Within a couple of days, JLCPCB chased down the customer that had gotten my boards (he was in Germany), I called him and we shipped each others board to the rightful owners
JLCPCB of course offered to pay for our shipping (to be expected), I'm receiving my boards in a couple of hours.

This is how my dealings with JLC has been so far.
(and I have used European producers in the past for prototypes so I do VERY well know what the cost is (been in the game for 35+ years now) !)

[Yuto]

I strongly disagree. Almost all of our designs are panelised (mostly by JLC but many also by us if it's anything other than a simple v-groove OR different boards).

I think it is to be expected that the errors of engineers with boards panelized by customers are more frequent than with boards panelized by JLCPCB. In the first case they have to adapt the gerber files to their own software so data preparation is more complex; in the second case the panelization is done directly in their own CAD system so data preparation is, in practice, routine and straightforward.

We've had tens of thousands of 2-layer boards from JLC over the past 2 years

And of those tens of thousands, were mostly of them identical?

(of course I have had the "sorry sir, one of your boards are defect, would you like us to redo the order or discount you the one board?" questions (less than 5 in total),

I would have loved to receive such an email but with my orders I have been unlucky enough to receive the boards in not so good condition but I'm glad to know that in the last week on at least two occasions and before the boards have been shipped, they have taken this kind of preventive actions due to quality problems by sending notification emails informing of the problems they had found and the expected delay in the boards production.

If it's okay with you, I'd like to ask: were the orders for those 5 boards that had issues but finally arrived well and the one that was delivered with issues mostly from the last year?

I'm not saying that the silkscreen could not be "more perfect", but for the price you pay, they are more than perfect.

As I know it can lead to misunderstandings, I should clarify that I am not talking about the overall quality of the silkscreen. The web is full of pictures taken with microscopes comparing the overall quality of the silkscreen for different manufacturers and... I don't think I need to add anything else. I am specifically talking about boards without silkscreen in some of its layers, lack of silkscreen in some area or considerable scratches, in my case typically on the bottom layer of the boards.

Basically we use vacuum for some sizes of boards where it is possible to apply the vacuum technique...

As an example, I received a batch with 5 orders, 4 of them wrapped in vacuum bubble wrap; the other in a sealed bag larger than the boards, with nothing to prevent the boards from moving freely inside the bag, making scratches possible due to friction between them.

I have never received anything using this packaging before despite the difference in the size of boards on previous orders but I understand that it could be just a coincidence.

Can you provide me some photos for package?[/b]

Of course. Here they are.

[cgroen]

(of course I have had the "sorry sir, one of your boards are defect, would you like us to redo the order or discount you the one board?" questions (less than 5 in total),

I would have loved to receive such an email but with my boards I have been unlucky enough to receive them in not so good condition but something must be changing, I know that in the last week on at least two occasions and before the boards have been shipped, they have taken this kind of preventive actions due to quality problems by sending notification emails informing of the problems they had found and the expected delay in the boards production.

If it's okay with you, I'd like to ask: were the orders for those 5 boards that had issues but finally arrived well and the one that was delivered with issues mostly from the last year?

I checked. I have had no problems at all in the whole of 2021. And that is with 78 orders for 2021. To be fair, I did not check further back when these "less than 5" actually occurred, but I'm 100% sure that they did not come in bursts, but was rather "spread out" over a few years (but none in 2021)

The boards I got (which had been delivered to another cusomer first) was all in fine shape.
Picture (sorry, a bit blurry) attached below

[Cerebus]

(of course I have had the "sorry sir, one of your boards are defect, would you like us to redo the order or discount you the one board?" questions (less than 5 in total),

I would have loved to receive such an email but with my boards I have been unlucky enough to receive them in not so good condition but something must be changing, I know that in the last week on at least two occasions and before the boards have been shipped, they have taken this kind of preventive actions due to quality problems by sending notification emails informing of the problems they had found and the expected delay in the boards production.

If it's okay with you, I'd like to ask: were the orders for those 5 boards that had issues but finally arrived well and the one that was delivered with issues mostly from the last year?

I checked. I have had no problems at all in the whole of 2021. And that is with 78 orders for 2021. To be fair, I did not check further back when these "less than 5" actually occurred, but I'm 100% sure that they did not come in bursts, but was rather "spread out" over a few years (but none in 2021)

The boards I got (which had been delivered to another cusomer first) was all in fine shape.
Picture (sorry, a bit blurry) attached below

Ooo, ooo! I've got a question for you. That BGA, what's the pitch and pad size, and what's the trace and spacing (minimum clearance) on the fanouts? Reason for asking is that my one complaint about JLC is the opaqueness and apparent contradictions in some of their capabilities statements and I'd very much like to know what has worked for other people with regard to BGAs.

[cgroen]

(of course I have had the "sorry sir, one of your boards are defect, would you like us to redo the order or discount you the one board?" questions (less than 5 in total),

I would have loved to receive such an email but with my boards I have been unlucky enough to receive them in not so good condition but something must be changing, I know that in the last week on at least two occasions and before the boards have been shipped, they have taken this kind of preventive actions due to quality problems by sending notification emails informing of the problems they had found and the expected delay in the boards production.

If it's okay with you, I'd like to ask: were the orders for those 5 boards that had issues but finally arrived well and the one that was delivered with issues mostly from the last year?

I checked. I have had no problems at all in the whole of 2021. And that is with 78 orders for 2021. To be fair, I did not check further back when these "less than 5" actually occurred, but I'm 100% sure that they did not come in bursts, but was rather "spread out" over a few years (but none in 2021)

The boards I got (which had been delivered to another cusomer first) was all in fine shape.
Picture (sorry, a bit blurry) attached below

Ooo, ooo! I've got a question for you. That BGA, what's the pitch and pad size, and what's the trace and spacing (minimum clearance) on the fanouts? Reason for asking is that my one complaint about JLC is the opaqueness and apparent contradictions in some of their capabilities statements and I'd very much like to know what has worked for other people with regard to BGAs.

BGA is 0.8 pitch. The balls are each 0.45 mm in diameter. The VIA's are 0.45/0.2 mm. Tracks are 6 mil wide. Clearance (track/track) is 3.5 mil (I used JLC's rules for my DRC).

[Cerebus]

BGA is 0.8 pitch. The balls are each 0.45 mm in diameter. The VIA's are 0.45/0.2 mm. Tracks are 6 mil wide. Clearance (track/track) is 3.5 mil (I used JLC's rules for my DRC).

Thank you. It looked a bit smaller to me. I'll add that to my list of "they can definitely do this" BGA qualifications.

[tbavcevic]

been using jlc for some time now, never any error or any issue. once i received package 10 days from day of ordering and it was normal shipping option and Croatia is far away from china. realy nice quality 2 layer pcb-s, havent tried 4 layer yet but after reading few posts here i must.
also i ordered some boards that had seeedstudio drc applied and forgot to check it before ordering, no issue.
i want to thank JLC for nice boards also you can ramp your prices up bit(and workers pay) you will not loose any customers.

[Cerebus]

also you can ramp your prices up bit(and workers pay) you will not loose any customers.

Shut up! Now! Please...

Will 'the lads' please take this poster around the back of the bike sheds and 'explain' to him what not to say. 

[thm_w]

don't think was a problem with the ink refill, it was no silkscreen on the top layer at all for some pcbs, quoting jlcpcb's message "our engineer made mistake"

i also print a copy of the edge cuts plus solder mask plus top silkscreen layers for the assembly but these pcbs were made to be used in tests and measurements. the silkscreen is essential to set the pins you need for input bits, d0, d1, ... d15, for power supply and output pins

That is worse if it was entirely missing the silkscreen, and not just in some spots as originally stated.
In that case you'd want to get something like a sticky label sheet that you can print the instructions on, then attach to the PCB. So maybe remaking them is easier.

[asmi]

Thank you. It looked a bit smaller to me. I'll add that to my list of "they can definitely do this" BGA qualifications.

I never went all the way down to 80 um traces/clearances, but did plenty of 100 um traces/clearances. Also did a ton of 0.8 mm pitch BGAs, infact if you take a look at the project in my signature, you will see 0.8 mm pitch BGA (DDR2) there, and 0.1 mm traces/clearances. This project was specifically designed around JLCPCB 4 layer process (JLC2313 stackup).
So no worries at least for larger pitch BGA. I have another project with 0.65 mm BGA lined up, will see if I can make it work with their process - it will probably be pushing it.

[Cerebus]

Thank you. It looked a bit smaller to me. I'll add that to my list of "they can definitely do this" BGA qualifications.

I never went all the way down to 80 um traces/clearances, but did plenty of 100 um traces/clearances. Also did a ton of 0.8 mm pitch BGAs, infact if you take a look at the project in my signature, you will see 0.8 mm pitch BGA (DDR2) there, and 0.1 mm traces/clearances. This project was specifically designed around JLCPCB 4 layer process (JLC2313 stackup).
So no worries at least for larger pitch BGA. I have another project with 0.65 mm BGA lined up, will see if I can make it work with their process - it will probably be pushing it.

Yeah, it's "how far can I push it" that I've an eye on. I keep finding things in BGA packages that are just that bit too small; a side effect of the current availability crisis is that things I use in, say 0.5mm QFN, are unavailable in that package, but are available in, say, 0.6 BGA. All this has had me turn my eye to what I might be able to squeeze into cheaper processes like JLC's. Generally I have little need of anything tighter than 0.5mm QFN and have routed boards where everything is 0.25mm space and trace (10mil if you're old school) with 0.5mm packages on. No point in pushing the ragged edges of the process at 90um if 250um will do comfortably, eh?

JLC have 0.25mm pad and 0.127mm space as their BGA minima (so basically a 0.4mm pitch device), but that clearly doesn't fit with using the minimum 0.4/0.2 vias and 0.09/0.09 trace and space (and no via-in-pad obviously). The BGA figures don't add up if you plan to actually connect anything to the minimum pads and spacing that they say they can support. You'd need 0.270 between pads just to get a 90um trace out with 90um either side of it, and 0.58 diagonal between pad edges to fit a via in. That will clearly work for 1.0 pitch BGA and for 0.8 pitch BGA if the package isn't too greedy on its pad size and you're prepared to breakout all but the outside pads via vias. ANything smaller and one appears to be in the sticky stuff.

So, with those conflicting capability criteria I'm interested to see what people have managed to get away with and still not get kicked out by JLC's DRC or upgraded to a pricier process.

[AccountRemovedPerUsersRequest]

Since I am in the middle of benchmarking PCB manufacturers myself, I am interested to see photos of actual issues. Silkscreen quality of USD0-20 boards is not in my focus.

A

[asmi]

JLC have 0.25mm pad and 0.127mm space as their BGA minima (so basically a 0.4mm pitch device), but that clearly doesn't fit with using the minimum 0.4/0.2 vias and 0.09/0.09 trace and space (and no via-in-pad obviously). The BGA figures don't add up if you plan to actually connect anything to the minimum pads and spacing that they say they can support. You'd need 0.270 between pads just to get a 90um trace out with 90um either side of it, and 0.58 diagonal between pad edges to fit a via in. That will clearly work for 1.0 pitch BGA and for 0.8 pitch BGA if the package isn't too greedy on its pad size and you're prepared to breakout all but the outside pads via vias. ANything smaller and one appears to be in the sticky stuff.

So, with those conflicting capability criteria I'm interested to see what people have managed to get away with and still not get kicked out by JLC's DRC or upgraded to a pricier process.

One thing you will quickly realize when you start working with BGAs is that not all BGAs are the same. Many water-level chips have pinouts which are designed to be fully routed on just a single layer. This includes a lot of power ICs (PMICs, DC-DC converters, power switches, protection ICs, etc.). For example, take a look at TI's LM3102 (BGA package version) - it's a 0.5 mm pitch 28-ball 4x7 BGA, but if you take a look at the actual pinout, you will realize that you can route it fully on just a single layer. This applies to a lot of larger BGAs too. It's a pinout which makes or breaks a routing, not just a number of balls or a pitch.

So there is no conflict in their capabilities.

[cgroen]

Thank you. It looked a bit smaller to me. I'll add that to my list of "they can definitely do this" BGA qualifications.

I never went all the way down to 80 um traces/clearances, but did plenty of 100 um traces/clearances. Also did a ton of 0.8 mm pitch BGAs, infact if you take a look at the project in my signature, you will see 0.8 mm pitch BGA (DDR2) there, and 0.1 mm traces/clearances. This project was specifically designed around JLCPCB 4 layer process (JLC2313 stackup).
So no worries at least for larger pitch BGA. I have another project with 0.65 mm BGA lined up, will see if I can make it work with their process - it will probably be pushing it.

I have done several 0.65 mm BGA designs with JLC, all without a problem (all prototypes soldered on hotplate).
I used 0.25 mm balls (might be on the small side), VIA's were 0.45/0.2 mm, tracks 5 mil.
Layout of two of them (i.MXRT1064 designs):

[rox77]

(previous message)

day 23?: today i received this new message sent from an email address that does not allow replies: "Dear Sir,
Thank you for your order from JLCPCB. Your order ***** is completed now, but we regret to tell you that there is are 2 pcs less due to the scratch during the manufacturing process.
To not delay the delivery of your order, we sent those PCBs that are good out first. For the remaining quantity, can we provide the coupon accordingly?
So sorry for the inconvenience caused!
This is an automatically generated email please do not reply to it. If you have any queries regarding your order please email support@jlcpcb.com."

it's good news and bad news. the good news is that it finally looks like this incident is going to end, the bad news is that since this was a joint order and there will definitely be two boards missing, we will have to decide which people who had already paid for them, will run out of boards and get their money back.

[rox77]

i originally said that in the upper left area of the panelized boards there were pcbs without silkscreen on the top layer.
it would be possible to use an adhesive to replace the silkscreen on the top layer but in my humble opinion it would look a little bit cheesy.

don't think was a problem with the ink refill, it was no silkscreen on the top layer at all for some pcbs, quoting jlcpcb's message "our engineer made mistake"

i also print a copy of the edge cuts plus solder mask plus top silkscreen layers for the assembly but these pcbs were made to be used in tests and measurements. the silkscreen is essential to set the pins you need for input bits, d0, d1, ... d15, for power supply and output pins

That is worse if it was entirely missing the silkscreen, and not just in some spots as originally stated.
In that case you'd want to get something like a sticky label sheet that you can print the instructions on, then attach to the PCB. So maybe remaking them is easier.

[fourfathom]

the bad news is that since this was a joint order and there will definitely be two boards missing, we will have to decide which people who had already paid for them, will run out of boards and get their money back.

Nothing to do with JLCPCB, but you don't order a few spare boards?  I always order a couple of extras so I have some bare reference boards handy.

I've also had a bunch of 2-layer boards from JLCPCB over the last couple of years, and recently a couple batches of 4-layer.  My design rules are well within the JLC capabilities and I've been 100% happy with the boards and stencils.

[rox77]

about capabilities, restrictions and limits of this manufacturer. years ago i placed an order with some gerbers files that by mistake, maybe because i unintentionally pressed undo that caused out-of-sight changes, a trace tangentially touched the corner of a rectangular pad making a short between that signal and ground. i think the mistake appeared after the drc checks and before plotting the gerber files but although i fixed it relatively easily by cutting a little on the pad corner to isolate it from the trace, at that time i was wondering what tests they performed because i would have expected the gerber file to be rejected because of the zero distance between the track and the pad.

[Cerebus]

Nothing to do with JLCPCB, but you don't order a few spare boards?  I always order a couple of extras so I have some bare reference boards handy.

I always order spare boards, not just for the convenience of having some for reference but because there is no guarantee that I (or the assembler if it's someone else) won't do something to terminally muck up a board, lose one down the back of the sofa/heavy unmovable bench, or any of the myriad everyday mishaps of a less than perfect life. The marginal cost of an extra board or 5 is normally very small, especially if one's using a board house that splits the price into a hefty NRE and relatively light per board price.

[VladaAca]

Hello,
I was JLC customer. I haven't problem with board quality but have experience with their support. I always buy boards without components. On invoice they show tariff number HS85340090 which corresponds to boards populated with components, and in my country this cause 10% custom fee. When I deal with small orders I don't care about this, but when I have larger order (1000pcb, about 3kusd) I ask them to change tariff number to HS85340011 which is my case (unpopulated board, 1% custom fee). Answer was that this is not possible. After that I change board house and use JLC only for stencils. It was at the beginning of 2021.

[Mangozac]

I think it is to be expected that the errors of engineers with boards panelized by customers are more frequent than with boards panelized by JLCPCB. In the first case they have to adapt the gerber files to their own software so data preparation is more complex; in the second case the panelization is done directly in their own CAD system so data preparation is, in practice, routine and straightforward.

Sure, but I was providing the data point you were after: we do many self-panelised boards and never has there been a problem so long as we follow the JLC guidelines.

And of those tens of thousands, were mostly of them identical?

All of very similar specification, but one product would have had about 8k identical boards. As I said, yes there is variation in the silkscreen quality but nothing unacceptable and nothing by way of a trend.

[rox77]

my orders are almost prototypes, so of the boards I receive, a large part i keep as spares just in case. you know in case I have to rework them but I find it better to use another pcb or make different versions with slight handmade modifications and, above all, to be able to choose because there are many times I receive pcbs with punctures, a few 1.5 mm diameter spots where it looks like they have done so much pressure with a punch that there is no solder mask and the copper shows through... but for a joint order, I order exactly the number of pcbs that are requested which is the least problematic without having to go into deciding who would pay for the replacement pcbs or who would keep them if all the others arrived in good condition.

the bad news is that since this was a joint order and there will definitely be two boards missing, we will have to decide which people who had already paid for them, will run out of boards and get their money back.

Nothing to do with JLCPCB, but you don't order a few spare boards?  I always order a couple of extras so I have some bare reference boards handy.

I've also had a bunch of 2-layer boards from JLCPCB over the last couple of years, and recently a couple batches of 4-layer.  My design rules are well within the JLC capabilities and I've been 100% happy with the boards and stencils.

[Yuto]

day 23?: today i received this new message sent from an email address that does not allow replies: "Dear Sir,

This is a very interesting incident. Another lucky customer who has had his first problem with JLCPCB in 2021, they send him boards with PCBs without silkscreen, they offer to remake them or a discount coupon, then apparently they withdraw the offer to remake them but definitely access to remake them but in the remade boards some scratches appear and they remake them again, this time defects appear again and the final offer is to send him the ones in good condition and give him a coupon for the missing ones. Hopefully he will be able to consider the problem over (and with a solution that does not satisfy all the PCBs he needed) 40-50 days after the first defective boards were delivered.

Hello,
I was JLC customer. I haven't problem with board quality but have experience with their support. I always buy boards without components. On invoice they show tariff number HS85340090 which corresponds to boards populated with components, and in my country this cause 10% custom fee. When I deal with small orders I don't care about this, but when I have larger order (1000pcb, about 3kusd) I ask them to change tariff number to HS85340011 which is my case (unpopulated board, 1% custom fee). Answer was that this is not possible. After that I change board house and use JLC only for stencils. It was at the beginning of 2021.

Another very interesting incident with a commercial side in the last year.

Regarding customer service you also have to have some luck with them. If they made a mistake, the most dangerous stage is since you report the error to them and when they finally acknowledge it. In the meantime it is best not to chat or write because the previous kindness and apologies mood turns into nasty bigotry in the insistence that you, the customer, are wrong. At this time, for the average customer service employee, the customer is always wrong, their company is the spitting image of god on earth and the company policies and the guidelines in their customer service manual, their commandments. It is not something that happens often, but when it does, you never forget it.

Thank you for sharing.

[rox77]

hopefully.

maybe others don't see it in the same way, but being a not-for-profit joint order i would have liked to carry it out without all these problems. right now i only know that several people will be left without a pcb, i won't know how many until i got them and check their status. later we will have to come to an agreement on how to manage this lack of pcbs and what to do with the components we bought on AliExpress, which were already received but are useless without the boards. for me it is an unpleasant matter because i was very involved in it and now i see my reputation slightly compromised due to this incident.

day 23?: today i received this new message sent from an email address that does not allow replies: "Dear Sir,

This is a very interesting incident. Another lucky customer who has had his first problem with JLCPCB in 2021, they send him boards with PCBs without silkscreen, they offer to remake them or a discount coupon, then apparently they withdraw the offer to remake them but definitely access to remake them but in the remade boards some scratches appear and they remake them again, this time defects appear again and the final offer is to send him the ones in good condition and give him a coupon for the missing ones. Hopefully he will be able to consider the problem over (and with a solution that does not satisfy all the PCBs he needed) 40-50 days after the first defective boards were delivered.

Hello,
I was JLC customer. I haven't problem with board quality but have experience with their support. I always buy boards without components. On invoice they show tariff number HS85340090 which corresponds to boards populated with components, and in my country this cause 10% custom fee. When I deal with small orders I don't care about this, but when I have larger order (1000pcb, about 3kusd) I ask them to change tariff number to HS85340011 which is my case (unpopulated board, 1% custom fee). Answer was that this is not possible. After that I change board house and use JLC only for stencils. It was at the beginning of 2021.

Another very interesting incident with a commercial side in the last year.

Regarding customer service you also have to have some luck with them. If they made a mistake, the most dangerous stage is since you report the error to them and when they finally acknowledge it. In the meantime it is best not to chat or write because the previous kindness and apologies mood turns into nasty bigotry in the insistence that you, the customer, are wrong. At this time, for the average customer service employee, the customer is always wrong, their company is the spitting image of god on earth and the company policies and the guidelines in their customer service manual, their commandments. It is not something that happens often, but when it does, you never forget it.

Thank you for sharing.

[IconicPCB]

A question to VladaAca;

What are PCB factory Nis prices like? and how doe they compare to high tech out of Macedonia?

[VladaAca]

Hello IconicPCB,
I newer purchase boards from High tech (Macedonia) so I can't compare. Pcb factory Niš  don't share  price list publicly nor it have some calculator on official site, You must ask for offer. My experience is that they are not competitive with Chinese price+shipping for medium/large quantities (let say over 50 boards). Delivery time is typically 15 days. Regarding quality, I haven't complain (I purchase only single and double sided boards, some with fine pitch components, newer have problem). Always make few boards more than ordered. Off course, I am domestic customer, don't know if foreign customers have better treatment. During pandemic, they change prices, do to raw material and shipping prices increased. My last order, as "old customer", wasn't influenced with this so I don't know the percentage of increase.

[Bassman59]

This is a very interesting incident. Another lucky customer who has had his first problem with JLCPCB in 2021, they send him boards with PCBs without silkscreen, they offer to remake them or a discount coupon,

This notion of offering a coupon for a discount on the next order is bullshit.

They offer the coupon knowing that it is possible the customer won't place an order with them again. There is no cost to JLCPCB with this. Remaking the boards does cost them something, and clearly they are working with knife-edge margins and that rework bites them. So they'll do anything to avoid doing it.

[48X24X48X]

This is a very interesting incident. Another lucky customer who has had his first problem with JLCPCB in 2021, they send him boards with PCBs without silkscreen, they offer to remake them or a discount coupon,

This notion of offering a coupon for a discount on the next order is bullshit.

They offer the coupon knowing that it is possible the customer won't place an order with them again. There is no cost to JLCPCB with this. Remaking the boards does cost them something, and clearly they are working with knife-edge margins and that rework bites them. So they'll do anything to avoid doing it.

I usually declined the coupon and asked for remake and tell them I will wait with a "big smile". I felt that their prototype rarely have issues but only when you make a lot, there's where the yield drops. Things like broken panel, scratches, and solder mask imperfection patches (some like few mm wide with exposed copper) are the few things to look for.

[Cerebus]

This is a very interesting incident. Another lucky customer who has had his first problem with JLCPCB in 2021, they send him boards with PCBs without silkscreen, they offer to remake them or a discount coupon,

This notion of offering a coupon for a discount on the next order is bullshit.

They offer the coupon knowing that it is possible the customer won't place an order with them again. There is no cost to JLCPCB with this. Remaking the boards does cost them something, and clearly they are working with knife-edge margins and that rework bites them. So they'll do anything to avoid doing it.

Certainly not bullshit. Although I do agree that they must have paper thin margins.

I had a 1 board shortage on a trivial 5 board order (It was a set of boards with HASL finish that were identical except for finish to a larger order that went in at the same time with ENIG finish. I wanted to experiment with assembling these versus the ENIG boards to see if HASL affected assembly quality - for my case [a 0.5mm DFN16 package was the critical component] it didn't). So I got 4 boards, which was more than enough for my experiment and a credit that was almost as big as the whole cost of the 5 board order. There was enough order history there that they could see I was likely to order again, so they weren't offering a credit that they didn't expect to have to honor. As it was I used up the credit on my next order a few weeks later. I was perfectly happy to have run my experiment essentially for free, although at full price it would have been all of £1.44 plus whatever it added to the carriage.

Earlier in JLC's life it seems that for the pool processes they ran an extra couple of pool boards on every job. Say if a batch of orders was for 5 boards they would run off 7 copies of the pool board. If a particular batch yielded all the boards ordered in good condition, that was all they would send. If they didn't they offered the usual credit or remake, but they would send out all the boards they had made, including faulty ones, which is how we collectively learned that the batch size was bigger than the order size and that they were making 'overs'. To me that suggests that they were dialling in their processes.

Nowadays the fact that they don't appear to have 'overs' to cover the odd minor issue - my missing board was reported as "1 pcs less due to the scratch during the manufacturing process."  - suggests that they are more confident in their process, don't run 'overs', but also don't have the process so tight that they can always guarantee to pass all boards in a batch. The commonest complaint I hear nowadays is that someone's order has come up a board or two short.

Once one knows all that it seems to make sense to order a few 'overs' yourself and build that cost assumption into the order, so that you always get at least as many boards as you need. If they deliver one or two short it just eats into your safety margin and you get a relatively generous credit for the nominally missing boards.

[ace1903]

If someone needs info company in Macedonia is called Hi-tech corporation. Beside PCB they offer assembly services also.
Worked with  PCBs from them several times and can say quality is perfect. They address different market so can not be compared with JLCPCB.
Main target for them is industry that needs accompanying paperwork and traceability from aerospace to medical and up to 28 layers.
Can not say anything about pricing since every time it was covered by other departments in the company I worked for.
But pricing was on panel quantity so no options 10pcs for 2$ and setup fee was significant since they use top notch machinery and materials even for ordinary trough hole two layers pcb.
On the pros side is that we are in the same time zone as Europe and they provide excellent tech support 24/7(yes I called them at 2am and got CAD/CAM engineer explain me some issues since I was changing existing design and I am not PCB designer).

[SilverSolder]

[...] 28 layers [...]

 

[rszemeti]

In the UK I can get very basic PCB made, no silk screen, no solder resist and only 10x the price of JLCPCB,  and for just 15x the price I can get with solder resist and silk, the time for this is about the same as JLC.

I've had many, many boxes of PCB's from JLC in the last 5 years, and so far, not one bad board and many times extra boards.  Before complaining too much, I think you have to consider the price ... if you don't like the quality, you should try your local board company for a year and then decide if *for you* the extra cost is worth it and if the local company is better ...

[JLCPCB Official]

i have had similar problems. almost three weeks ago i received some pcbs from jlcpcb, part of a joint order from some users of an internet forum for which we paid $24. the boards were panelized, 5 rows by 5 columns, and surprisingly in the upper left area the silkscreen on the top layer of some pcbs was missing. on the bottom layer everything was in order. the pcbs depend on each other and contain dacs and level shifters, there are about 15 connections and the silkscreen on the top layer is essential to know how to connect them.

i double checked it, both my cad application, kicad, some gerber viewers and the jlcpcb's own gerber viewer showed the pcbs without anomalies with silkscreen printing on both sides so i opened a quality complaint.

day 0: pcbs were delivered. quality complaint including description, pictures of the defective boards, screenshots of different gerber viewers and a video from the output of the jlcpcb gerber viewer.

day 3: i receive a response with an apology, an announcement that they are investigating it and will reply at a later date.

day 4: new message asking how many pcbs were affected and the order number printed on the boards, something known since the quality claim was opened.

day 7: new message to ask again for the order number printed on the boards, sent for the second time a few days before. they also told me that there is no found the problem record in their factory side.
i reply by resending the order number printed on the boards.

day 8: asking again for the printed order number, i reply by sending two new photographs of that area of the boards.

day 11: "Sorry for the the delay in replying, after double checking with our engineer and factory, so sorry that our engineer made mistake mentioned silkscreen area, they have found and fixed the production file just now, don't worry about it."
then they offer me two options to choose from: remake the boards or a coupon to use on my next order.
since the order was not just for me and some users' pcbs were missing, i quickly replied by choosing to have them remade. in my message i suggested that if it'd be convenient and advantageous for them, they could send the remade boards along with another order i had placed that same day. that way they could save money on shipping.

day 12: "Sorry for the inconvenience , remaking order can not be combine shipping with in production order at present, due to the custom policy.
So we arrange remaking and reshipping it in a separated shipping, is it ok??"
i reply them that as they wish, they can remake and shipping them separately.

day 14: "Thank you for your reply, since there is no problem for many other small boards, if we remake, all the other ok boards will be remake again.
Please kindly try to use these boards this time and we refund its cost to you, is it acceptable??"

day 20: today. still waiting for an answer but in short, they had offered me two options, remake the boards or a refund using a coupon for my next orders. i chose to remake them, they confirmed they were going to remake and send them to me separately and only two days later, if i do not misinterpret their answers they back out and the option to remake them seems to be unavailable.

Hello, sir. Thanks for your orders on JLCPCB. No matter new or regular customers, JLCPCB are all equally valued, so would you like to provide me your order information/pictures to investigate closely? When any problem occurs, solving the problem directly is the first thing to do. So please help us to improve. （order number, or customer number, or PCB pictures, etc. all accepted, or email me at rebecca@jlcpcb.com）

[Harjit]

@cgroen - can you post a close up of the "BGA" just under C13 and share the ball pitch, pad size, silk screen opening, etc.?

Also, your opinion of how it turned out and if soldering worked fine or not?

Thank you.

[cgroen]

@cgroen - can you post a close up of the "BGA" just under C13 and share the ball pitch, pad size, silk screen opening, etc.?

Also, your opinion of how it turned out and if soldering worked fine or not?

Thank you.

The pitch of the small BGA (a buck/boost from Maxim) is 0.4 mm. The pads on the PCB is 0.25 mm in diameter
The soldermask expansion around the pads are 0.05 mm, this is not optimized in any way yet, this might change when going into production, but works fine with my "manual prototype assembly" here.
The boards so far have worked perfectly when done by JLC, the prototypes I solder myself (stencil/hot plate) and so far has been flawless. Final production will be with a subcontractor (they do not use JLCPCB but their own "preferred" PCB house).

[IconicPCB]

is this a  lets piss off Murphy and see just how tightly we can close the process window and then bitch about a third party kind of situation?

[cgroen]

is this a  lets piss off Murphy and see just how tightly we can close the process window and then bitch about a third party kind of situation?

Was this a comment about my BGA layout in the post before yours (or to the thread in general) ?

[IconicPCB]

A general comment on expectations from a prototyping service.

You know... people give nothing for nothing and what JLCPCB are charging is essentially ... almost nothing.

[cgroen]

A general comment on expectations from a prototyping service.

You know... people give nothing for nothing and what JLCPCB are charging is essentially ... almost nothing.

Totally agree. On top of that, people get angry when they submit a multidesign with multiple boards in the same file and JLC asks for extra payment.

[Munyua44]

hello! after such troubles with JLPCB i shifted my production center to PCBWAY and am doing so well. Try it too and thank me later:
https://www.pcbway.com/project/

[cgroen]

hello! after such troubles with JLPCB i shifted my production center to PCBWAY and am doing so well. Try it too and thank me later:
https://www.pcbway.com/project/

What are the boards you have been doing that gave you troubles ?
The only reference I see to boards from you is in this thread (just wondering if your "Valentines gift card PCBs" is where the experience is, or if there is some more substantial evidence ?)
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/valentine-card/msg3946393/#msg3946393

[Yuto]

This notion of offering a coupon for a discount on the next order is bullshit.

Certainly a handful of pennies won't pay to reorder a damaged board.

if you don't like the quality, you should try your local board company for a year and then decide if *for you* the extra cost is worth it and if the local company is better...

I made my first pcb back in the 70's and since then I have had some experience, even prior to the existence of JLCPCB and I know the prices and quality that can be expected from many other manufacturers.

I feel compelled to repeat that this is not a case of problems after a first order (or after a bunch of orders). Here I am talking about a progressive deterioration in many aspects that has been noticed after many previous orders placed over the years in which, in practice, the few problems were minor. When you have been placing orders for years, you naturally end up thinking that you know what to expect, if suddenly overnight relevant changes appear that are persistently repeated with excessive and frequent annoyance, they surprise you and that is why I am talking about it now.

people get angry when they submit a multidesign with multiple boards in the same file and JLC asks for extra payment.

And they get angrier when there is no such multi-design and they have to waste time (sometimes days) proving it; but, most especially, when after agreeing to pay that extra cost, they receive the boards with inexplicable defects.

hello! after such troubles with JLPCB i shifted my production center to PCBWAY and am doing so well. Try it too and thank me later:
https://www.pcbway.com/project/

Thank you for sharing.

I also considered switching to another manufacturer, in fact depending on which project I use one or the other, but I prefer to share these problems and check their real capabilities for the improvement of these problems. At the end of the day I ask no more than that they deliver the next orders in the same conditions as years ago. If they could do it then, they should be able to do it now.

[jancumps]

hello! after such troubles with JLPCB i shifted my production center to PCBWAY and am doing so well. Try it too and thank me later:
https://www.pcbway.com/project/

In one post you say you are investigating the first CAD program to use. In this one you sound like a manufacturing decision maker giving expert opinion on a pcb house (and dissing another).
Is this real?

[rox77]

(previous message)

day 32?: as you know from my previous updates on this blog, one of the boards in my order went wrong, had to be remade, went wrong again and so on up to 3 times. then it was shipped but as the delivery date had passed i checked the tracking information and, as i noticed that it had been "on hold" in the same chinese city where it was picked up for more than a week. i checked with jlcpcb support and they sent me this message: "Due to the corona , the parcel are pending in Shenzhen now . The government do not allow to arrange shipment temporary.Sorry for that . Once resume, we will arrange it for you priority.Hope your kindly understanding ."

i know they are not to blame for whatever is happening with the corona but i think that if the board had been done right the first time, i wouldn't be in this situation

[Yuto]

they sent me this message: "Due to the corona , the parcel are pending in Shenzhen now . The government do not allow to arrange shipment temporary.Sorry for that . Once resume, we will arrange it for you priority.Hope your kindly understanding ."

Sounds very strange. My old and new orders from China are being delivered as usual. So far I have not noticed even the slightest delay, nor has any seller or manufacturer sent me a notification about that issue.

[Cerebus]

It doesn't sound strange to me. The omicron variant has reached China and the authorities are responding with their usual all encompassing, some might say excessive, zeal, especially in view of the pending Winter Olympics.

A headline and lede from 10th January:

Omicron Scare: China Locks Down Tianjin After New Variant Outbreak Near Olympics Site
The Chinese government instated sweeping measures, halting commute, and suspending public transit including all the buses and trains from Tianjin to Beijing

and from the 13th:

China faces omicron test weeks ahead of Beijing Olympics

Just weeks before the Winter Olympics, China is battling multiple COVID-19 outbreaks in half a dozen cities with the one closest to Beijing driven by the highly transmissible omicron variant
...
Instead, it has sealed off several residential communities and universities, canceled almost all flights, suspended high speed train service and closed highways. People leaving the city are required to present negative COVID-19 tests and receive special permission.
...
Elsewhere, in Xi'an to the west and several cities in Henan province, the measures are far more onerous, leading to complaints that people sequestered in their apartments were running out of food.

And

The southern Chinese tech hub of Shenzhen is bracing for more Covid-19 cases after two infections from an unknown source were discovered during routine screening.
...
Shenzhen residents have been told not to leave the city unless necessary. Those wishing to leave must submit a negative Covid-19 test report from swabs taken within 48 hours of departure.
Health authorities in Zhuhai, another Guangdong city, said residents needed to report any travel history to Shenzhen since December 24.
The emergence of cases in Shenzhen is likely to complicate the reopening of its border with Hong Kong, which is itself battling a fast-growing cluster of locally transmitted Omicron cases.

Still, let's not let the facts get in the way of a good argument.

[rox77]

it does sound strange to me too, it is clear that this virus is extraordinarily selective. counting only since january 1st i have logged on to aliexpress four times to order stuff, last time was two days ago, on january 16th, about 14 orders in total. they all come from china mainland, almost all of them from shenzhen, yesterday i received the first one, today the second one and looking at the tracking information i check that of the first batches, 3 have already reached my country, many others have successfully went through customs in china and were handled to the airline, and the later ones are moving from sellers to distribution centers and airports normally

they sent me this message: "Due to the corona , the parcel are pending in Shenzhen now . The government do not allow to arrange shipment temporary.Sorry for that . Once resume, we will arrange it for you priority.Hope your kindly understanding ."

Sounds very strange. My old and new orders from China are being delivered as usual. So far I have not noticed even the slightest delay, nor has any seller or manufacturer sent me a notification about that issue.

[nigelwright7557]

This is the usual  case of someone wanting top quality items but are not prepared to pay for it.
They want a Rolls Royce for Ford money.

In the UK I got a quote of £220 for some pcb's.
The same order from JLCPCB was £50 and that included p+p from China.

For that I got perfectly usable PCB's.

In around 200 orders  I have had one bad pcb which they told me about but I didnt expect it to be sent in with my order !
In 10 years of designing PCB's for me no one beats JLCPCB on price.

The OP to me just sounds like sour grapes.

[Yuto]

it does sound strange to me too, it is clear that this virus is extraordinarily selective. counting only since january 1st i have logged on to aliexpress four times to order stuff, last time was two days ago, on january 16th, about 14 orders in total. they all come from china mainland, almost all of them from shenzhen, yesterday i received the first one, today the second one and looking at the tracking information i check that of the first batches, 3 have already reached my country, many others have successfully went through customs in china and were handled to the airline, and the later ones are moving from sellers to distribution centers and airports normally

Obviously these are very selective actions, perhaps the Chinese government has quarantined only shipments from this company? It is possible and they may have their reasons but that is too local information that is not easy for us to access. Perhaps JLCPCB can clarify or confirm this.

This is the usual  case of someone wanting top quality items but are not prepared to pay for it.
They want a Rolls Royce for Ford money.

But this is not that usual case, I'm sorry but I have to repeat that this is not a case of problems after a first order (or after a bunch of orders). Here I am talking about a progressive deterioration in many aspects that has been noticed after many previous orders placed over the years in which, in practice, the few problems were minor. When you have been placing orders for years, you naturally end up thinking that you know what to expect, if suddenly overnight relevant changes appear that are persistently repeated with excessive and frequent annoyance, they surprise you and that is why I am talking about it now.

In this thread alone there are enough cases, cases with errors that have been acknowledged by JLCPCB, with quotes from the emails, that objectively show that something is going on. But hey, it's not such a big drama, they just have to correct the source of the problems and get the same level of service they had before 2021. We know that errors are always going to happen, understandably, but it makes a huge difference when the frequency of these is way above what is reasonable.

[cgroen]

So, a few (less than 10 ?) has complained to you and in this thread of how many customers, 20.000 (I know they claim 800.000 but still...) ?

I know I'm repeating my own post, but I can't help it.....

Here we go again....
I have just received my order number 240 from JLC (95% 4 layer, the rest 2 layer). This 240th order in fact had a problem (se later on).
I started using JLC in september 2017.
Last year (2021) I had a total of 78 orders with them.

Not a SINGLE one of these 240 orders where at fault (of course I have had the "sorry sir, one of your boards are defect, would you like us to redo the order or discount you the one board?" questions (less than 5 in total), but the boards I have received has all been perfect.

I'm not saying that the silkscreen could not be "more perfect", but for the price you pay, they are more than perfect.

As I wrote, the 240th order I "received" was in error (this is first time since I started using JLC). I received "my boards" this monday, only problem was that the boards were not mine! Somehow they got swopped in shipping at JLC (the paper slip with my order number was correct, it was "just" the boards them self that was wrong. The unlucky thing was that the boards I got did not have the usual JLC internal order number on it, so I could not pass that on. Within a couple of days, JLCPCB chased down the customer that had gotten my boards (he was in Germany), I called him and we shipped each others board to the rightful owners
JLCPCB of course offered to pay for our shipping (to be expected), I'm receiving my boards in a couple of hours.

This is how my dealings with JLC has been so far.
(and I have used European producers in the past for prototypes so I do VERY well know what the cost is (been in the game for 35+ years now) !)

So, maybe, just maybe, it is very seldom that anything is wrong ? I have for sure seen nothing that implies what you are saying, that JLC should have "deteriorated" over the last year. And it is not so that I have not pushed against their limits/capabilities.

Maybe its just better for you to move to one of the many top-notch PCB producers out there, maybe your quality needs are just so much higher than the rest of their customers ?

[sleemanj]

it does sound strange to me too, it is clear that this virus is extraordinarily selective. counting only since january 1st i have logged on to aliexpress four times to order stuff, last time was two days ago, on january 16th, about 14 orders in total. they all come from china mainland, almost all of them from shenzhen, yesterday i received the first one

My JLC DHL shipments go through Hong Kong, I expect they are driven across the border.

My JLC YunExpress shipments go straight out of Dongguan

I havn't done a JLC one for a while, but I do know that Mainland DHL for one of my other suppliers is off the table for the last few weeks, they stopped accepting shipments.

[rox77]

(previous message)

day 34?: the order is still on hold at the carrier's facility in shenzhen. i got a new message from jlcpcb offering a discount coupon for the delay. at the moment i am not placing new orders with jlcpcb because i assume they would be on hold.

meanwhile today another aliexpress package ordered after january 1st was delivered and according to the tracking information, the ones that a few days ago were handled to the airline are already flying to the destination country while the rest are moving through different sorting centers without any incident. i am still waiting expectantly to see if any of the orders i placed on january 16th are leaving china.

[RockPhish3]

From the most casual check of the situation, the assumed sinister forces at work intercepting and delaying specific JLCPCB customer orders:

https://www.pcbway.com/blog/News/Delay_Information_About_DHL_Service_29af186d.html

Dear Customer,

Latest update 2022/1/20 GMT+8: Personnel at the port began to resume work one after another last night. For the orders from 7th to 11th, there were direct flights from Europe and America in the early morning of 21st, and it is expected that they will be cleaned up before next Monday.

Latest update 2022/1/17 GMT+8: DHL logistics delivery has returned to normal, but the logistics speed may be slower than usual.

Latest update 2022/1/14 GMT+8: DHL logistics delivery will gradually return to normal, but the orders delivered from January 7 to January 11 are stranded in DHL Shenzhen Port Center for disinfection, it will take a few more days to leave.

Latest Update 2022/1/12 GMT+8: DHL pick-up and delivery service will delay for several days due to the positive cases screening of the epidemic at the DHL Shenzhen Port Center.

-------------------------------

[Yuto]

meanwhile today another aliexpress package ordered after january 1st was delivered and according to the tracking information, the ones that a few days ago were handled to the airline are already flying to the destination country while the rest are moving through different sorting centers without any incident. i am still waiting expectantly to see if any of the orders i placed on january 16th are leaving china.

I guess you will receive any of these orders soon, were any of them shipped by DHL?

[rox77]

(previous message)

day 36 (since first delivery) / 45 (since payment): i received a new message from jlcpcb notifying me that the shipment was back in transit

today i received the last order from aliexpress of all the orders i placed between the 1st and 11th of january, there has not been even the slightest delay.

no, none of them has been shipped by dhl. although it is an option it is excessively expensive to ship products to my country, $50 or $60 for shipments that with other carriers cost me between $4 and $6, or free, for the same delivery time. in addition, upon delivery dhl charge $22.7 for customs handling, customs fees aside while the national postal operator charges $5.7 for the same service.

meanwhile today another aliexpress package ordered after january 1st was delivered and according to the tracking information, the ones that a few days ago were handled to the airline are already flying to the destination country while the rest are moving through different sorting centers without any incident. i am still waiting expectantly to see if any of the orders i placed on january 16th are leaving china.

I guess you will receive any of these orders soon, were any of them shipped by DHL?

[chickenHeadKnob]

In December last year I put in an order and selected DHL economy or whatever the lower cost option is. JLC came back and said DHL doesn't serve my postal code. My house is about 200 meters past the boundary of the next postal code so I suggested they try that code and the package shipped successfully. Strange. Never had that problem before.
No complaints with JLCPCB though.

[JLCPCB Official]

day 36 (since first delivery) / 45 (since payment): i received a new message from jlcpcb notifying me that the shipment was back in transit

today i received the last order from aliexpress of all the orders i placed between the 1st and 11th of january, there has not been even the slightest delay.

no, none of them has been shipped by dhl. although it is an option it is excessively expensive to ship products to my country, $50 or $60 for shipments that with other carriers cost me between $4 and $6, or free, for the same delivery time. in addition, upon delivery dhl charge $22.7 for customs handling, customs fees aside while the national postal operator charges $5.7 for the same service.

meanwhile today another aliexpress package ordered after january 1st was delivered and according to the tracking information, the ones that a few days ago were handled to the airline are already flying to the destination country while the rest are moving through different sorting centers without any incident. i am still waiting expectantly to see if any of the orders i placed on january 16th are leaving china.

I guess you will receive any of these orders soon, were any of them shipped by DHL?

Hello sir. JLCPCB has been following your order situation for a long time and hopes to assist you with your questions as soon as possible.
     As a PCB manufacturer, we always hope to provide customers with fast and high-quality PCBs. You said that you placed many orders on JLCPCB, so you may also like our service, right?  We really appreciate your trust.
    According to the checks, again and again, your order was unblocked yesterday. The reason is the same as what our customer support explained to you all the time. It is because the government controls the shipment flow and it cannot be shipped smoothly. This kind of situation rarely occurs, but we are so sorry still.
    For every special case, JLCPCB gives true answers to customers honestly and has also worked hard to communicate with related logistics companies and customs departments, so as not to cause customers trouble. We value every customer experience important please trust that we have the heart to solve it and are always here to assist customers.

[Harjit]

@cgroen - can you post a close up of the "BGA" just under C13 and share the ball pitch, pad size, silk screen opening, etc.?

Also, your opinion of how it turned out and if soldering worked fine or not?

Thank you.

The pitch of the small BGA (a buck/boost from Maxim) is 0.4 mm. The pads on the PCB is 0.25 mm in diameter
The soldermask expansion around the pads are 0.05 mm, this is not optimized in any way yet, this might change when going into production, but works fine with my "manual prototype assembly" here.
The boards so far have worked perfectly when done by JLC, the prototypes I solder myself (stencil/hot plate) and so far has been flawless. Final production will be with a subcontractor (they do not use JLCPCB but their own "preferred" PCB house).

@cgroen Thank you. Looks like JLCPCB removed the soldermask inside the footprint. I had hoped to at least put down some soldermask "dots" between the pads but I don't know if they will keep that or not.

What is your stencil thickness and opening?

If you don't mind, can you share your part number? I'd like to compare the ball size with what I'm planning.

Thanks!

[DiyHax]

Hi folks, I have been ordering at JLCPCB for a couple of years. They have always been very supportive.  It doesn't make sense to blame them, which trouble caused by external problems like Corona.  I have experience with other Chinese PCB companies too. Trust me, JLCPCB has been the best one for me. About shipment and delivery, I found JLCPCB most convenient because they offer multiple shipping methods which you won’t find in most other company websites. Certainly, we can’t blame JLCPCB for shipment held or delayed by Customs due to Corona. It’s not their fault, I believe. Guys, share my last orders from JLCPCB

[cgroen]

@cgroen - can you post a close up of the "BGA" just under C13 and share the ball pitch, pad size, silk screen opening, etc.?

Also, your opinion of how it turned out and if soldering worked fine or not?

Thank you.

The pitch of the small BGA (a buck/boost from Maxim) is 0.4 mm. The pads on the PCB is 0.25 mm in diameter
The soldermask expansion around the pads are 0.05 mm, this is not optimized in any way yet, this might change when going into production, but works fine with my "manual prototype assembly" here.
The boards so far have worked perfectly when done by JLC, the prototypes I solder myself (stencil/hot plate) and so far has been flawless. Final production will be with a subcontractor (they do not use JLCPCB but their own "preferred" PCB house).

@cgroen Thank you. Looks like JLCPCB removed the soldermask inside the footprint. I had hoped to at least put down some soldermask "dots" between the pads but I don't know if they will keep that or not.

What is your stencil thickness and opening?

If you don't mind, can you share your part number? I'd like to compare the ball size with what I'm planning.

Thanks!

Harjit,
the paste opening for the BGA is 0.25 mm (might end up being tuned for production, for the prototypes it worked fine), the part is a Maxim MAX77839 (buck/boost)
The stencil is just JLC's "standard" type, I get them electro polished (not sure that is even needed in my case, but why not....)
Picture attached of the actual PCB

[rox77]

if only it had been the problem with the corona. have you checked all my previous messages regarding the progress of my last order? i guess not. each of them has a link to the previous message and there you can check the sequence of problems in chronological order.

Hi folks, I have been ordering at JLCPCB for a couple of years. They have always been very supportive.  It doesn't make sense to blame them, which trouble caused by external problems like Corona.  I have experience with other Chinese PCB companies too. Trust me, JLCPCB has been the best one for me. About shipment and delivery, I found JLCPCB most convenient because they offer multiple shipping methods which you won’t find in most other company websites. Certainly, we can’t blame JLCPCB for shipment held or delayed by Customs due to Corona. It’s not their fault, I believe. Guys, share my last orders from JLCPCB

[rox77]

i am checking the progress of the shipment daily using the carrier's tracking information. thanks anyway for your messages.

Hello sir. JLCPCB has been following your order situation for a long time and hopes to assist you with your questions as soon as possible.
     As a PCB manufacturer, we always hope to provide customers with fast and high-quality PCBs. You said that you placed many orders on JLCPCB, so you may also like our service, right?  We really appreciate your trust.
    According to the checks, again and again, your order was unblocked yesterday. The reason is the same as what our customer support explained to you all the time. It is because the government controls the shipment flow and it cannot be shipped smoothly. This kind of situation rarely occurs, but we are so sorry still.
    For every special case, JLCPCB gives true answers to customers honestly and has also worked hard to communicate with related logistics companies and customs departments, so as not to cause customers trouble. We value every customer experience important please trust that we have the heart to solve it and are always here to assist customers.

[nigelwright7557]

I buy in JLCPCB items into the UK and have had no problems with couriers mostly.
I had one batch go China, Germany, UK, USA, UK once but otherwise its been fine.

On the other hand royal mail post in the uk is very up and down due to covid.
Some of my stuff is taking 2 weeks between uk locations !
I get the stuff in 5-6 days from CHina.

[rox77]

(previous message)

day 39 (since first delivery) / 48 (since payment): new message from jlcpcb, they said: "this parcel is the special case, due to the COVID-19 case outbreak in some area of Shenzhen suddenly, and some parcels (included your order regrettably) are in that area, so those parcels are holding and DHL could not ship out those parcel due to the epidemic prevention and control in Shenzhen."

so apparently this confirms that the problem was really very selective and does not affect the whole city of shenzhen but only certain areas.

by the way, i just checked that the first of the aliexpress orders i placed on january 16, has successfully cleared customs in my country today.

[rox77]

(previous message)

day 40 (since the delivery of the order) / 49 (since the payment): finally the pending order was delivered. thanks to jlcpcb, finn and rebecca for their efforts keeping in contact almost daily since i reported the problem.

by the way, aliexpress orders are still arriving normally, i think it is clear that the corona restrictions are only affecting certain couriers or some areas of some cities

[Mechatrommer]

beware that the alien ordering season is coming, from experience during next week you'll see a surge delay... so dont be surprised if your order in the next week will only arrive in the next month or later...

[thm_w]

Where did they get the budget for this CGI 

[Yuto]

finally the pending order was delivered

It's been a long road,  a roller-coaster of ups and downs. I'm very glad to hear that.