Electronics > Projects, Designs, and Technical Stuff
Am I paying too much to have PCBs made?
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mikerj:

--- Quote from: Fungus on November 04, 2015, 02:38:10 pm ---You're suddenly not so sure it "did a fine job"...?  :-DD

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Depends on your definition of "fine"  If an auto-routed board worked correctly and achieved the design goals, then many people would consider that "fine".
zapta:

--- Quote from: rs20 on November 04, 2015, 04:57:57 am ---Again with the all-vs-nothing, black-vs-white, you-vs-me internet mentality. Have you considered this case: manually placing components (e.g. a bunch of shift registers and 7 segment displays) and critical power and data lines manually; and then using the autorouter to place the 200 tracks from shift register to 7 seg displays? If you already have 4 layers for some other reason, it does an absolutely perfect job and saves a huge amount of time.

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This is how I route with Eagle and it works great for me.  (I am a hobbyist)



--- Quote from: rs20 on November 04, 2015, 04:57:57 am ---Saying autorouters are completely useless and should be avoided at all costs ...

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That claim got debunked.   https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/the-auto-router-challenge-will-it-work/  (an extreme case where *all* the nets were auto routed).
mal-c:
I have used PCBway (http://www.pcbway.com) for the last two projects. A reptile habistat controller, and my reef controller. The last order was for my reef controller, a 12 x 10 cm two layer board in 1.0oz copper, green solder mask and normal white silk screen. the cost was a very reasonable $29 for five boards, and as I was in a hurry opted for and paid extra for the DHL 2-3 day delivery option at around $25 rather then the HongKong post option at $11. The order was procesed within 3 days of it being placed (late in the evening UK time), and so I was given the DHL tracking number and sat back anticipating delivery of my new PCBs in arriving in afew days time. A day or two later, just for fun I logged on to the DHL website and entered the tracking number and to my horror noticed that DHL seemed to be flying my parcel from Heathrow to Gatwick and back again. Heathrow some how sent it to Gatwick, who then sent it back to Heathrow as a being received at the incorrect sorting facility, so tey sent it back to Heathrow. But a Gatwick apparantly is the correct sorting center for my area, Heathrow sent it back again, and this tim it was placed on a van for delivery and I receive dit later that day, some 43 hours after it landed in the UK (it only took 19 hours from being collected in Hong Kong to landing in the UK customs office !! After complaining to DHL they offered a refund of the delivery charge, but as I wasn't their customer I couldn't claim it, so could only refund PCBway, which they did and they in turn refunded me the cost of delivery.



The quality of the boards themselves is excellent. In fact for a proptype it is every bit as good as a production board. This board was my first venture in to soldering surface mount components, which to be honest didn't save me a lot of space given the size and quantity of large components that the board uses dictated the dimensions. The silk screening is very clean and tidy, even on small fonts.

The project is basically three switched mains supplies for the pumps, which are operated by a combination of four membrane buttons on the front panel to turn the pumps on or off to allow for cleaning, and a 4 channel lighting controller with 4096 PWM steps on each channel. I've already detailed the project build on the forum http://www.ultimatereef.net/forums/showthread.php?711856-PCA9685pw-Coding

The most recent project was a revamp of my reptile habistat controller. This time the order consisted of two PCBs, so that resulted in a total of 10 PCB's - Total cost $77 (around £52) inc shipping.

-layer number: 2 layers
-board thickness: 1.6mm
-solder mask color: green
-silkscreen color: white
-the surface finish:HASL with lead
-finished copper thickness: 35?m Cu
-pcb quantity: 5pcs each (the minimum order quantity is 5pcs for each project)
Driver board -5pcs: $26
Reptitherm v3.zip-5pcs: $27

The total shipping cost via DHL to UK is $25

This time the order went through without any issues. Order was placed on 7th July at 22:36 UK time, and the goods received just before mid-day on 13th July, and it was marked as samples so didn't get stung for duty or VAT either. So that was ten boards, fabricarted and shipped half way around the world and delivered in 6 days, for just £50... Impressed.

Again the quality of the boards was excellent. There was no issues with hole sizes, pads or missing silk screening.



This project has 4 independent pulse proportional thermostats (uses a PID routine), with programable night time temperature drops, and two individual lighting timers to control the photo period. A high and low temperature alarm system that monitors high and low thresholds settings for each of the four thermostats, and the unit can be set up via a PC application using a bluetooth module. Information is displayed on a 128 x 64 GLCD, using a BV4611 serial controller than makes using the GLCD as simple as sending text to a normal LCD.

Not sure how that compares to some of the other board manufactures you guys use, but I'm really pleased with the quality and service I get from PCBway


zapta:

--- Quote from: mal-c on November 08, 2015, 06:01:34 pm ---Not sure how that compares to some of the other board manufactures you guys use, but I'm really pleased with the quality and service I get from PCBway

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mal-c, can you share with us what is behind your post?  I see many first time posters coming here and posting about PCBway and I wonder what causes it.
squealer:

--- Quote from: zapta on November 08, 2015, 06:58:38 pm ---mal-c, can you share with us what is behind your post?  I see many first time posters coming here and posting about PCBway and I wonder what causes it.

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PCBWay offers coupons worth as much as $100 for positive reviews. See the attached snapshot from their web site.
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