PCB Fab Houses

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boblob
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Post by boblob »

I know there's plenty of info on this dotted around the various forums, but it would be really nice to have a list of recommended list of PCB fabrication houses. "Parts Sourcing & Trading" seems as good a home as any.

I'm considering a few at the minute for a first order - it'd be great if others could chip in with their experiences. So far I've considered:

http://screenbond.co.uk - UK based. Helpful and quick response. Quoted prices really quite good for a domestic fab house.
http://pcbtrain.co.uk - Another UK house. Nice online ordering system. Not cheap, though.
http://futurlec.com - I've heard mixed reports about this lot - most notably their lead time of 5 days is fanciful at best. They look cheap, but factoring in import charges will even things up somewhat. Comms so far not great.

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astrobass
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Post by astrobass »

http://www.OSHPark.com
$5/sq inch of 2 sided PCB gets you 3 copies of that layout OR $1/sq. inch, min order of 150 sq. inch, as many different boards as you like but you need to order multiples of 10 of each board. So if you have 3 designs that are 5 sq. inch each you could get 10 of each to qualify for that. No max though.

I've ordered the $5/sq. inch offer before and I was totally impressed with the board quality. Better than the PCBs in any of the commercial effects I own. They're purple, too.

You can also order 4 layer boards from them. Based in the US. Good customer service from my experiences. Max turnaround is 12 days plus shipping time.

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boblob
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Post by boblob »

Thanks astrobass. I've seen those purple boards before - they look top notch. I think dorkbot do purple as well, though.

Got bored waiting for Futurlec to get back to me and saw Seeed Studios get some love on here...

http://www.seeedstudio.com/service/inde ... pcbService - Their Fusion service is by far the cheapest I've seen so far, a good 1/3 cheaper than Futurlec. Good online ordering system (like many they provide their own Eagle rules and CAM jobs and there's no waiting round for a quote). No min order, max. is just 100, but I doubt that'll be an issue for most of us. Turnaround time is quoted as 5-15 working days. I've pulled the trigger and gone with this, so we'll see how true that is...

[edit] I see OSHPark is actually dorkbot... [/edit]

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boblob
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Post by boblob »

http://www.borapcb.com - another China-based house. More expensive than Screenbond. Strangely, about 3 minutes after contacting another Chinese fab. house I get an email from this lot saying they'll beat their price. Odd.

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Post by Groovenut »

dorkbot is OHSPark. Great boards, nice price, fast free shipping.

and theyre purple :)

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boblob
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Post by boblob »

One other thing to consider is the customs and handling charges. That can narrow the gap in price between buying domestic and buying from China.

Here in the UK it's not so much the customs fees, but the admin charges made by the couriers for handling that part. If I spend £50 on PCBs from China, customs duty will be negligible, however, the courier company admin fee for paying that customs duty will be £27-30. The admin charge isn't always obvious on delivery, but you will get a separate bill in the post within a couple of weeks.

If you don't use a courier, 99/100 there'll be no further charges (this is because 99/100 the sender will mark the package as "gift" or well under value). If there is duty to pay, the Post Office will charge for outstanding duty and £10 for admin.

I have heard that it's possible to arrange for the sender to pre-pay customs charges so there's no rip off courier admin fee (I know this is how Mouser operate), but I've yet to manage to get any China suppliers to do that.

Anyway, I can see people at the back drifting off to sleep. The main point is - use regular post if you can, and give buying domestic a 2nd thought.

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Post by anna@borapcb.com »

Hi Friends,

This is Anna from Bora PCB. I worked in PCB area over 10 years, 3 years CAM engineer experience and about 8 years pcb sales experience.
I'm sure i can provide professional suggestion to all your PCB project and provide super quickly response to all your pcb inquiry. I have confidance I can satisfy you .

What we do:
●PCB prototypes and mass production
●1-32layers FR-4 PCB
● Ultra-thin rigid pcb(0.2mm FR4 PCB)
●Aluminum PCB and Copper base printed board
●RF Boards and Impedance boards
●High frequency board and Flex-rigid boards
●HDI boards and Blind/Buried boards
●PCBA/FPC/Stencil

Why choose us:
●No MOQ,even make 1 piece if required
●Quick turn service and prompt delivery
●All boards should be 100% tested
●Almost 24h in time service
●Rich experience
●Price are unbeatable for 2-6 layer mass production

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me any time.
Any reply from you will be highly appreciated.


Best Rgds,
Anna Xu
Shenzhen Bora PCB Technology Co., Ltd.
Room 3A09, Xingji Building, Xinsha Road, Shajing Town, Baoan District, Shenzhen518125
Office: +86-755-32925834 MB:+86-15817229201
Skype: chinapcb1 Email: anna@borapcb.com
Web: www.borapcb.com

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Post by Dirk_Hendrik »

As usual with PCB fab houses, the stuff Anna sums up above says exactly... nothing. When someone mentions they are using FR4 PCB they have said something about have well the stuff burns. Therefore "FR4" says shit about the quality of the PCB itself. How exact is the PCB made according the specs as supplied by the customer? How thick is the copper? How well does that copper stick to the epoxy? etc etc.
Sorry. Plain out of planes.

http://www.dirk-hendrik.com

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