Circuit Board Aggregators

I have used the PCB aggregator that was run by SparkFun electronics in the past, and was pleased with them.

I just got boards back from my very first order to OshPark, and I'm kind of underwhelmed. Maybe I'm just expecting too much, but there are some

0.5mm pitch parts on the board, and the pads are way narrower than I specified -- it's like everything is eroded down to narrower than what I called out. The board is going to be usable, but only barely so.

Does anyone know of any better circuit board aggregators?

Failing that, any good small-volume circuit board fabs that do good work without costing an arm and a leg?

TIA!

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Tim Wescott 
Wescott Design Services 
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Tim Wescott
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Den onsdag den 15. januar 2014 00.36.38 UTC+1 skrev Tim Wescott:

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~$10 for 10 boards is so cheap it is almost worth sending them a random set of gerbers just to see

-Lasse

Reply to
Lasse Langwadt Christensen

Bookmarked! Thanks.

Reply to
Daniel Pitts

Thanks! I take it you haven't tried either of these places -- how'd you find them? If you Googled, could you share your search terms?

I decided (after doing some bad-mouthing, of course) that I'd let OshPark know of my issues, and see what they said in return. If it's something like "Oh Holy Crap that looks bad! We just talked to the manufacturer and it's XYZ, and it'll be better next time!" I may just go back. If they add "and we're running your orders again" and follow it up with decent-quality boards then I _will_ go back, for sure.

(In the course of putting together an email to them I managed to get a close-up of the board, and I measured things out using Gimp. The pads should be 0.25mm wide. They're more like 0.15mm. They're these pitiful narrow things, that have me worried about whether they'll manage to hold solder at all.)

Otherwise -- stay tuned. As is usual for me I caught an error that'll cause a cut and jump before I even got the boards back, so there's more boards in my future.

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Tim Wescott 
Wescott Design Services 
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Tim Wescott

I've used Seeed Studio for a few home/hobby boards with decent results

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They are over in China, so ITAR and related issues can come into play.

Reply to
Rich Webb

Yes, seedstudio/itead are ok. I've used pcbcart.com for all my volume stuff for a few years now.... They have a very good front end checking system too, picking up some of my 'errors' :)

Reply to
TTman

I have had several small runs of boards from OSHPark, all very good quality. I too use 0.5mm pitch parts, and have no problems. Certainly the trace sizes are as originally specified.

Must say I dont particularly like the dark purple resist, but thats a minor quibble.

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Regards, 

Adrian Jansen           adrianjansen at internode dot on dot net 
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Adrian Jansen

The traces seem to be the right size -- it's the surface-mount pads that are way too small.

I actually like the dark purple resist. There's no accounting for taste.

I filed a support ticket, complete with close-up images of the pads in question, asking them whazzup -- no response yet.

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Tim Wescott 
Wescott Design Services 
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Reply to
Tim Wescott

I second that. I have ordered some boards from Seeed studio as well and they are okay. For shorter delivery times I use a 'local' European pooling service.

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Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply 
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Reply to
Nico Coesel

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