My reason for choosing them is very simple: they were the cheapest, by a long shot. The board I'm having printed is 1.5x5cm, double sided, with 6mil trace/space. They have quoted me $65 shipped for 6 of these boards with total time from order to delivery of 9 days. The next cheapest bid I got was $180! I'm just worried though, having never dealt with them, or having ever heard of anyone that has. Has anybody here ever used them? Anything I should know or be worried about? They seem pretty legit, but better safe than sorry!
"Mike Noone" schreef in bericht news:Xns97A3691386BC3mnooneuiucedu127001@63.240.76.16...
I'd give it try, why not. I entered your figures in the online calculator at
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(Europe, Belgium) and they would charge you 80 euro's for 6 boards, or 95 euro for 25 boards. Doublesided + 1 silkscreen. 1 Euro is ~1.18 USD. I have used their service countless times, always on time, always top quality.
But I'll try Njpcb soon, to see what happens ;)
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Thanks, Frank.
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I wish you wouldn't. Rewarding aberrant behavior breeds more of it. Would you also hand a "tip" to someone who brought his dog over daily to shit in your yard?
Of all the PCB fab houses in China, I find it difficult to believe that you can't find one with a competitive price who doesn't spam the groups daily and who doesn't have a website constructed by chimps.
There are many local (US) PCB houses with competitive pricing, and I would rather contribute to the US economy if possible and reasonable. I buy cheap tools and other things made in China, with just a little bit of guilt. It's just that the Chinese products are so much cheaper, and often fairly good quality. There is just such a huge difference in cost of living, work ethics, and lifestyle expectations between the biggest conspicuous consumers (and wasters) of material goods, and most of the rest of the world. Eventually, perhaps, there will be a bit more equity and similarity among the global population, and this will probably be the result of the ultimate cost of energy, which is a common denominator for the cost of living and lifestyle.
The original post for this was definitely inappropriate for this newsgroup. A discussion of experiences and prices from various board houses, by end users, should be OK. Some NGs are especially touchy about any possible hint of commercialism. The worst I experienced was in rec.diving, where I replied to a post about cold water diving problems with information about a friend's product, which is a wet suit heater. See
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for details. This immediately fanned the flames, and some people thought it was very helpful information, while others considered it terrible abuse, because my friend might make a dollar or two.
I'd say, go for it, but be very picky about the specifications and contract requirements, and so on - be merciless with your spec, and inspection - at those prices, you can afford to do some in-house inspection, and if it doesn't meet your spec (which you've made perfectly clear to the vendor, with no ambiguities), they have to do it over. Of course, they could turn out an impeccable product.
- they're in Australia, and they front for a PCB house in Thailand. 10/10 traces, 20mil min drill
$55.50 for your size qty6, plus $9 S&H, if you don't really need 6/6 traces. Most of the cost is for setup - the boards themselves are $0.75 each. The closest shop I've found in the US is about 2x the cost.
I've used these guys with great results after someone recommended them here. They'll also do v-scoring (at no additional charge!), which is really helpful if you're making a lot of small parts - you send them an arrayed panel, assemble on the panel, then snap apart the boards.
NJPCB may look attractive, but their business practices are questionable.
Details... that's for 2x solder mask and 1x silkscreen. You can cut up to $36 off that price if you ship mask and silk. (So, as low as $19 for the job.) But if you're doing 6/6, I'm sure you won't skip the mask. :-)
(They'll also do 2x silk for an extra $12 per batch if you want it.)
8/8 rules, $45-50 for six boards, 2 sq in each, depending on shipping. Assuming I've interpreted their pricing rules right - I rounded up. And assuming you're not in a hurry ;-)
Or get a 18 boards panelized onto a single DSS-sized board from olimex (also 8/8 rules) for $33 plus S&H.
4pcb barebones (6/6 rules, I've used this one) - buy one 4.5x2" board and cut it up - $46 plus s&h. (the 3/33 special has a $50 charge for arrays).
pcbpool can do 6/6 in a panel of 13 (min size) for $56 shipped to the USA. They have a-la-carte mask and silk options too, at $12.50 each per side.
Agreed. It's not hard to avoid spammers, and there's no point in rewarding them for spamming.
Yes, better widths, for sure. I've tried them too. But beware, this is literally a couple of guys doing order aggregation part time in school - they have zero customer service; customers are left to support each other.
They turn out good results, but have issues like 3-week turn times, parts getting dropped from batches without them knowing, etc. They also charge in increments of 1 sq. inch per board (not per batch), which makes them unattractive if you're doing very many boards in a batch - once you cross ~$60 you can get probably 3x as many boards elsewhere.
This is always an option. Personally, I'd rather pay to have the PCB cut for me. Using a brake press seems to be the preferred method. (Folks have recommended the 7-1/2" mini brake/shear from both Grizzley and Harbor Freight.) And I'd rather separate tiny boards after they're assembled, not before.
4PCB does top-notch work - the best place I've used. Their program at
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is a great deal for the quality, but their pricing otherwise is not competitive. At last check, they'd let you do an array in the panel for $50 per order more, but I don't think they'd route them out for you. Their barebonespcb.com deal is excellent if you can survive without mask.
Good pricing & specs, but sadly (at least for for my purposes :-) will not do v-scoring. When you get down to 0.5" boards, this makes a big difference in the effort to assemble them.
So, the challenge becomes... how does one find PCB houses with dirt-cheap pricing and specs like NJPCB if they don't spam? Apparently I'm looking for them in all the wrong places. (Some advertising in the trade rags would get these guys way more business than spamming ever would.)
This one advertised in Circuit Cellar and, AFAIK, does not spam:
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They have a good Web site and they take Paypal (unlike NJPCB who wants Western Union payments). In your request for quote, you should ask NJPCB how to go about ordering from them.
I am not associated with either of these businesses, nor have I used their services other than for a quote. However, I thought you might be interested in the product ordering procedure of each.
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