UK PCB Fabrication

What do you use to generate the schematic and netlist ?

Graham

-- due to the hugely increased level of spam please make the obvious adjustment to my email address

(typically £40/order) , and no

Yes, I've used Screenbond too , and not being far I can even collect the boards as soon as they're ready.

Graham

-- due to the hugely increased level of spam please make the obvious adjustment to my email address

Same here, but VERY little in the way of normal electronics trade attracts any duty at all.

For example, harmonized tariff item 8534.00.00..95 (PCBs of various types) attract no duty at all for import into the US or Canada**.

** Okay there's a 35% duty rate the US imposes under "column 2", but AFAIK, right now that only applies to PCBs made in Cuba or North Korea (not really hotbeds of electronics manufacturing, though I suppose it could complicate the use by South Korea, China or others of special economic zones in North Korea to the extent that exports to the US might be involved). A few (mostly communist and former communist) countries have only conditional (annually renewed) MFN status under the Vietnam-war era Jackson-Vanik legislation-- this kind of discriminatory trade legislation is incompatible with WTO rules when both parties are members so the list is slowly dwindling.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

--
"it\'s the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

Currently nothing. The design I am doing are very simple tube circuits so I draw the schematic by hand on a piece of paper. Then in FreePCB I create the board outline, place components then attach them to nets that I name as I go along.

FreePCB does recommend TinyCAD I think but I have not tried it.

Cheers

Ian

(typically £40/order) , and no

boards as soon as they're

So you are near Baldock? I used to live in Litlington.

Cheers

Ian

It's scandalous. I can only speak for packages by ground service from the US to Canada. Seems that with express/air shipping the customs brokerage is included. But if you have the time, you can indicate that you wish to clear the package yourself. UPS calls you, you pick up the paperwork, you bring it to Customs, clear it, pay, take the stamped paper back to UPS, then UPS delivers. Worth it for expensive items. It's also worth the time digging into tarriff codes, if you show up with the code it simplifies things.

they marked them at the full price including freight so

annoying.

package

they have to

One of my recent orders through PCBCART was for 100 of a *tiny* D/S board only

1200x750 thou. In USD, tooling was $37.80, boards $51, shipping via FedEx $20 or so (seems a minimum charge). Tooling is a once-off charge, so repeat orders are far cheaper.

If import duty/VAT/GST are levied on the shipped value it would have been $51 out of ~$110.

To date - and maybe I have been lucky - we have not been hit with any import costs despite orders being up to $A450 or so. Maybe our regime's rules are more tolerant than UK.

Just so you can do a quick comparison, one job that is about to head to PCBCART is for 40 boards that are 3000x2000 - D/S PTH and SM. Tooling $34.74, shipping $29.54, boards $70 - total $US134.29 or about $A155 - less than $A4 apiece in my hands 12 days from order. And their delivery is on the contracted day, every time.

Don't misunderstand - I'm not pushing PCBCART (or anyone's barrow for that matter). But as another poster pointed out, *many* so-called domestic board fabs are simply front-offices for Chinese fabs, as it is virtually impossible to compete with them on a cost basis, and with comparable or better quality.

they marked them at the full price including freight so

annoying.

package

they have to

more

my

to

I checked out my board on their site. 20 boards, 12 day turnaround, double sided, tota1 order came to 191USD including shipping and tooling which at current exchange rates is about 117GBP. I know I am going to pay 8GBP VAT handling which make thes total 125GBP. The Tecbridge quote for the same board is 139 GBP. So PCBCart is cheaper but not by much and as I said before, if it all goes wrong, at least I can beat up an Englishman about it.. I expect PCBCart will be more competitive at higher volumes.

Cheers

Ian

A lot of the outfits that do small prototype jobs today will take a large number of individual customers' boards, put them all on one board, and have it fabricated off-shore. Although the Chinese manufacturing folks have some pretty severe problems, the one thing they are doing right and have down very well is PC board manufacture. I highly recommend this approach if you can wait a couple weeks and don't have money to waste.

--scott

--
"C\'est un Nagra.  C\'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Agreed. I first started using Chinese electronics manufacture in 1987 and although they have problems from time to time with various aspects of it, the one thing we never had a problem with was a PCB. That said, we were only using mostly using double sided and the occasional 4 layer board. Cannot speak for very dense boards or more layers.

Cheers

Ian

Cheers

Ian