The Right PCB House

I have had good experiences with

but I have only done 2 layer boards in small quantities. For low price and moderate quantities, I have used a company in China: I received the boards within 8 days of actually placing the order, and they were quick to respond to questions by email. The only real problem I had was that I had specified 2 oz copper, and when I did a voltage drop text on a critical high current track it was the equivalent of 1 oz. They have promised to correct that on my next order, which I will be placing soon.

I had to make a completely new design based on my testing of the ones they did, not because of any fault on their part, and I am fairly confident that the next order will be OK. I was able to get 108 pieces of 1" x 2" boards, panelized and scored, for about $140 including FedEx from China. Even having to scrap the first order, I am still saving several hundred dollars over almost any other source.

I would rather buy from and support local vendors, but with such a huge price differential, I can pass some of my savings on to my customers. And I have a feeling that some of the so-called "local" vendors may actually farm the jobs to Chinese or East European fab houses, and just operate as middlemen, which does not do all that much for domestic economy. I can save

100 local customers $3 each, or I can make one local company richer by $300.

Paul

The Q was "why the rush"?

Give at least one good reason...

Quote "However, reliability of leaded Maxim Integrated Products parts are not guaranteed at higher reflow temperature (above 240°C). Some reference sources show data that define a reduction in solder joint reliability by as much as 33% less than Eutectic solder joints when lead and lead-free metallurgies are mixed."

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

.com/), even if you don't end up going with them for

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=20

Don't mix up ExpressPCB and PCB Express. The latter is a division of=20 Sunstone, which builds boards in Mulino, Oregon. Sunstone gives me good=20 boards and I live close enough that the free UPS ground shipping gets me=20 boards the day after shipment. Sunstone also has their own free PCB=20 suite, PCB123.=20

I now order all my PCBs from Sunstone, so I'm a biased reporter. I've=20 been a fan of theirs since their customer service techs helped me=20 through some problems with an older, low-cost layout suite. They're=20 still helping me through some problems with bigger 4-layers boards since I've converted to PADS.

Mark Borgerson

Pad2Pad, ExpressPCB, & PCB123 are all essentially the same thing. They are all lock-in-ware. Their output is NOT portable between fab houses. None of them produce Gerbers.

Jeff - your information is incorrect. For $60, ExpressPCB will definitely send you a Gerber file. I know this from first hand experience. (The others mentioned also might, but I can't say)

I also concur that it is not the best approach if you do enough boards to justify "better" schematic capture / PCB layout software (i.e., in- house). But if you want to port the boards to production fabrication (offshore), you certainly can obtain Gerbers from ExpressPCB.

-mpm

Thank you for interpolating my post. I assure you that was not necessary.

I repeat: This "free" software does not *PRODUCE* Gerbers. If you use it, you are LOCKED IN to a single fab house.

What I am saying is that to call itself an ECAD Package, software should be able to generate Gerbers ON ITS OWN.

What you are describing meets the classic definition of CRIPPLEWARE.

I did NOT say there was no way to PURCHASE Gerbers. ...AND PAY *AGAIN* AFTER THE SLIGHTEST CHANGE.

If that's what YOU want, fine. Full disclosure for the other folks is another thing. Most people want to know what the cards up the sleeve are. . . ...and it appears you STILL haven't read this:

*-link+*-Reply-at-the-bottom-*-*-*+DO-NOT+More.Options+blockquoting+other.people's.sigs+weird-looking.posts

If the ExpressPCB package was really top-notch, and offered for free, I could understand them locking you in without Gerbers. But I seem to remember it was mostly a drafting package that had very limited capabilities compared to (of course) PADS, but there were other free or very inexpensive packages that had better capabilities and actually created Gerbers.

I tried to check pricing from PCBexpress, and I got this:

"Warning: mysql_pconnect(): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (2) in /home/pcbexpress.com/html/products/utls.inc.php on line 25 We're sorry...please try this process again later."

I'd like to compare them to pcbfabexpress. I guess I'll "try again later".

Paul

Jeff - What is your problem? You gave out bad info. I corrected it. Get over it.

I personally used ExpressPCB, got the boards exactly the way I wanted them, then turned around and got the Gerbers from ExpressPCB (for an additional $60), and then proceeded to shop the high-volume production boards overseas. (Using those same Gerbers).

So, explain how I was "locked-in". ?????

I am not so interested in correcting your statements (interpolating or whatever), nor am I that interested in the nuance argument as to whether the ExpressPCB directly produces a Gerber output (which I never claimed, but you invented).

My only purpose here was to correct the post, so that other's could rely on the right information as they make their choices. I also did not opine on whether the ExpressPCB route was any better or worse, or less expensive than having your own high(er)-end program in house, such as Orcad or whatever.

The bottom line is ExpressPCB can indeed (eventually) result in a Gerber file that you can port between fabricators. This statement is in direct contravention to your earler remark that:

And I quote:

Have a nice day.

-mpm

I would have just bought my own software.

There is plenty of free stuff and paid for packages.

There is often something on ebay for a few pounds.

Nothing that's at the same level of quality/utility as, e.g., Altium, Pulsonix, PADS, or even Eagle is "a few pounds."

Joel Koltner wrote:

I thought I recognized that rap. Yup, I called it.

Heee's baaack. (Marra, aka cadman, aka Nigel Wright, aka...)

A few pounds of what?

--

If you have broadband, your ISP may have a NNTP news server included in your account:

Sporadic E is the Earth's aluminum foil beanie for the 'global warming' sheep.

Sheesh. What a strange man; he seems intelligent enough yet completely unable or unwilling to conduct himself in a reasonably respectable manner...

.com/), even if you don't end up going with them for

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Actually both ExpressPCB and PCBexpress both get shipped from Mulino, Oregon.

ExpressPCB came up with the idea of freeware PCB layout tools and charging for board manufacturing. They contracted with ECD (which spunoff SunStone Circuits sometime in the late 90s) to manufacture boards for them. ECD (or maybe SunStone) liked the idea and created PCBexpress to tap into the market. PCBexpress created PCB123 layout software to compete with ExpressPCB.

Regardless of how you design your boards, with ExpressPCB, PCB123, or Eagle and then ship your gerber files to PCBexpress, the boards get made at a PCB plant in Mulino.

The board plant used to make pretty good boards years ago when I worked as an electronics designer for ECD. After I left, I've used ExpressPCB to create dozens of prototypes that were made there. They were all pretty good quality.

Mark

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I've had excellent results with them over the last 6-8 years. They must be getting more confident in their process control, as the quickturn trace and space used to be 8mil/8mil. Now it's down to 6mil/6mil. On full-service boards they will go to 5mil/5mil. The 6mil level is good enough for any of the boards I do.

I've had upwards of 1000 boards, from perhaps a dozen designs, with no problems other than those I caused. My last production problem was a single whisker-short on a board about 5 years ago. I've never seen that again, so I suppose it was a one-time under etch.

Mark Borgerson

You must get much better service than I did. I had Sunstone build two boards for me. The first was the production board which was ordered in six panels of 22 each. They built seven panels to cover any losses and still could only deliver 116 boards. That's a loss rate of 25%!

I also asked them to build the test fixture for this board. By the time the test fixture was away to them it had turned into the long pole in the tent schedule-wise. I gave them my info and they accepted the order. A week later when I was expecting the order to be delivered, I contacted them for a tracking number. I was told that the order had been put on hold waiting for a credit card number and when the number didn't come it was ***canceled***. It seems that they lost the CC number and NO ONE contacted me about it! So then I had to wait ***ANOTHER*** week. Oddly enough, they lost my CC number a second time which again bit me in the butt... I got the test fixture panels ok, but I still needed another panel of the production board.

They had apologized for the shortage and offered me the choice of deducting the shortage from my bill or building another panel. I waited until testing of the protos was complete and asked for the replacement panel to make up the shortage which was needed to complete the initial production build. They accepted that order, but they spent an extra day checking the files I had to resend to them and it went into production a day late. Of course they were not willing to try to speed up the fabrication to make up for it. Finally they were supposed to deliver last week on Thursday directly to the assembly house. I contacted Sunstone on Friday to get a tracking number to see if the panel had made it ok only to find out that they had built the boards, but would not ship them because I was now on credit hold!!! I had received an invoice for the test fixture a week earlier and sent off a check which was expected on that Friday. They couldn't tell me if the check had been received or not and they couldn't tell me if the boards would ship or not.

I can honestly say that I have ***never*** worked with a more incompetent group of people. Every time I contacted them I had to start over explaining the situation. The different departments don't seem to talk to each other, but rather expect their internal tracking system to keep everyone informed. But I found over and over again that no one uses the system properly. They lost my credit card number, not once, but twice. That has got to make you wonder where it went! But the really bad part of all this was the way that everything that happened was as much a surprise to the various contacts there as it was to me. They did not once inform me of anything that was happening and when I asked it was like pulling teeth to get accurate info from them.

I will never use Sunstone again and I would not let anyone I liked use them either!

Rick

Why screw with crippleware when you can get totally free layout programs that are as good as commercial ones? FreePCB is an excellent program that costs nothing and has better support through the web site forum and Yahoo group than most commercial packages have if you pay for support!

I haven't found the perfect schematic program, but for layout, I am very happy with FreePCB.

Rick