Yet another ATX to lab supply project

I believe there won't be anywhere in Europe lower-cost compared to typical PCB manufacturers from China (e.g. J L C) for such PCBs in prototype quantities, even after adding any import taxes. But I could be wrong.

I use the mentioned manufacturer and select the 'Global Direct Shipping' option which is quite low-cost and takes just over 1 week to arrive. 

Ordinarily I just accept there may be wasted boards, since the minimum quantity is 5 PCBs. However, if you want to make the most of the purchase, then you could re-do the PCB so that it's more general-purpose, for instance, create a PCB that has the ATX socket footprint (and any other unusual footprints), but the rest could be just a matrix of holes, so that you need to do point-to-point wiring on the underside to make the power supply. Then you could use the remainder boards for other projects too.

The photo below shows a 100x160mm board from the above-mentioned manufacturer (discussed here, A Three-Way Prototyping Board for Awkward Through-Hole Components ). I ordered 10 of these boards, so even though it will be overkill for a small project, I will dedicate one for a Pi Pico project (and use the large space to put things like battery holder, switches, maybe even a display.

You are right, the cost is unbeatable by a factor of 10 to 20!

Right now I can't order because their website does not like my address, it keeps telling me to write it in English only...
I've raised the issue with their support, I'll see how it goes.

Regarding "cost is unbeatable by a factor of 10 to 20" I think you may be seeing the cost with courier shipping. It is only after you have completed the address stage, and are near the end of the procedure, that you'll see the option to switch to 'Global Direct' which will lower the cost a lot. For 5 100x160mm boards it might just cost around $4 USD plus maybe $12 shipping, so a total of $16* (I'm guessing), I.e. about 15 euro, works out to approx 3 euro per board. 

Since you're currently unable to enter your address, I believe you might not be seeing that lower shipping cost option so far.

*Note: you'll need to check if this includes import tax for you. I don't know if that's included or not (it is country-specific). If it is determined that tax is not included and that tax needs to be paid at that threshold, then your national mail service may also charge a handling fee.

The 10 to 20 factor is when comparing the Chinese provider with the European providers I tested, the former is around 4€ without shipping, while the latter are all about 50 - 80€ without shipping...

Ok, I just placed the order for the minimal amount of 5 boards with the following details:

PCB: 6.96€
Shipping costs: 7.25€
Customs and taxes: 2.85€

So in total, it's 17.06€ which I find totally acceptable for such a PCB that is way out what I can do at home.

Thanks for your answers, it helped a lot

They have arrived !




The holes seem a bit too narrow for quite a few components, but it shouldn't be too hard to widen then a bit, without damaging the neighboring tracks.

I've done a number of boards without hole issues. I take that back. I've had issues when I spec my own hole size for mounting holes.

Have you identified what caused you hole issue?

I'm not suggesting this is what obones  is experiencing, but I have occasionally seen a newcomer mistake is to take the dimensions off of the engineering drawing for the part, and not realize that the component leads have a rectangular cross-section rather than round, and directly using the dimension on the drawing plus a small arbitrary increase for tolerance, to become the diameter of the hole (i.e. "square peg in round hole" type of issue).

Well, it's a rookie mistake in that I'm used to take the "default" footprint as provided by the CAD package and even though the lead spacing is good, their size is not appropriate for the real life components I'll be using.
But that's a lesson learned here, always check the pad sizes with a real component at end, most of those I'll be using here do not have a readily available datasheet anyway.

shabaz said:

(i.e. "square peg in round hole" type of issue)

Use a big enough hammer and you can usually fit square pegs in round holes close enough in size.

Use a big enough hammer and you can usually fit square pegs in round holes close enough in size.