PCB MANUFACTURERS

"tj snyman" <communitymanager@premierfarnell.com> wrote in message

news:338545419.12061324055696381.JavaMail.jive@flcspu-csapp-01.premierfarnell.com...

Hi My name is TJ , I am new here and still kinda feel my way around.

For starters, can anybody refer me to a resonable inexpensive pcb

manufacturer for short runs of 10x  or so pcb's for research and

developing?

Also what is a good rate per square inch nowadays for a normal 2 sided PCB

with silkskreen?

Tnx in advance

tj-

If you are displaying the command texts menu (typically on the right side of

your screen), there should be links for "Design Link" and "PCB Quote" Try

these to see about ordering.  If it doesn't work, you can open the ulp

directly as designlink-somethingorother.ulp

  I tried this a few times and for prototypes, got a better price from

APCircuits.com in Alberta, Canada.

If you use APC, I suggest downloading the APClient.zip

http://www.apcircuits.com/resources/downloads/downloads.html

I'm in NY, USA and found them very easy to deal with. The APClient also

makes it very easy to re-order boards. Their system is highly automated and

you pay extra for 'hand-holding'. Likewise there is a discount for using a

credit card.

Howdy,

I just did a recent order of a small 2 layer PCB (a Christmas tree) from Seeed Studios' Fusion PCB Service and SparkFun's BatchPCB.  Seeed was $30 for qty 10 while BatchPCB was $28 for qty 2.  I ordered from both on Nov-30 and both arrived today Dec-16 (in Chicago, IL, USA).

BatchPCB

http://batchpcb.com/index.php/Products

SeeedStudio

http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/fusion-pcb-service-p-835.html?cPath=185

However, I should state that I haven't verified how well either order works as I'm just ordering the BOM right now.

Cheers,

Drew

Another low-cost batch service I've used was DorkbotPDX PCB.  The boards were high quality and turn around was about 3 weeks from what I recall:

http://dorkbotpdx.org/wiki/pcb_order

Cheers,

Drew

Drew Fustini wrote:

However, I should state that I haven't verified how well either order

works as I'm just ordering the BOM right now. Image:11 - 1.jpg

Drew, I thought you were going to fix this attachment issue at Element14

Warren

--

Viewed / responded via the newsgroup at

news.cadsoft.de

Hi Warren,

Unfortunately, the issue is not resolved yet.  Our framework vendor

recently informed us that they will not be fixing the issue, so we will

have to address it directly.  I can't give an estimate for when it will

be resolved at this point.  I know this issue negatively impacts

communication on these newsgroups and will attempt to prioritize it with

our team.

One improvement that will be released next week is that the From:

address for posts exported from element14 will be unique per-user.  This

will resolve the issue where element14 posters are misidentified on

EAGLE Central.

Thanks,

Drew

On 12/16/2011 08:15 PM, Warren Brayshaw wrote:

Drew Fustini wrote:

 

>> However, I should state that I haven't verified how well either order

>> works as I'm just ordering the BOM right now. Image:11 - 1.jpg

 

Drew, I thought you were going to fix this attachment issue at Element14

 

Warren

 

Drew Fustini wrote:

Hi Warren,

 

Unfortunately, the issue is not resolved yet.  Our framework vendor

recently informed us that they will not be fixing the issue, so we

will have to address it directly.  I can't give an estimate for when

it will be resolved at this point.  I know this issue negatively

impacts communication on these newsgroups and will attempt to

prioritize it with our team.

 

One improvement that will be released next week is that the From:

address for posts exported from element14 will be unique per-user.

This will resolve the issue where element14 posters are misidentified

on EAGLE Central.

 

Thanks,

Drew

 

On 12/16/2011 08:15 PM, Warren Brayshaw wrote:

>> Drew Fustini wrote:

>>

>>> However, I should state that I haven't verified how well either

>>> order works as I'm just ordering the BOM right now. Image:11 - 1.jpg

>>

>> Drew, I thought you were going to fix this attachment issue at

>> Element14

>>

>> Warren

Thanks for the update Drew

Warren

--

Viewed / responded via the newsgroup at

news.cadsoft.de

On 16/12/2011 17:14, tj snyman wrote:

  Hi My name is TJ , I am new here and still kinda feel my way around.

For starters, can anybody refer me to a resonable inexpensive pcb manufacturer for short runs of 10x  or so pcb's for research and developing?

Also what is a good rate per square inch nowadays for a normal 2 sided PCB with silkskreen?

Tnx in advance

tj-

 

I'll throw my 2c in here for those in Europe, in particular.  I've used

Olimex (www.olimex.com/pcb) quite a bit for small volumes.  In recent

years the quality has been very good.  A 160x100mm double sided panel

will cost 30 EUR plus shipping and VAT.  There are more details on their

site.

They also accept EAGLE .brd files directly, which is nice if you're not

comfortable generating Gerber batches.

Andrew

0xADF

Andrew Feldhaus wrote on Mon, 19 December 2011 04:14

I'll throw my 2c in here for those in Europe, in particular.  I've used

 

Olimex (www.olimex.com/pcb) quite a bit for small volumes.

A few years back I attempted to try out Olimex.  However I found out that

their design rules were very unusual.  The same set of gerber and drill

files that all other board houses could fab from violated their rules.  If

forget the details, but I remember unusual hole sizes was one issue, and

they insisted on everything being in metric instead of simply converting as

needed.  The messages I got from them were very terse and therefore

ambiguous, so it took some back and forth to figure out what exactly the

problem was.  The tone was also deliberately insulting.  No thanks.  I went

elsewhere and haven't been back.  This was a few years ago, so things may

have changed.  However, look thru their web site very carefully,

particularly at their design rules and other restrictions.

For well done professional prototypes with solder mask and silkscreen,

check out Gold Phoenix (http://www.goldphoenixpcb.com).

--

Web access to CadSoft support forums at www.eaglecentral.ca.  Where the CadSoft EAGLE community meets.

Hi TJ,

Beta LAYOUT is a PCB manufacturer specialized in prototypes. They are in Europe and have a US facility.

They offer a ULP plus a button for EAGLE to calculate PCBs and component assembly with two mouse clicks:

http://www.pcb-pool.com/ppus/service_downloads.html

The auto install worked like a charm on my Win XP OS.

I have found iTeadStudio's PCB service the most inexpensive one for prototyping. Here's the link:

http://iteadstudio.com/store/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=19_20

I tried their service few weeks ago to make some breadboard modules for PIC microcontrollers and the PCBs were really good. Here's a picture showing the PCB.