Summer Contest - Who is your favourite PCB order pooler?
The 2018 Elektor Labs Summer Contest is about PCB order pooling. Tell us who your favourite pooling service provider is and why and maybe win a gift certificate. CLOSED
The contest may be over but that doesn't mean that you cannot share your opinion anymore.
The 2018 Elektor Labs Summer Contest was about PCB order pooling.
Tell us who your favourite pooling service provider is for printed circuit boards (PCBs) is and why. A few Elektor Shop gift certificates are available for the most convincing stories.
To participate click the
button below this post.
Please post your comments before August 31, 2018 @ 18:00h CET to participate in the raffle.
The 2018 Elektor Labs Summer Contest was about PCB order pooling.
Tell us who your favourite pooling service provider is for printed circuit boards (PCBs) is and why. A few Elektor Shop gift certificates are available for the most convincing stories.
The winners are...
To participate click the
button below this post.Please post your comments before August 31, 2018 @ 18:00h CET to participate in the raffle.
What is PCB order pooling?
Many people tinkering with electronics have the need for printed circuit boards (PCBs) for their projects, and one or two pieces are usually enough. PCB manufacturers however work with large square-metre-sized panels and using such a panel for just one small board is expensive. To work around this problem some PCB manufacturers combine low-quantity orders from multiple clients into one large panel. This is called pooling. Like car pooling, several people share one resource. Together the pooling clients pay for the large panel.Choosing a pooling service
There are many pooling services available today, so many that it has become hard to choose. One offers gold plating, another has free shipping, a third allows all sorts of colours, etc., but which one is right for your board design? Through this contest we are trying to come up with a list of the most popular pooling services and what people think of them.Terms & Conditions
- The PCB order pooling service you post about must exist, please provide a link.
- Add evidence of your experience.
- Bad experiences are interesting too, but bashing and cursing is not allowed; remain polite at all times.
- Disrespectful posts will be removed.
- Commercial posts will be removed unless you pay us a fee.
- Comments posted after August 31, 2018 @ 18:00h CET will not participate in the raffle.
- The decision of the contest jury is final.
Discussie (18 opmerking(en))
bean zheng 6 jaar geleden
i have been using pcbgogo for 3 years now, that has always worker out great.Mostly i have standard boards,so i can order some best
ClemensValens 6 jaar geleden
RICH OBERMEYER 6 jaar geleden
Simon Brinkmeyer 6 jaar geleden
It has often happened that the technicians have reported shortly after the order and we could correct one or the other bug. Great service I think. I have already ordered from other providers, where it went through without comment and I could not use the boards afterwards (although my mistake, but the service with the data control of WEdirekt is a nice part). The delivery times are also great. Had to use the express service so far only rarely, but if they do not deliver on time, you get the PCB for free. I have not come to benefit from that yet ; )
All in all, I can recommend the shop without reservation. The prices are absolutely okay for the quality and the staff I experienced as very helpful. So nothing to moan.
pwillard 6 jaar geleden
cbucs 6 jaar geleden
I also use their PCB Artist software for schematic capture and layout. It's very straightforward and easy to use, much like OrCad of years gone by.
Graham Rowan 6 jaar geleden
Gabor Gubicza 6 jaar geleden
Although the automated quotation process has a steep learning curve at the beginning once the user gets used to the UI it's very straightforward and the quotation process for manufacturing and assy is basically instantaneous. BOM costing is usually done in a business day or two, an outstanding turnaround compared to my previous suppliers, where sometimes the entire costing took a week, the same time as PCB manufacturing. Re-quoting for different turnaround times for cost optimization is instantaneous as well, something that took 2-3 emails with other suppliers.
Over the past year, I submitted 30+ projects to Eurocircuits and quality was always 100%. Support is amazing, and turnaround is always on time or quite often better than quoted for. Users can track the progress of their jobs online, something that my previous suppliers didn't offer.
And last but not least, Eurocircuits has great pricing while having the production in the EU rather than the far-East (although they do have a lower cost pooling service in Asia, but I haven't used this)
So overall I can wholeheartedly recommend Eurocircuits to everyone.
Best Regards,
Gabor
Saschi_focus 6 jaar geleden
For a Technician Project we use Multi Leiterplatten GmbH, we need the Pcb rapid.
https://www.multi-circuit-boards.eu/kontakt.html
After 3 Days the Pcb's arrived. The Quality is great. The best are, Multi CB sponsored us the Pcb.
It contains a Atxmega, Bluetooth, MPU9250 and Stepper Driver (3169kb)
ClemensValens 6 jaar geleden
Saschi_focus 6 jaar geleden
DwayneR 6 jaar geleden
I've used them perhaps a dozen times over the past couple of years. Much less expensive than AP Circuits and almost as fast.
RICH OBERMEYER 4 jaar geleden
Its not a PCB fabricator, its a web calculator for your exact PCB needs including solder mask color. Some even have the option to provide stencils with board.
As far as I know this site makes no money from the board houses other than ads on the site.
I have found that no one vendor fits all, even for me.
For instance Eurocircuits is in Belgium. I am in California in the USA.
Eurocircuits is in the pcbshopper list and $450 more than I paid 2 days ago at ALLPCB in China and includes DHL delivery. Eurocircuits was 9 day delivery total and ALLPCB was 6 days.
For users in other countries and states they will also see huge advantages and disadvantages depending on their designs, personal preferences and delivery criteria.
I also use OSH PARK and they are on the list. The quality is good but the boards are panelized by a simple factory script. So you get rough edges where the boards are broken apart for different boards. Sometimes that interfers with my wishes.
They are in California and half the price of ALLPCB because of shipping but delivery is 15 days from OSH PARK although expedites are available for more money. OSH PARK boards are always purple and come in sets of 3. For some proto boards thats perfect but for production to customers, they are not so happy with the purple. I have bought some simple boards from OSH PARK delivered for less than $3.00 including first class shipping.
Try the PCBSHOPPER and see what options work for you.
For stencils I always use OSH STENCIL. Never had a reason to go anywhere else.
Ulrich Dreher 6 jaar geleden
I saw that (past posting). Now it seems that I have to familiarize myself with the thought to order non-European PCBs :)
ROBERT ALEXANDER 6 jaar geleden
Ulrich Dreher 6 jaar geleden
Unfortunately it isn't really an option to order in California as I reside in Europe.
Ulrich Dreher 6 jaar geleden
Once upon a time . . . it had been PCB-POOL aka Beta-Layout
(https://de.beta-layout.com/) - at a time when the soldermask was an option and a silkscreen not available.
This had been one of the reasons to switch to M+V Breidenbach, now M & V Leiterplatten Vertriebs GmbH (https://pcb-center.de/). Maybe I should revisit them as the quality and reliability of service were absolutely great.
More recently I've switched to Eurocircuits (https://www.eurocircuits.com/) - mainly driven my mere laziness:
I can send my EAGLE (former) resp. KiCad (recently) PCB files without any post-processing. While I have no doubt about copper and solder mask layers, the resulting silkscreen came as some surprise (I hadn't considered this): Just as I would have done it, I got the references printed and the values not printed.
Everything's fine :)
The quality is OK (I only rate OK vs. "scrap") - the only thing I had to get accustomed with: the solder mask is so dark that you have problems to discern your copper fills underneath. (Traces are a lesser problem as they usually result in groves in the solder mask.)
And they offer a lot of add-ons (checks for manufacturability, tools, ...)
If I have one thing to critisize: I had my PCB file checked prior ordering - just to see that it was checked again. And this check took way longer than anticipated. Anyway, they met the deadline...
Honestly: I kindly recall the times when the solder mask was a bright, semi-translucent green that made the traces look like gold.
William Reeve 6 jaar geleden
nikolaos chalikias 6 jaar geleden
We use the PCB and the Assembly services. Eurocircuits are always consistent, responsive, on-time.
nikolaos.chalikias@cit.ie
phonoplugg 6 jaar geleden
www.eurocircuits.com
I like Eurocircuits because they are very reliable both in terms of delivery and quality. They may not be the cheapest, though of the biggest 3 or 4 I think they usually are actually. And while the boards are usually made in Hungary, next day UPS delivery to the UK is usually around just 2 Euros.
www.pcbtrain.com
These guys are great for stencils using their express service. Very cost effective and the shims they use and cutting is very good leading to a very flat stencil. 1 day service as standard which is great.
PCBtrain stencil with 0.4mm pitch QFP (1016kb)
ROBERT ALEXANDER 6 jaar geleden
The reality is that any PCB manufacturer that's still in business is probably more than adequate for my non-demanding hobby boards.
PCBShopper also lets users enter reviews of manufacturers, so I have some confidence that the company I'm choosing is minimally competent.
petrus bitbyter 6 jaar geleden
petrus bitbyter
psj 6 jaar geleden
Not the cheapest, but to my knowlegde one of the feature-richest (IMS, 400u Cu, FPC, etc).
Laurent Le Goff 6 jaar geleden
currently, it's around $ 20 for 10 PCBs (arduino format) delivered in 7 days, or $ 15 for 10 PCB 50x50mm
The follow-up of the production is very detailed
In december 2017, I paid $5 for 10 PCBs delivered in 7 days
https://twitter.com/laurent_le_goff/status/946137177641111554
for my arduino 1284 (https://github.com/llegoff/bobuino)
allpcb-progress.png (116kb)
Royce Richmond 6 jaar geleden
they charge you for the space you use, so if your PCB is really, really tiny is a good option, if it is more than 2 square inch it might get a little expensive.
i have used their service in my robotics projects and college projects.
Although their quality is great, they have issues too, so far i had received one order faulty (all PCB had small dots of copper where it shouldn't), and one half faulty order (just half of the order had the same problem of copper dots). if you send them an email, alongside some evidence of your claim, they resend your order to the fab for free (that's cool).
the shipping is free, but not always reliable, at least for mexico, so that something that's on my side
19248044-821189151369665-61809914262389320-n.jpg (118kb)
Robotics boards (85kb)
mod for a sensor, upwards is my mod, downwards is the original (129kb)