CustomPCB in Malaysia

[Unbeliever]

For those who look outside of their own countries to get PCBs done - I just received a batch of production PCBs from CustomPCB in Malaysia (http://www.custompcb.com/). It took 12 days, including shipping to Australia, to receive some nice double-sided boards. The quality is perhaps not *quite* as good as boards I've had made locally (the PCB material seems very slightly of lower quality, and a few of the drill holes are very, very slightly out of place and 'rough') but for effects stuff it's more than good enough. They accept Protel (what I used), Eagle and Orcad () formats, and have a decent prototyping board pricing also. Worth a look.

[Toney]

Thanks for the heads up. Any chance of some pics?
What are their costs like for small runs?

[Unbeliever]

Thanks for the heads up. Any chance of some pics?
What are their costs like for small runs?

I'll get some pics later on today.

Depends what you mean on 'small' - they have pricing on the site for prototype and 'single panel' runs, if that's what you mean. That would probably cover a whole bunch of small guitar boards, and they will even de-panelise stuff for you (at a cost, though).

[Toney]

Hey thanks.
I am not famiar with the term "de-panelise' whats this?

[Unbeliever]

PCB factories generally work with a 'panel' of material for production purposes - by designing and sizing your PCB to fit as many copies on this panel as possible, you can save money (as you'll pay for the entire panel even if you use only a fraction of it, unless the company adds in other PCB layouts themselves of course). Depanelising is the process of cutting up the panel into individual PCBs if you've designed multiple copies into it to start off with. Some companies allow you to submit pre-panelised designs (i.e. where you already have placed multiple copies of the same PCB layout), whilst others want to do the panelisation themselves.

HTH!

[Toney]

Thanks!

[brett]

Hi.
Those of us that use ExpressPCB only have access to producing .DXF format files.  Are these ok or convertible to any of the more desirable formats?
I'm completely inexperienced in having someone make boards for me.  Do you mind saying what your job was and what it cost?  I have about 50 fairly simple 70mm x 40mm single-sided boards to do and don't fancy doing that much manual drilling (5000 holes!). 
thanks

[Unbeliever]

Not sure ... is .DXF a 'standard' format or ExpressPCB-specific? You can always contact the company and ask them - if they can do it, they'll let you know. They'll do a quote for you if they can.

I'd rather not reveal details of my order, but the final price was at least 20% cheaper than getting it done locally AND they delivered more quickly than a local house would. Lead-time is typically 10 working days here in Australia unless you want to pay more $$$. I thought I'd mention the company because they offer the prototyping service, a 'panel' service and - of course - full production, and I think many people here - if they can get their stuff into a suitable output format - might be interested. One downside though - their silkscreening (of parts values etcs) is *very* expensive. It seems like they sub-contract this bit out. I ended up not getting silk-screening for my boards.

[trevize]

DXF is THE standard format. is a vector based drawing format designed for data exchange between applications, hence the name Drawing eXchange Format.

They can read it, for sure. Any cam can read dxf BUT (i've got no experience on this, just speculating)
when you manufacture pcb you need to tell where are the drill holes, how big they are, silkscreening on the top
for parts etc.

Express PCB is designed to be a NON-industry standard. In other words, if you want pcb from direct pcb you have two solutions:
DIY or ExpressPCB.