Small run PCB houses?

[Processaurus]

I have gotten outstanding customer service, with quality boards from pcbex.com, and at very good prices for small runs.  It is a chinese business, but they have an office in houston, and are great to deal with, they've helped me get my gerber files straight for manufacturing.

[DavenPaget]

Let me get this point straight , i'm chinese but i'm from singapore .
There's a big margin between a chinese a china-native .
You guys should instead say It's a china business .

[guitarrob]

Personally, I don't care where they are made provided the price is cheap and the quality is high.

[DavenPaget]

Personally, I don't care where they are made provided the price is cheap and the quality is high.

Well i never really trust china when it comes to this sort of stuff .
I saw their PCB silkscreening ... Good if you are just prototyping , but nobody really cares about overall pcb quality , as long it works great and it does it's job , i'm not gonna nitpick .

[guitarrob]

Personally, I don't care where they are made provided the price is cheap and the quality is high.

Well i never really trust china when it comes to this sort of stuff .
I saw their PCB silkscreening ... Good if you are just prototyping , but nobody really cares about overall pcb quality , as long it works great and it does it's job , i'm not gonna nitpick .

You can't just say "China" as the quality would vary the same as it does in North America.
I will do research on these places and if they have bad feedback then chances are they will not get my money.
I would generally try and keep them as close as possible to me to save on shipping costs.
If I get lower quality boards, I won't go back to them.  I am not too much for nitpicking either.  If the board works and is reasonable quality for the price I am paying then I will be happy.  I care about the quality of anything I am paying for, that being said when you are getting into bargain prices for small runs you can really only expect so much.

BTW, your reply in post #21, what are you getting at there?
Just having difficulty understanding the meaning behind the post.

[Gurner]

I don't mind etching at all, and drilling is okay. What I hate is cutting pcbs and all the fiberglass dust.

Use SRPB board instead ....far more DIYer & lung friendly.

[DavenPaget]

Personally, I don't care where they are made provided the price is cheap and the quality is high.

Well i never really trust china when it comes to this sort of stuff .
I saw their PCB silkscreening ... Good if you are just prototyping , but nobody really cares about overall pcb quality , as long it works great and it does it's job , i'm not gonna nitpick .

You can't just say "China" as the quality would vary the same as it does in North America.
I will do research on these places and if they have bad feedback then chances are they will not get my money.
I would generally try and keep them as close as possible to me to save on shipping costs.
If I get lower quality boards, I won't go back to them.  I am not too much for nitpicking either.  If the board works and is reasonable quality for the price I am paying then I will be happy.  I care about the quality of anything I am paying for, that being said when you are getting into bargain prices for small runs you can really only expect so much.

BTW, your reply in post #21, what are you getting at there?
Just having difficulty understanding the meaning behind the post.

OH i meant there's a big difference between us chinese and china-natives .
Those people copy their asses out 24/7 .

[R.G.]

Personally, I don't care where they are made provided the price is cheap and the quality is high.

Well i never really trust china when it comes to this sort of stuff .

You can't just say "China" as the quality would vary the same as it does in North America.
I will do research on these places and if they have bad feedback then chances are they will not get my money.
I would generally try and keep them as close as possible to me to save on shipping costs.
If I get lower quality boards, I won't go back to them.  I am not too much for nitpicking either.  If the board works and is reasonable quality for the price I am paying then I will be happy.  I care about the quality of anything I am paying for, that being said when you are getting into bargain prices for small runs you can really only expect so much.

Just some commentary on "China".

My personal livelihood depends in part on getting quality goods manufactured in China. I've been doing this for some years, so I have some experience.

I get asked about the origin of our manufactured goods all the time, usually in the form of "Your stuff always works right. You must manufacture in the USA, right?" I always give the same answer. We get consistent, quality results from custom manufacturing in China. It allows us to produce goods at a value/$ that is not otherwise approachable. The problem with the general quality of manufactured goods from [insert location here] is that producing quality products requires that you work hard at setting up a good process for producing quality, testing the results and then REPEATING THAT LOOP FOREVER.

You cannot get one good item, think you have it done, then coast. Life is like riding a bicycle - if you're coasting, you're going downhill.

I've dealt with Chinese manufacturing personally. The Chinese involved in manufacturing are businessmen. If you pester them to give you the cheapest possible things they can make, they will do it. However, if you insist on quality goods, they will do that if you pay them for it. The problems with Chinese quality largely result from non-Chinese businessmen demanding the cheapest possible results.

I find all this at least mildly ironic and amusing. I was flogged with the rest of USA industry in the 80s and early 90s when "Made in USA" meant "probably junk; you ought to get it made in Japan to make it good". Manufacturing in the USA was what you wiped off your shoes. It's funny to hear it held up as a paragon of virtue. But many of our customers weren't born at that time, so they never experienced that cultural meme.

[deadastronaut]

 Life is like riding a bicycle - if you're coasting, you're going downhill.

i like that...very true!.

[jimmybjj]

just got my first order from iteadstudio. It took a month to get my boards in florida. There is a significant error in them. Pin 8 did not connect to ground trough the ground plane. I have used this same design with dorkbox a couple times so i know the design is correct. I have emailed them with the pic in this post, i will update as to what the results are. Pretty disappointed, don't like having to use a jumper 

[cloudscapes]

I use BatchPCB for small runs. I like em because they ship via regular post-office. Turnaround isn't the greatest ever, but it's usually within 3-4 weeks. Better than futurlec at least. They're the fastest regular-post-ship I know of. Plus, they often include extra boards! On my last order, I had ordered 4 2x3" boards and I got 8! And the one before that, ordered 1 large 3.5x2.5" and got 2! Score!

I've used Dorkbot once. Turnaround was more-or-less the same as BPCB. The boards seem higher quality too! Gold-plated pads! Slightly more expensive, though.

[cloudscapes]

I've been thinking of using those types of jacks for a bit, the kind that don't stick out of the enclosure. Mind telling us where you get those jacks? 

[iccaros]

I use BatchPCB for small runs. I like em because they ship via regular post-office. Turnaround isn't the greatest ever, but it's usually within 3-4 weeks. Better than futurlec at least. They're the fastest regular-post-ship I know of. Plus, they often include extra boards! On my last order, I had ordered 4 2x3" boards and I got 8! And the one before that, ordered 1 large 3.5x2.5" and got 2! Score!

I've used Dorkbot once. Turnaround was more-or-less the same as BPCB. The boards seem higher quality too! Gold-plated pads! Slightly more expensive, though.

In looking at BatchPCB, I am confused at the file upload, using Diptrace PCB layout, Gerber files export as gbl, but they List GBL and GTL, can I just rename these extensions? also the 10mil separation would require a lot of rework, but having them made would allow dual layer. 

[cloudscapes]

I use BatchPCB for small runs. I like em because they ship via regular post-office. Turnaround isn't the greatest ever, but it's usually within 3-4 weeks. Better than futurlec at least. They're the fastest regular-post-ship I know of. Plus, they often include extra boards! On my last order, I had ordered 4 2x3" boards and I got 8! And the one before that, ordered 1 large 3.5x2.5" and got 2! Score!

I've used Dorkbot once. Turnaround was more-or-less the same as BPCB. The boards seem higher quality too! Gold-plated pads! Slightly more expensive, though.

In looking at BatchPCB, I am confused at the file upload, using Diptrace PCB layout, Gerber files export as gbl, but they List GBL and GTL, can I just rename these extensions? also the 10mil separation would require a lot of rework, but having them made would allow dual layer. 

Yeah I just rename the extensions. If I don't, then after you upload, a form gives you the ability to define which files are used for what exactly.

Unless you're preactically overlapping traces and pads, why would the 10mil be a problem?

[iccaros]

tell me if I am wrong but 10 mill is .39" which is larger than most of component spacing, and diptrace throws errors on 8 pin IC spacing when set at 10mil spacing. Or I just have my rules set up wrong. I would appreciate if anyone had a working rule setting for DIPTRACE, this way I could see what setting they are looking for. They did not give me the option to pick, they rejected until I renames the files.

This one passed their bot, http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14312589/tripower.zip but spacing are not 10mil that I can tell, traces were set at .05" so I am very confused

[iccaros]

Never mind, pulled my head out of fourth point of contact..  changed units, which I did not see before, allowed me to see where my thinking was wrong.

[cloudscapes]

10mil is 0.01 inches. Or a quarter of a millimeter.
You can do really fine SMD work and BPCB will take it just fine, so DIP is never ever a problem.

[DavenPaget]

Well .. Can anyone give me some recommendations on how many mil lead spacing on SOIC should i use and some 1206 vias size + spacing ( well actually using it for 0603-1206 ) .
Maybe even SMF & SOD-80C diode package + D2PAK package .
And SOT-23

[Ice-9]

I've been thinking of using those types of jacks for a bit, the kind that don't stick out of the enclosure. Mind telling us where you get those jacks? 

yeah the first lot of jacks i got were cheap chinese neutriks (supposedly) from ebay.  I have used cliffs which i got locally but now i have settled on rean (neutriks) from Rapid online about £0.47 each

[DavenPaget]

yeah the first lot of jacks i got were cheap chinese neutriks (supposedly) from ebay.  I have used cliffs which i got locally but now i have settled on rean (neutriks) from Rapid online about £0.47 each

Well actually Rean is from china too .