PCB in bulk - best manufacturer

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Danevandy99

New member
I'm looking to buy some PCB's in bulk, (preparing for next year:)) but I don't know which manufacturer to choose. There seems to be quite a few, and I need some advice on which ones are reputable, in your opinion, and have good prices for bulk PCB's. (And by bulk, I mean over 100.)

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.
Dane
 
Dane,
What are the dimensions of the PCBs in cm?

I've ordered several hundred PCBs this year and it depends on size.
Danevandy99 said:
I'm looking to buy some PCB's in bulk, (preparing for next year:)) but I don't know which manufacturer to choose. There seems to be quite a few, and I need some advice on which ones are reputable, in your opinion, and have good prices for bulk PCB's. (And by bulk, I mean over 100.)

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.
Dane
Click to expand...
 
This will be interesting. I've been thinking of venturing into this as well and would appreciate any good tips, tricks and recommendations.

Thanks
 
I'm looking at getting some SSRneon G2 LED's produced first, and some bigger boards later on. The dimensions of the SSRneon are 7cm x 5.5cm.

Thanks
Dane
 
for good/cheapish production runs http://silvercircuits.com/ i use them all the time. been using them for 5 years or so, only run into a few issues over that time, but they're very responsive and helpful, talk to gary.

for fast/very expensive i use advance circuits in colorado, 4pcb.com service is great, the pcb quality is outstanding.

for good/moderate oshpark.com service is great, laen super nice guy

also cheap, http://dirtypcbs.com/

itead are pretty good too, i use them often for small batches i dont care too much about turnaround time, but they can be slow, othertimes not. pcb quality is ok

pentalogix i'm mixed on, i've had enough problems and they don't have any real difference from the others that i'd use them again. shame since their pcbs are great quality.
 
Dont you need 2oz copper on the ssrez? That elimnates most cheap ones.

pcbway.com is the one i have been useing for thicker copper and odd sizee. They normal get boards built and delivered in a week.

Also as a tip a thinner boards can be drasticly cheaper shipping.
 
budude said:
I got a couple 200 orders via sales-jucy@xjypcb.cn (Jucy Zhao) - just ask for a quote. Good quality boards and fairly quick turn-around.
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How are the shipping costs from xjypcb budude? Also, what payment method do you use with them?


What sort of issues have you had with silver curcuits charlienkris?

Thanks for all your replies.
Dane
 
Danevandy99 said:
How are the shipping costs from xjypcb budude? Also, what payment method do you use with them?
Click to expand...

I don't recall the exact costs but it was a pretty fair price via DHL and they use PayPal. It's a free quote so you can decide if it's a better deal or not. It took a little bit longer than normal but that was because it over one of their holidays.
 
I have used both elecrow and smart-prototyping.

I have found the pricing and quality of both to be great.

These have been orders of 30 boards up to several hundred.

Shipping cost is a matter of patience. In the end, I try to order a lot of boards at once.
When you do that, you can go with the DHL option.
The way I justify 3 day air freight is the cost on a per board basis.
It's usually about 50 cents a board.
In the end, I'm still getting 10 x 10 cm boards for under $1.50.
To me that is just amazing.
I can get 5 x 5 cm boards for about .70 cents, shipped.
 
ukewarrior said:
I have used both elecrow and smart-prototyping.

I have found the pricing and quality of both to be great.

These have been orders of 30 boards up to several hundred.

Shipping cost is a matter of patience. In the end, I try to order a lot of boards at once.
When you do that, you can go with the DHL option.
The way I justify 3 day air freight is the cost on a per board basis.
It's usually about 50 cents a board.
In the end, I'm still getting 10 x 10 cm boards for under $1.50.
To me that is just amazing.
I can get 5 x 5 cm boards for about .70 cents, shipped.
Click to expand...

If you are ordering a bunch elecrow will Dhl ship to you for free (orders over 300$) which can include their component sourcing services
 
Dumb questions...

If I have a design that's 2cm x 5cm and they charge a certain amount for a 10cm x 10cm PCB, can they just repeat the 2x5 design on the 10x10 PCB 10 times? Will they do that automatically or do I need to tell them? Will they cut these into the individual PCB's for me or do I need to do that when I get them?

Thanks,

-joni-
 
Most PCB houses that I use charge for that service.
Some will panelize and some won't.
Most all will charge to do that for you.
Quantity also comes into play.

How many boards do you need?

rjchu said:
Dumb questions...

If I have a design that's 2cm x 5cm and they charge a certain amount for a 10cm x 10cm PCB, can they just repeat the 2x5 design on the 10x10 PCB 10 times? Will they do that automatically or do I need to tell them? Will they cut these into the individual PCB's for me or do I need to do that when I get them?

Thanks,

-joni-
Click to expand...
 
You will need to set it up for them I believe, and what they will do is put v-grooves between the boards. The final dimensions will need to be at or below the PCB size you select. So if you want 10 2x5cm panels, you may need to make them 1.9x4.9 to get 10 on a 10x10cm panel. There is a program that will automatically panelize the PCBs for you, I think it's GerberMerge.
 
Some will step and repeat and it's not big deal. The boards might be too small to be reliably routed. Specify that you want them scored then you gust break them apart.
 
Check out PCB Shopper. You can enter you desired size, number of layers, soldermask and silkscreen and playing requirements, min feature sizes, etc, and it will get you quotes from a wide range of PCB outfits. They also have moderated reviews, so you can get a good idea what you can expect. I selected Seeed Studio for cheap pcb prototype and had a good result.
 
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Dane,
Seeed Studios can't be beat.
10 boards, up to 10x10 are only 4.95. Plus you can vscore identical boards within that dimension for free.
All the color choices are also free.
I've ordered about 1000 PCB from then recently.
Danevandy99 said:
I'm looking at getting some SSRneon G2 LED's produced first, and some bigger boards later on. The dimensions of the SSRneon are 7cm x 5.5cm.

Thanks
Dane
Click to expand...
 
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