Online PCB Services?

If I need a few boards quickly I use OSHPark.  For a better price in quantity orders I use AllPCB which takes a few weeks to ship from China.  Others have reported also having a good experience using jlcpcb for quantity orders.

Bob

@Dennis-LaRock posted:

Anyone ever used a service like https://jlcpcb.com/ to create/recreate boards?  Quite the website... and, seems incredibly inexpensive.

I use them all the time, and they are very inexpensive.  I've also used SEEED Studio Fusion for PCB blanks, they're also cheap if you stick to their "standard" parameters.  I like JLCPCB because I can pick the thickness and color of the boards, allows a little personalization over the basic green.  I also do many boards that are .08" thick instead of the standard 0.16" that is pretty standard.

SEEED Studio Fusion just did ten PCB blanks for me that are 2" x 2" for $6.42 shipped.  It took about three weeks to get them, not bad for that board size and quantity.

Note that OSHPark would have charged $17.75 for three of these boards!!!

I have used JLCPCB quite a bunch over the last 3-4 years. Their site is quite easy to use, the price is good, particularly for larger board orders which need panelizing, and there have been no quality issues or other problems ever. They also offer something called global direct shipping which is way less costly than DHL or other couriers, and the boards usually arrive within 2-1/2 weeks from order. Regular board production time is often only 2-4 days for 1.6 or .8mm thick 1 oz copper.

For a small run of test boards, 3 or 6, OSHPark is likely the best way to go, plus you can get 2 oz copper at no extra cost. Their cost is $5 per square inch for a quantity of 3 boards, which includes shipping by regular mail.

Rod

I use PCBway in China.  They are inexpensive and the turnaround time is 6-7 days.  10 boards for $5 and about $19 shipping.  I save up 4-6 designs to share shipping.

A friend who restores vintage computers uses them for motherboards for 1980s and 1990s Macs -- which is a wild project in reverse engineering compared to anything related to trains. He had an issue with a single batch of boards that had one component installed in error, quick fix and JLCPCB supplied the correct part without issue. He said they did offer to replace the component on the boards if he shipped the boards back, but it was an easy swap so he did it himself. Based on that recommendation, I would use them for anything related to PCBs.

@carl552 posted:

I use PCBway in China.  They are inexpensive and the turnaround time is 6-7 days.  10 boards for $5 and about $19 shipping.  I save up 4-6 designs to share shipping.

I used to use PCBway for boards and also for turnkey assembled board products.  However, I had several component problems and sloppy assembly with their turnkey assembly service in a row and decided to move to a different outfit for my products.  I'm sure they probably don't miss my little orders for a few hundred boards at a time, I suspect their bread and butter is stuff that ships thousands of units.