Fast turnaround PCB service

Electronics
#1

Do y’all have any recommendations for a really fast turn around prototype multilayer PCB service?

I know of Dirty PCB but I am hoping to find someone with faster turnaround times.

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#2

I have been going to Circuit Design Specialities in Plano but you pay a premium for it.

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#3
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#4

I use Alberta Printed Circuits (APCircuits) in Canada (!:maple_leaf:!). With their standard options, I can get three 2-layer boards of about 2 square inches (IIRC) down to Dallas in 2 or 3 days for about $90 shipped. (Edit: However, I never use them for anything I’m not in a hurry for. :wink: )

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#5

what do you mean by “multilayer” and “really fast”.

I just placed an order saturday for 5 double sided boards at pcbway.com - it’s shipped and scheduled for delivery thursday wednesday, which I find pretty incredible for $27 including shipping.

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#6

I’ve used AP before and gotten good results.

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#7

I was just talking with a contractor friend earlier today who ordered some boards from pcbway.com. He was very happy with the boards…until he had to replace some components. He said that the foil was fragile and lifted easily. Don’t know if it was due to thin foil or substandard adhesive. He reminded me of the truism, “You get what you pay for”. I have no bias for or against pcbway, just passing on recent experience of a trusted friend.

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#8

Recently my senior design team needed our board printed quickly and we were searching for a PCBs manufacture that was cost-effective and fast. We went through all the popular PCB manufacturer. Our board is a 5 by 5 in and has a modest amount of pads, vias and through hole parts. It was also 4 layers.

  • Oshpark was fast(14- 18 days @ 3 boards) and cost-effective ($165) but had some small issues with sending files from Altium.

  • Macrofab was very cool and also in the ballpark of ~$200 but they only do full population of the board.

  • JLC PCB was the cheapest ($54) and not to slow(15-20 @ 3 boards) .

  • PCBzone was another manufacturer that we looked into. They were a bit on the pricey side at ~300 but would be made quickly (2 days) the only thing was that shipping was from New Zealand. So we were not sure how long it would take.

  • PCBway was another that we looked at and it was in-between Oshpark and JLC PCB. DirtyPCB was also in a similar position.

Some others that I looked at was Expresspcb. The only thing was is that we had very bad timing with the Chinese new year. That basically took out all the Chinese manufacturers. I also looked at the PCB manufacturers mention here; Circuit Design Specialities, Alberta Printed Circuits, Eagle circuits, QC Graphics. Some USA Based manufacturers: screamingcircuits.com, advancedassembly.com, sierracircuits.com, protoexpress.com, smallbatchassembly.com, worthingtonassembly.com. The submit process was not streamlined enough to invest more time into (this was my first time doing this).

We ended up going with the default option that or major uses a lot at Texas A&M, Advanced circuits. They were a little costly at ~300, this was with a student discount and 4 boards, but that was with a 5 day manufacture time and 2-day shipping. We were also familiar with the submit process and they had an account with who we had to go through to get our board purchased. They ended up getting here in about 7 working days and 9 days total.

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#9

I think most likely he just used too much heat or pressure. It’s really easy to do that before you learn how not to. I’ve actively sought out the cheapest boards anyone has to offer and I’ve never seen a board reveal its low cost by delaminating easily. In fact all the board houses in Shenzhen seem to make top quality boards.

Any time I’m at the space I’m more than happy to teach someone how to solder and desolder surface mount stuff. It only takes a few minutes to get the basics down to the point where you’re not too worried about damaging anything.

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