Who is your favorite PCB Fabricator?

[ADWSystems]

I have found several threads touching on the subject in a piecemeal fashion. I think it would be nice if everyone, who wants to share, enters there favorite PCB fabricator here. If you have a negative recommendation, you can enter it here as well.

 

[ADWSystems]

No one has a favorite PCB fabricator? How about any I should avoid?

 

[jpanhalt]

It is unclear by "fabrication" whether you mean just making the PCB or making the PCB and populating it with parts.

If it is the former, I have had good service -- friendly and quick -- from OshPark, but it seems to have fallen a little behind on the price curve. Its user interface is very nice and allows you to see the Gerbers it creates from your CAD program.

Other PCB makers also offer to create Gerbers, but some of those places suggest that if you are using Eagle v.7.x that you should make your own Gerbers, which is not hard to do. I am sending off a couple of boards in the next week just to compare two of the lowest cost PCB makers. Another consideration is the price breakpoints related to board size . OshPark goes on the board area, others offer a price for a 5cmX5cm, 10cmX10cm and other fixed sizes. My most recent project was just a little over 5cm X <5cm, so I picked a house that had a 5cmX10cm option.

There are several variables and to pick one as "best" cannot be done. You might get more responses, if you name a few houses you are considering and ask for feedback on them.

John

 

[ADWSystems]

Just the fabrication not the assembly.

I'm hunting for some inexpensive options. I found OshPark through another thread and they look like a good choice. I also found Fusion PCB. I find getting to the PCB section of their site tough but the order entry seems straightforward. They also show the PCB from the gerbers, but they appear to be overseas and the shipping is a fortune.

I'm not looking for someone else to do the pricing eval for my project, I can do that. But I'm not doing so well on finding places to evaluate. So I'm looking for more places people have used, and a recommendation for or against would be nice.

 

[JonSea]

Elecrow, Smart-Prototyping, iTead and Seeed are places I've used with good results. They all offer 50mm x 50mm, 100mm x 100mm with lots of 10 boards. They have various options for larger boards, v-score and panelization. The first two are the price leader at the moment.

 

[Tony Stewart]

My favorite by far is Sierra (Proto Express) in Cali.

But best price depends on qty and lead time and annual commitment. Great shops in S. Korea.

Although I recall a Sperry shop in Bristol Tenn. we had to close down that made large computer systems and PWB's up to 50 layers and had huge steel containers full of liquid gold for plating and a team of chemists to support analysis for trace elements that affect quality in all materials. Very impressive.

 

[Overclocked]

OSHpark +1, but they have gone up a little. On average it takes about 2-3 weeks for 3 PCBs, which is nice for a hobbyist. Ive almost stopped making my own PCBs, usually because I'm not in that much of a hurry. 2nd choice (I havent tried this) is Dirty PCB. Looks like you can get 10 PCBs for 30-40 bucks

 

[JonSea]

Elecrow and Smart-Prototyping provide the following:

Boards up to 50mm x 50mm – about $10 for 10 copies

Boards up to 100mm x 100mm – about $15 for 10 copies

These prices are for two layers, top & bottom soldermask and top & bottom silkscreen. Shipping is extra, and standard shipping can take 2-3 weeks to the US.

 

[Koenig]

i always trustet this list of my preferred software cadsoft eagle:
available in eyery country, was quite good for me as a travelling student.