need PCBs protype boards made BUT

I usually have boards made by Elerow but with the latest cornovirus going on I hesitate getting anything from China at this time.
I want to get some boards made here but shopping for price etc.
Only need 3 to begin with but looking at 10 pieces at a later date.
boards are 101.6mm x 152.4mm.
Any suggestions?

MrDEB said:

but with the latest cornovirus going on I hesitate getting anything from China at this time

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The implication is that you are wondering whether you can get coronavirus from handling a board made in China.

MrDEB said:

Any suggestions?

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Yes, education, so that you can make an informed, evidenced-based decision.

No one can say for sure whether you can get coronavirus from a board manufactured in China. Viruses have a limited lifetime outside the "body". In some cases, it can be more than just a few days. There are a lot of factors (temperature is a very big one). See **broken link removed** for a quick read up. Research on coronavirus is being done and some of "lifetime outside the body" is being studied (e.g., **broken link removed**).

I don't care to start a confrontation or partake in a lengthy spit-spat about the issue. Again, I am saying that you can inform yourself, make a realistic estimation of probability and make an evidence-based decision.

I mentioned to LOML at breakfast so here I am.
Thinking about having boards made in the states but searching for opinions. I know not alot is known about the virus.

PCB Express will charge you $89 per board of that size if you order three.

Advanced Circuits has a $33 special. Per board. For quantity 3.

You don't recognize what an incredible value getting boards made in China is. Even if you order in lots of 500, you can't approach the price of Chinese boards with a US manufacturer. I don't recall the name of the place I used to use where I could get five boards made for $85 in the US.

You could use OSHPark in the US to get three boards made for $5/square inch. That makes boards of your size $40 each.

I just got some from JLCPCB. I'll let you know if I get sick. They are located in Shenzhen and are a bit south of Wuhan so we shal***cough***cough*** shall see.

I'll be ordering some boards from China in about 10 days - after the Chinese new year has ended. Currently, don't see any need to take extra precautions due to the virus. That may change in two weeks time when more is known and the boards arrive.

narkaleptk, if I don't hear from you in the coming weeks, full mask and gown will be donned.

Mike.

narkeleptk said:

I just got some from JLCPCB. I'll let you know if I get sick. They are located in Shenzhen and are a bit south of Wuhan so we shal***cough***cough*** shall see.

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I'm currently waiting for some!

Nigel Goodwin said:

I'm currently waiting for some!

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Same here, a couple of batches in fact.

DerStrom8 said:

Same here, a couple of batches in fact.

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same here...small batch..

eT

tried ordering from JLCPCB but looks like I need to wait until Feb 1 for small orders.
I usually order from Elcrow but?

It's Chinese New Year – everything in China shuts down for the week-long celebration.

I realize that.

MrDEB said:

tried ordering from JLCPCB but looks like I need to wait until Feb 1 for small orders.
I usually order from Elcrow but?

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Plain green boards with leaded HASL are still in production and shipped via DHL. Everything else is on hold till holidays are done.

Older post I know, but I believe there is still some concern so..
This is for 3 boards 150mmx50mm ENIG finish shipped. I don't use HASL as I work out of my home which has a swamp cooler and I've found that it can a pain unless I use what I consider to be excessive flux.
aisler.net germany ~$31.00 8 - 12 days -- They are a combiner like OSHPark, but using facilities in both Germany and the US.
oshpark.com USA ~$60.00 13 - 16 days
These prices really are not too bad, most of the Chinese sites were somewhere between them.

I had never heard of aisler.net before this search run, but I think I'll try them out here in about a week.
I've used OSHPark at least 5 or 6 times, with only one bobble, which they corrected and then sent that order over-night.

Of course there are other manufacturers here in the US and Europe, but those started at about $100 for 3, with one US site on the high side at about $300 for 3.
On the other hand, it looks like some of the Chinese sites are running big specials just to get people to buy...

Our latest experience ... Ordering just the boards seems to be ok but takes a little longer ... 15 days as opposed to 10 days

The biggest problem that we ran into was with a board population. We have a board that measures 11.5" by 9" and has lots of components.
Our first quote to populate 10 boards was $4k ... an hour later that jumped to $6k ... The next day the same quote was $14k ... We locked in at $6k with a 31 day turn around ... that was last Wednesday (03-11-2020)

For those prices, we could buy our own pick and place machine ... the other problem if we went that route ... the parts still come from China or outside of the US, and we are back in a similar boat.

Check out JLCPCB I used them for my last order and had fast shipping.
But just unpopulated boards
Max.

I have ordered and received several batches of boards from JLCPCB now. Other than being a little bit slower to manufacture, nobody has gotten sick from them! The virus can't live outside of a host for more than a day or so.

I recently had some boards made under some unusual circumstances. At first, my need was for ten boards, rather small, 67 mm x 79 mm, but of an irregular contour including two rounded notches, one protuberance, and the upper end tapering to a width of 61 mm. See the attached images for an idea of what the pcb looked like. I placed the original order with ITEAD (www.itead.cc), which was for a single lot of ten 2-layer green boards, 1.6 mm thick, 1 oz copper, HASL finish, and fully electrically tested. These came in at a delivered price here to NJ of $30.16 USD. I ordered these boards just before the Chinese new year, so I knew that there would be a delay. In addition, the Chinese government extended the normal one week holiday by at least another week, because of the corona virus. I soon discovered that I would need at least an additional 2 boards, so I placed another order, this time with PCB Cart (www.pcbcart.com). Pricing here, for identical boards, came in at $9.34 USD per board for five boards, plus a $32.48 USD set-up fee and $23.21 USD for shipping, for a total of $102.39 USD, to which they applied a $15.84 USD discount, ending up at $86.55 USD delivered price. The difference between the two companies was obvious when it came to delivery times. PCB Cart delivered the first five boards two weeks after the order was placed. Theirs came in, all figured, at $17.31 USD per board. The boards from ITEAD came in at $3.016 USD each, but took three weeks longer to arrive. The boards are all of excellent quality, with crystal clear screen printing and excellent solder mask application.

Anyone can see that the ITEAD boards were much more cost effective. I do not know how much of the delay was because of the corona virus shutdown coupled with the holiday shutdown, leading to a considerable order backlog. I will try them again under better circumstances, for my next project, just to see if the lead time is any better. Once I have an answer, I will post back here to let the group know how I fared.

cpprioli said:

The difference between the two companies was obvious when it came to delivery times. PCB Cart delivered the first five boards two weeks after the order was placed. Theirs came in, all figured, at $17.31 USD per board. The boards from ITEAD came in at $3.016 USD each, but took three weeks longer to arrive.

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I always use JCBPCB, and they almost always deliver in 5-7 days from date of order, as long I pay for DHL delivery. Obviously the Chinese new year adds a few days extra, and so did the extra shutdown for Covid19 at that time, but they still came through reasonably fast for the circumstances - I was happy enough anyway. Try sticking your gerber file in at JLCPCB and see what price it gives you?, you can get a quote without ordering.

BTW, nice little board

[/b]Elecrow has been my go-to source for circuit boards. Up to 100mm × 100mm 2-sided boards with silkscreen and soldermask on both sides are $5 and usually deliver to the US in just over a week with DHL shipping. Unlike JLCPCB, they don't charge extra for v-scoring to have multiple copies of the same design on one panel that snaps apart.

Recently, I've been using EasyEDA from JLCPCB and have been ordering most of my boards from JLC – they make it pretty simple to do so with just one click. Almost like that was their plan

Here's a penalized board I did at JLC. The boards are separated by v-scores, and routed at the intersections to yield boards with rounded corners.