AVR-Chat

--- In AVR-Chat@yahoogroups.com, "Electroniclab66" <electroniclab66@...> wrote:
>
> I can see that seed-studio has good prices ...
> I am manly looking for good PCB prices ...

Yeah, I'm "manly" too when I look for good prices.

Let me share my experience.  I ordered a small design from Seeed Studio mainly (or was that also "manly") to test the Fusion PCB service.  The board was 1.6  by 1.25 inches and at the time I placed the order the price for this was $20 for 10 pieces.  The order process was laborious, but worked as explained on the Web site.  I selected the cheap shipping so the total came to $23.52.  Note that prices seem to have gone up a little, but more options are available now.

I placed the order on April 2.  I received a notice of an "exception" on the order, but all that means is that they can't ship immediately (they have to make the things first).  The order shipped on April 11 and arrived on April 25.  So, 23 days from order to receipt.  Obviously this would have been less if I'd ponied up a few more bucks for shipping.

I received 12 PCBs, not 10.  Five were packaged separately and marked "tested".  The quality was fine.  In particualy, the finish really was HASL, not just the solder dip you get from some suppliers who advertise HASL.  In other words, there were no bumps of solder on the pads.  In even more other words, planarity was good, so these PCBs would be OK for fine pitch parts.

One weird thing.  I use Eagle, so I downloaded the Seeed Studio DRC file.  Everything was as expected except that the minimum restring was 10 mils.  This is not consistent with minimum trace/space rules of 6 mils and may be an oversight.  So, if you're going to go close to the edge you may want to watch this or ask Seeed Studio if this is an error.  I would expect something closer to 7 or 8 mils.  Mind you, if I had to criticize the boards, I would say that the drills are not in the middle of the pads, so maybe they have a naff drill machine.

Graham.