Found a place for cheap pcb manufacturing

"Is that what all my "stop mask" errors are? Silk screen that overlaps something? "
Yep. Large qty of them will be the outlines around connectors for instance.

CrossRoads:
"Is that what all my "stop mask" errors are? Silk screen that overlaps something? "
Yep. Large qty of them will be the outlines around connectors for instance.

So then all the slik screen is going to make an error, since its all on the stop mask.

I wouldn't worry about it as long as your Ref Des #s are clear and not intefering with connector markings or parts placement markings.

My first post mentioned that I ordered my boards from: http://www.oshpark.com/ It's been a while and since then the boards came in, have been populated and my layout is up and running. Manufacturing them and delivery took around 30 days but if you are in no rush then do recommend them. The quality is great for prototype boards. The drill hole alignment on the pads was well centered but the silkscreen was off a bit only on the backside. No worries there as long as the drill holes are good.

This was my first custom board so dropping the bootloader on was interesting. It turned out to be easier then what I was expecting. In my world, that never happens.

Check it out at:

skyjumper:

CrossRoads:
"Is that what all my "stop mask" errors are? Silk screen that overlaps something? "
Yep. Large qty of them will be the outlines around connectors for instance.

So then all the slik screen is going to make an error, since its all on the stop mask.

Not exactly. The stop mask layer is a negative layer. IOW, it indicates where the solder mask will not be. Ideally, there wouldn't be any overlap between the silkscreen and the solder mask layers.

I found that using vector instead of proportional text dramatically reduced the number of spurious stop mask error reports
my guess is that proportional defines a rectangle to hold the text
if that rectangle crosses a stop mask - ALARM ALARM the world is falling in
by converting the text to vector is just moans where there's a real problem

basically you don't want the silk screen printing on top of where you're trying to solder
IMHO YMMV

Like I said: "I wouldn't worry about it as long as your Ref Des #s are clear and not intefering with connector markings or parts placement markings."
I personally think proportional ends up looking better.

One debugging step I have learned the hard way is to view only layer 19 the unrouted layer. In a complex board you may not be able to see short unrouted air traces, by only showing the unrouted layer you of course can see them clearly if they are there.

Unrouted traces can occur if you route by hand or auto so I think this is a good debugging step.

wade

wwbrown:
One debugging step I have learned the hard way is to view only layer 19 the unrouted layer. In a complex board you may not be able to see short unrouted air traces, by only showing the unrouted layer you of course can see them clearly if they are there.

Unrouted traces can occur if you route by hand or auto so I think this is a good debugging step.

wade

I so wish there were a way to include a test for airwires in the DFU rules. I accidentally sent a board off with an unrouted trace... d'oh! Though in the end it was an excuse to add a bit more functionality to the project with another revision, it was still an aggravating mistake.

Using the Rats Nest reports on the number of unrouted traces.
I change the color to yellow to make them easier to see.
The really little short traces right on top of pad are the hardest to find.

I order my boards at http://imall.iteadstudio.com/ but it almost passed 2 months and I'm still waiting.Does anyone already order boards on them and how did it take to deliver the boards?
I have more boards to send to fabrication but with this delay I need to find another pcb house.
My hope is to find a good one in Europe 8)

itead delivers to me in eastern US in about 3 weeks. 2 weeks of that seems to be clearing customs, shipping, and clearing customs.
Total time to Australia has been reported as 2 weeks.

I have usually gotten my boards back from Itead in a month

Normal shipping from iTead to me has been roughly 3 weeks-ish. Expedited shipping came back in a week.

OSHPARK has become even more affordable. I ordered 1.25 inch x 1.25 inch double sided PCB for $7.80 for 3 pieces (We need to order in triplets) making each PCB for $2.60. The price was including shipping. Its awesome price. I am still at prototyping stage so this price is quite good. I ordered on 2nd July , expected delivery is by this weekend. I'll keep you'll posted as to how much time it took. And this was my first time ordering PCB with them.
I do want to know if I can lower price of each PCB to under a dollar as I may need about 50 of them. Any ideas?

iTead or Seeedstudio are both $10 for 10 pieces, up to 5 cm square, or $40 for 50 pieces. If you want to get clever, you could panelize 9 of your designs onto a 10x10 cm board, $25 for 10 pieces. You'd need to cut them apart yourself, but that would give you 90 boards for $25, or $0.28 each. I've only done one board with them, but I was entirely satisfied with the quality and turnaround time. http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/fusion-pcb-service-2-layers-p-835.html

Even OSHPark will do $1/in^2 with a minimum order of 150 in^2. For your board, that would be $1.56 each. Less than the small-run option with them, but quite a bit more than shipping it off to China.

Edit: That price from seeedstudio isn't exactly comparable to OSHPark, as it doesn't include the ENIG (gold plated) finish on the boards--that adds $16 to the order (and that looks like a flat amount--it doesn't seem to depend on the number or size of the boards ordered). And, of course, they don't have the purple solder mask, though a number of other colors are available.

Possibly of interest...

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paulstoffregen/teensy-30-32-bit-arm-cortex-m4-usable-in-arduino-a/posts/305527

http://www.meatandnetworking.com/resources/cheap-prototype-pcb-comparison/

Indeed. I have to believe that iTead and Seeed use the same fab. The prices and offerings are identical, as are the specs, last I checked. I've used both and the boards look identical. For some reason, I get faster (and more consistent) turnaround time from Seeed, just over two weeks. From both, I've had drill hits that I thought could be centered better and the silk screen on my last order was thin. There is definitely some batch-to-batch variation, but I've never had a board not work. I don't suppose my designs are pushing the limits very hard though, in fact I make efforts not to. I've also used OSH Park, their boards are super, obviously superior in several respects.

My last ITead order was accepted on the 11 September. ITead received the boards on the 18 September and I received them via DHL on the 20 September.

Hi,
Sounds very interesting and helpful! Thanks for sharing Electronics hobbiest .Nice price about PCB, i have doubt about their Quality and Reliability, i have been using PCB from a
PCB manufacturer since 2010. initially First time i was started my Electronics works by using cadSoft, now i'm Producing some electronic products thats why lots of PCB demands in every week. I'm delighted about their Quality PCB, reliabilities etc.
Thanks

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