Chinese Pcb Manufacturer Reccomendation.

hope this isnt against forum rules, thought this info might help someone here, and save someone a bit of time.

got some boards made last week used this pcb house in china outstanding quality, price, and turnaround.

contacted roughly 15 Chinese pcb manufacturers for quotes found this one on ebay touting for business.

this outfit was the cheapest 10 off boards, worked out to be 5.2 Gdp double sided top/bottom silkscreen board size 14cm by 13cm. lowest quote i got in the uk was just over 20Gdp

turnaround was amazing 7 days from sending gerbers to receiving boards, brought through ebay /paypal.

sitopway Ltd they are also on ebay. www.sitopway.com

Think this should be moved to the products and services section ...

Great, but no link, can you post photos of their quality?

That looks nice. What CAD package did you use? I am going to have to teach myself a CAD package because I am getting mighty tired of soldering wires on pad-per-hole boards, which is how I do it now. If turnaround is 7 days on these things, I think I am going to do a project that I am planning in a month on a professional board like this.

I don't see a way to automatically send them the Gerbers and make an order on their site. A lot of shops have completely automated systems these days.

There are plenty of Chinese fabrication houses. Personally I use iTeadStudio which gives me 10 boards at 5cm x 5cm for $9.90 (for all ten). Or 10 boards of 10cm x 10cm for $24.90 (for all ten). A similar one would be SeeedStudio, same prices.

JoeN:
That looks nice. What CAD package did you use? I am going to have to teach myself a CAD package because I am getting mighty tired of soldering wires on pad-per-hole boards, which is how I do it now. If turnaround is 7 days on these things, I think I am going to do a project that I am planning in a month on a professional board like this.

I don't see a way to automatically send them the Gerbers and make an order on their site. A lot of shops have completely automated systems these days.

i use design spark, a free great package ive used a few over the years, Eagle does come up a lot here but i think on the free package it limits the workspace, so you are just limited to small pcbs.

each pcb is made up of many layers and a total of 11 files. you then have to send these to pcb manufacturer, always a good idea to check each file using a gerber viewer to make sure everything is good.

circuitpeople.com the best free gerber viewrer i could find.

i think there shops you refer to are middle men getting commissions for boards, im sure the one i used is a direct contact to a pcb house.

you may want to make your own boards i do, double sided including smd components, amazing results look for the toner transfer method.

OP, thanks for the info. I will give this fab a try. I have used seeedstudio and iteadstudio in the past. Same quality as far as I can tell with my simple boards. Yes, they are middlemen. If you read carefully on iteadstudio website, you can find a hint or two where they get the pcb printed :wink:

nice post/share..

seems to be similar/same to iteadStudio (which I use personally).. but this has bigger size threshold/pcb for same price??

(win!)

+1 for Sitopway. I use them all the time. Great quality and the best price I have ever seen.

Is Sitopway cheap for small quantity prototyping?

Let's say 2x3", 10 pcs. Any idea what that would cost?

See the attached. We got 5 of these prototypes made. Total cost, including boards, all parts, assembly and shipping the completed units back to us was $163. They are 4.2" x 2.8". The cost for the 5 boards only was $48.

Just off comparing to iTead. The price is pretty much the same. These boards exceed the 10cm limit and there was and extra charge of $10 for the red, so it prices the same as iTead service would be for the same board. The difference for me is that iTead will not do the parts sourcing and assembly.

As for specific pricing, you'd have to send off your gerber files to Kevin.

I know their price plummets with even moderately higher volumes. We had one PCB bare board we designed for a local school. It was 7cm x 5.5 cm and the cost for 50 boards was $79. iTead's price for that same order would have been $120.

db2db:
Is Sitopway cheap for small quantity prototyping?

Let's say 2x3", 10 pcs. Any idea what that would cost?

not sure, you would have to contact then i will try to find direct contact email, they were the cheapest direct chinese pcb house, i contacted at least 15. 7 day turnaround amazing DHL, just about to place another order again, soon to make a 100 order.

im with BillO, on largeish numbers the price just gets ridiculous cheap

yky_sws@163.com thats a direct email for kevin, very very helpfull and friendly

I have sales@sitopway.com as Kevin's email.

I've been using PCBCart.com since 2007.... have placed bulk orders and re-orders totaling a couple thousand boards with them over last 5 years for several projects. Never had any problems with my boards/products.

On your 1st order, you pay the setup fee.
On your re-orders, you just pay the per PCB cost.

typical 4.5" x 6" PCB is about $3.50 (re-order), with Rohs, Gold Fingers, routed cutouts, routed edges (card connector), and your choice of solder mask color.

Shipping back to the US is about 3 days, via Fedex. Package is on my doorstep the morning of the 3rd day. :slight_smile:

For QUICK PCB prototypes, 3-5 days turnaround ( i.e. final check before I send the gerbers to PCBCart for bulk orders), I use PCBFabExpress.com. Yes, a bit expensive, but the quick turnaround time is great. Typically $90-$100 for (5) boards (any size).

I've used PCBcart as well. Very good and they take Altium files so no gerber mistakes which I like. They even spotted a small mistake once and because they had the CAD file they could fix it.

That said, from what I've heard here I may give Sitopway a go next time, PCBcart's setup fees are a bit steep so the first prototype run is a bit expensive.


Rob

I'll probablly give Sitopway a try too. Digging around their website, I see they do PCB Assembly too (which PCBCart doesn't). And with small minimum orders too!

Yeah, PCBCart is a no-go for first prototype run, but for bulk orders of a proven design, it's great.

Another good company (based in Canada), but PCB manufacturing/assembly done with their partner in China, is Myro.ca
Prices just a tad bit higher than PCBCart, but quality seems also better.... I love their gold plated pads option (but unfortunately, they don't do large areas of gold, like card edge fingers).

I see they do PCB Assembly too

Of particular interest to me at present.

I see they do PCB Assembly too

I wonder what the setup cost is though. I'll certainly be enquiring when my prototypes are debugged.


Rob

Setup cost is just one part... I would estimate approx. $130 (if they're matching other China PCB manufacs out there).

soldering fee (for total TH pad, or SMD part)
Package material fee
Initial/Setup fee
Programming Fee.

If you want them to buy the parts (i.e. you're not shipping them your own parts), there's

Parts Cost
10% Purchase & Exhaust cost (of your total Parts Cost)

  • shipping back to you.

vasquo:
Setup cost is just one part... I would estimate approx. $130 (if they're matching other China PCB manufacs out there).

soldering fee (for total TH pad, or SMD part)
Package material fee
Initial/Setup fee
Programming Fee.

If you want them to buy the parts (i.e. you're not shipping them your own parts), there's

Parts Cost
10% Purchase & Exhaust cost (of your total Parts Cost)

  • shipping back to you.

When you say programming fee, do you mean programming microcontrollers / PLDs or some other type of programming? The reason I ask is my thinking is not to have them program it at all because that requires you to deliver the unencrypted object code to them which creates risks for you. Have appropriate headers as part of the design and do the programming yourself and lock it down. Or am I missing something?

No.
I meant, the PCB assembler, programming their machines (stencil, P&P, oven) to assemble your boards.

It may look like nickel and diming us, but truth is, even with all these fees and shipping from China, it's still cheaper vs. having a US based company manufacture and assemble the boards.

I've sent inquiries to US based companies. They're very arrogant!

  1. They freaking don't respond to you.
  2. If they respond to you and find out you're a small scale business, you never hear from them again.
  3. If they do continue to talk to you, it seems they freakingly almost rob you when they give you an assembly quote... their quote estimate is the equivalent of "here's your ridiculous high quote, now go away."

I tried to give jobs to US companies but they don't want to deal with a small potato like me.
Fine with me... it's going to China.

do sitopway need pick and place files from the design to do assembly, or can they do without them?