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Re: Good PCB Prototype shops?
Original poster: "Barton B. Anderson" <bartb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Hi Dave,
I usually have PCB4.com do my pcb boards for me. They are known as
Advanced Circuits. Their price beats the cost of most proto board
houses and their production boards have been quoted a few dollars
cheaper than other houses I've used in the past (when dealing with
500 to 1000 board runs, this dollar savings becomes significant).
They have what they term a DFM check on your board. Basically, they
ensure their CAM department machines will not run into any minimal
spacing widths between traces or pads and ensure drill files match
common sense. They called today at work about a via that wasn't
correct. Found an engineer in Oklahoma used old 4D software and a
conversion program to define the pads. Well, strings were used to
define the pad placement. Out of nearly 500 vias, 1 was forgotten.
Advance Circuits caught the problem and asked the question. They also
put the via in at no charge (of course, likely because I do a lot of
business with them). But they caught it! That's cool! I'll never get
the engineer in OK to update his software, but at least I've used his
software before so I can correct his work if necessary in the future
(a big discussion I had this week at work).
I'm not sure if they have a free software however. I use Circuit
Maker 2000 for my boards, and it runs all the checks I need for DFM
success and exports all the Gerber and Drill files within a click or
two (board houses have never had a problem with any of my files and
their boards are "as designed"). There are some free software's out
there which are pretty good. Eagle is one of them, although I haven't
the need to use it. Everyone has preferences, but regardless,
whichever software you decide to use, you eventually become an expert
with the software. What you find is difficult to do, becomes easy as
you learn quick work-arounds to do what you need to. All software's
have their quirks, this includes Microsim, Electronic Workbench,
Modern Orcad, etc. But any of them will do nicely. From a schematic
standpoint, Electronic Workbench and Orcad are my favorites. The
schematic portion of Circuit Maker 2000 is pre-Microsim era. It takes
a little more work, but it can be made to do just fine. The transfer
from circuit to pcb is excellent however. Traxmaker (Circuit Maker
2000's pcb layout program) is excellent and easy to make new parts
(but don't trust parts in the library unless you've made them
yourself). Simple example is a very familiar 1N4001 Diode hole size
will be too small for the actual diode. Always check hole sizes to
the actual part, no matter what program you use. Don't assume the
program knows the dimensions. This will save you much drilling and
double side soldering.
What is really nice is when your finished with your design, can you
simply export the misc. files and have a board house understand them.
What I like about pcb4.com is you can upload your zip file of
everything and they will run the DFM check within 1/2 an hour. If
there are any problems, you'll get a jpeg showing the problem and
its' location. You can then easily correct whatever the problem is
and upload a new zip file (. When the DFM comes up trouble-free, you
know your ready to let the CAM department produce the board (and
their pricing is better than most). Also, you learn how to set the
electrical rule checks and spacing checks to ensure every board is
trouble free the first time through doing your own spacing checks in
whatever software you use.
Not sure if any of this helps, but I've found Advance Circuits to be
quite more than a simple proto board house. They do high volume
production runs and their product is top of the line, including trace
thickness (2oz, 3oz, etc...).
They are putting board houses out of business, literally (boards are
becoming a more competitive market. Thus, if we know this, we can use
this to our advantage to get good deals on board pricing. They are
hoping you don't know any of this however!). Your quoted price may be
a magnitude beyond what is possible. Of course, in my case, we do
100's of boards at a time, so we get the good deals. And now they
"know" us as a major buyer. Proto boards can be expensive. Keep the
board as small as possible for the lowest price. Don't assume
autoroughting is the best possibility. I've found auto routing with a
small trace width is the place to "start". Then, route each net
yourself and calculate what you need (I use ANSI standards for
current vs tracewidth/ounce).
Take care,
Bart
Tesla list wrote:
Original poster: David Speck <Dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
List,
I need to have 5 copies of a roughly 4" x 6" PCB with plated through
holes made. Any suggestions on good houses to do this for me,
especially one with a free PCB layout program? I haven't seen any
posts on this topic in at least half a year.
Thanks
Dave