Prototyping PC Board with plated through holes at a reasonable price

[HAL]

Just wanted to mention that I recently came upon proto-boards by a company called Electro Cookie.  They seem to be reasonably priced and with plated through holes do not need gobs of solder to hold a component as the strip boards do.  Have a look....
 
They can be found at Amazon address: 

https://www.amazon.com/ElectroCookie-Solderable-Breadboard-Electronics-Gold-Plated/dp/B07ZV8FWM4

[trastikata]

Hal, I simply design my own and order them manufactured by JLCPCB - 5pcs x 10x10cm cost 2USD with 7USD shipping. Can't beat that.

[joesaliba]

Hal, I simply design my own and order them manufactured by JLCPCB - 5pcs x 10x10cm cost 2USD with 7USD shipping. Can't beat that.

Same here

[Dompie]

Yes JLCPCB, I've tried other european companies but JLCPCB beats them easily.

Johan

[John Lawton]

I've been using https://www.pcbway.com/ for some time and have been very happy with the board quality.

John

[rick.curl]

Another vote for JLCPCB.  They've always been great- but if you want to see a comparison, go to pcbshopper.com

-Rick

[BriPSmith]

Another thumbs up for JLCPCB, great value, good quality and very quick.

[Craig]

JLCPCB Is Brilliant and Very Well Priced with Excellent Service.
Regards
Craig

[John Drew]

I'm about try them out Craig. The decider for me was their reasonable freight charges.
John

[Craig]

Hi John
They are Absolutely Brilliant, I ordered Some PCB's From them a week ago and they were Delivered to me on my Farm
Which is far out of town In South Africa in less than a week. Their Quality and Finishing is Excellent,
I ordered PCB's and Stencils from them and it is always a Wonderful Experience. On My Next order I will have some of the
SMD Parts Placed through their alliance with LCSC.
Regards
Craig

[trastikata]

On My Next order I will have some of the
SMD Parts Placed through their alliance with LCSC.

It is wonderful service at JLCPCB - I've been using it for a while and prices are very low - project setup fee is 7$ only and minimum 2 boards to order. Passives cost fraction of the cent, IC's are China supply prices - can't really find better than that.

Something you should be aware:
- PCB assembly is only one sided
- they have a lot of the so called "Basic parts" or preloaded for which they don't charge for "loading" in the machine fee. So when I design something to be ordered there for assembly, I check first with their library which parts are "basic".
- Sometimes "Extended parts" or those needed to be handled by employees specifically for your project and thus have extra fees, can be ordered only in certain minimum quantities. For example you have a project requiring 5 PCBs or 5pcs of IC ABC123, but they charge you for 12 pcs IC ABC123 anyway because this is the minimum order quantity - in this case I usually increase my order say to 10 or 15 because the extra cost for passives and PCBs is only marginal.
- Can't assembly smaller than 20mm in any dimension I believe but you can do it in a panel
- Needs tooling holes for placement

Here is an example of my latest order - Pic1 - PCB's are 10x10mm and using 0402 components, Pic2 - PCB's are 10x50mm and using 0603 passives.

[Dompie]

Hi Craig and Trasikata
Didn't really think about having a part placed in SMD by LCSC. Smart, I think SMD is too messy for my hobby projects but this opens up new perspectives for my model train (1:160 scale) projects with pcb's in the train.
Thanks,

Johan

[HAL]

Gentleman, if I may ask, what PCB design program do you use for board design and to ultimately generate the Gerber file?

[normnet]

Diptrace is one possibility for board design.  There is also a non-profit version available.

[Colin G3YHV]

I bought sprint from Abacom  -  designed my board very easily
then sent the gerbers etc to JLC PCB  results were excellent and very cheap.
I also used all pcb  -  again results were perfect but things got confused
with emails in  broken English going back and forth -  I think they lost my first order
but would not admit it blaming all sorts of odd things! however board eventually arrived ok.
Sprint is very easy to use.

.

[Craig]

Hi Hal
I use Diptrace and find it very good. You might have a Look at Kicad which is free.
Regards
Craig

[John Drew]

I find Kicad meets my needs and it's easy to learn and, better still, as Craig says "It's free".
John

[JonW]

If you use the Easy EDA on the JLCPCB site the board verification process is very slick and is instantly approved.  If you use the SMT service then the parts are also automatically assigned and its a very easy process.  We use Altium but lately for fast turn we have used Easy EDA and its very impressive and totally free.  Takes about an hour to get familiar with it

[Dompie]

As JONW said, EasyEDA with JLCPCB are almost integrated and EasyEDA works fine for me. The learning curve is a little steep for a former civil engineer but after a tree time trial it fits me perfect.

Johan

[CPR]

Big vote for JLCPCB here. Professional boards at ridiculously low prices especially if you don't need them in a hurry. An early user of Sprint layout & now Proteus suite. Anyone venturing into 3D printing? I've tried quite a few of the CAD packages. Ansys Spaceclaim (IMHO) is the best for me and the most "intuitive" I've come across. DSM (Design Spark Mechanical) is a cut down version of it's (bigger Ansys) brother and free (registration required) OpenSCAD - excellent if you like "C" and a wholly parametric approach to designs, but ultimately gets limited fairly quickly for more complex parts. Freecad? LOL!!! An absolute horrendous mess guaranteed to put you off tackling anything CAD for life. Tinkercad? The Fisher Price cloud based get-you-started toy. No thanks. Blender? Fab! but more geared toward organic shapes. Fusion 360? maybe, free yes, but AutoCAD aren't up there in the trust stakes exactly and they'll likely screw you, once you're hooked into their ecosystem somewhere down the line...