[chbot] pcbzone.net boards (The review...)

[Chris Hellyar]

Last reply to myself on this one. :-).

The small 'test' boards turned up today at home from the pcbzone folks:

http://logicalit.biz/forumimages/101124-panel.jpg

They would have been here yesterday if I was in the city, but I put my
RD address on there for delivery.  Will use my work address in CHCH next
time around.

The boards were sent by NZ couriers, in a panel per the image, wrapped
in tissue, in a bubble-bag and then inside the courier bag. Full marks
for shipping.

The boards are nicely made,  routing and drilling is clean, etching is
sharp and mask is good quality.  The screening is sharp and doesn't
easily scratch off like some of the really cheap boards I had done in
Asia when I was manufacturing.  (And from my previous NZ based pcb
supplier, one of the reasons for trying a new one.)

Interestingly there's five sizes of hole, and the website says to keep
it to three, that's my bad for not noticing when I was proofing the
board on screen.  On the plus side, nice to see they didn't delay the
boards and come back to me requesting I change them.

And speaking of holes, they're all plated through which is interesting.
I assume because they stuck my boards on the end of a panel with some
double sided ones as the whole top surface has been etched away.  (See
first photo, silver edging is the top later copper)  Up side, they're
plated through, down side, desoldering on prototypes more likely and
desoldering pth holes is sometimes a pain.

I also didn't notice on screen that my solder mask margin was a bit
large, although not a big deal as I don't have any tracks going through
the 805 SMD stuff on the copper side.

On the soldermask the registration is out a little, in the order
of .25mm maybe?  Not a show stopper on this board, and I'm going to
assume that part of the issue was my huge mask margin as one corner of
the square pads lines up perfectly with the mask.  Smaller margin next
time around me thinks.. :-)

Hi-res of both sides of the boards for those interested:

http://logicalit.biz/forumimages/101124-copper.jpg
http://logicalit.biz/forumimages/101124-comp.jpg

The transaction side of the process was pretty smooth. I used paypal,
the site worked, and the email sent back as confirmation had enough
detail to be useful.

The only thing missing was the magical words GST receipt/invoice.  The
confirmation email has the GST number, but is missing the bits that make
the accountant happy.

The website doesn't give you order/board history, or a re-order feature
which would be handy, but otherwise it's functional and to the point.
Upload the files, pay your money, and go.  Says it all really. :-)

One thing I felt that was missing that would have been nice is an email
once the boards had been panelled up to let me know they were going to
manufacture, although 4 working days is not a long time there is always
a little bit of 'fear of the unknown' when sending digital files off for
manufacture and a bit of reassurance that they at least pass the eyeball
test would be nice.

Once again, for someone reading this long after the fact their customer
service before the order was also good as I made an inquiry about
comparability with kicad plot files, and they happily took a test file
and sent me back a PDF proof.

Now, to go dust off the toaster oven, errr, reflow soldering system, and
assemble one of these wee beasties and see if I laid it out
correctly! :-).  (And to see how many of those sodding smd resistors I
drop on the carpet the workshop while hand-placing them!)

So there you go.  Boards are good, service was good, price was fair for
low volume / prototype work and my only real gripe would be no
communication after the upload & sale confirmation to let me know I
didn't send them useless files.

I'm happy enough to be now intending to send them some larger / more
complex boards in a few weeks..  Thanks for the pointer Mikael.

Cheers, Chris H.

On Tue, 2010-11-16 at 08:36 +1300, Chris Hellyar wrote:
> Replying to myself, because that way I can pretend to have
> friends..  :-)
> 
> I just uploaded a small (40x33mm) board to pcbzone about 10 mins ago.