Express PCB Plus and BGA's

[ElEctric_EyE]

Hello,
I was wondering if anyone out there, using Express PCB as a board manufacturer, has taken advantage of the new 'Plus' software? Especially those of us who design with BGA and need 'tented' vias, ie soldermask over a via. Has anyone had success? Supposedly it is now possible and I've tried but it seems sorta 'clunky'.

[BillO]

While I don't use Express PCB, I've been using DipTrace and sending my boards to PCBWAY and JLCPCB lately. Tented vias seems to be the default in DipTrace and neither board manufacturer has had any trouble with it. If they can do it I'm sure ExpressPCB should be able to do it - especially for 20 times the cost, you'd expect your boards to come back done right.

I know you probably want to buy 'American', but ExpressPCB are just too darn expensive and restrictive. If you want solder mask and silk screen the minimum is $24 a board, and they have to be 3.8" x 2.5". No slots or cut-outs. Fixed solder mask color.

[matthew180]

I have not used Express PCB either since I don't like to get locked into a vendor. KiCAD + OSHPark is a great combination. My current design has a BGA with 0.8mm pitch and I have no problems running 6mil (0.1524mm) traces between the BGA pads and escaping with a 10mil-drill via with a 5mil-annular ring (19mil total diameter). Vias are all tented by default and OSHPark has no problems. In fact, they go down to 5mil trace/space on the 4-layer boards, and they accept the KiCAD board file directly (no need to generate Gerbers).

In other PCB software I used (Eagle, DesignSpark, CircuitMaker, DipTrace) prior to settling on KiCAD, tented vias were the default... Maybe it's time to ditch Express PCB?

[ElEctric_EyE]

BillO thanks and matthew maybe it is time to do so. I've played around with KiCad and liked it. Thanks for suggesting OSHPark, I've heard of them also, but never investigated. Thanks!

[BillO]

Wow! OSHPArk are even more expensive than ExpressPCB - and it takes 12 days.

My last order to JLCPCB was a 4-layer board of 30.5 sq. in. with my choice of solder mask (I choose red). They sent me 6 of these for $59 and there was an additional $13 for shipping. They shipped them in 3 days and it took another 6 days for them to get to me.

That same order from OSHPark would have cost me $610 and possibly have taken much longer for delivery as I live in Canada.

[DerTrueForce]

DirtyPCBs are a very cheap mob. You do need to make sure you get your design right, though, as they'll make it warts and all, unless they notice something is extremely wacko.
Board size might be an issue, though. The custom sizes make their quote/submission tool go haywire for 4-layer boards.
I got ten lots of a 4-layer, 10x10cm board made for around AU$60. But that's the largest board you can have made for that cheap.

[matthew180]

Interesting, I never even bothered to pay attention to OSHPark's costs since my boards were never very big (never more than $15 to $20 for 3 boards). A 30 sq. in. board would certainly make me think twice though. I'll have to look into JLCPCB. I wonder how their quality compares to OSHPark?

[BillO]

I can't fault them. They are as good as anything I have ever had made.

Here are two shots of the aforementioned board:

And here it is built up:

[matthew180]

Two days ago I needed to order a few boards for testing, and based on this thread I decided I would see what PCBWAY would quote. My boards are small, 52mm x 19mm (about 2" x 0.7") so I figured the cost would be low. As soon as I selected the 4-layer option (I have 4-layer boards), the price jumped, also I need 5/5 mil trace/space. These were all options on their quote calculator and the cost for 10 boards was $101 (the cost for 5 was $100, and for 40 it was $109).

I do not need 10 boards, but I was curious to see how the quality compared, so I submitted my gerbers and had to wait 24-hours for "approval". When I came back to the order after they reviewed my gerbers, the cost was $192 for 10 boards! Needless to say I canceled the order. OSHPark is making me 3 of these boards for $15.20, they accepted and approved the design automatically in less than a minute, and I received an email today that my order is at the fab house (I ordered them Sunday night).

It looks like the best solution is to shop around based on your PCB design files to know the actual cost. I have yet to find one place that is good for everything. But I am very surprised that PCBWAY was going to charge me almost $20 per board! Even the U.S. fabs are not *that* expensive.

[BigEd]

Those prices for 5/10/40 show that that house has a high fixed cost and a low per-area cost. Maybe they make a panel per customer, whereas others maybe make up a panel for several customers and share the cost. Which is something you can only do if you have a fair number of low-volume customers. The best case for the PCB house is high-volume customers!

It's alway true that 4 layer is more: they have to do more than twice as much work. And 5/5 spacing is quite aggressive - maybe that means they have to do everything more carefully, therefore slowly, therefore using more of their capacity, or maybe it means the yield is lower and they need to process 3x or 4x the parts to get fully working ones.

The hole sizes are important too: board houses need to replace drill bits, and smaller bits wear (and break) sooner.

It might not suit your needs, but it would be kind of interesting to know if the cost would be lower if your design was 2x or 4x the size, as a 2 layer and with easier track pitch and spacing.

Which is to say, a smaller board is a cheaper board, but an easier board is also a cheaper board. That must also explain the cost jump after review.

[BillO]

matthew180 wrote:

... so I submitted my gerbers and had to wait 24-hours for "approval".

Odd. I have never had to wait more than an hour - and it's not really "approval" as such. They are checking your boards to see if there are any obvious errors (like a missing layer) so that you don't waste your money making boards that are useless.

Have a look at JLCPCB for 4 layer boards. They are more reasonable than PCBWAY. PCBWAY work out better for 2 layer boards that are 100mm x 100mm or less.

[matthew180]

@BigEd: The 5/5 trace/space is small, but it was not even an option a few years ago when I did the first version of my board. Back then 8/8 was the smallest you could get in hobby quantity, and 4-layers were out of reach. Personally I think cell phones are almost solely responsible for the advancements in capabilities that are now available to us. But PCBWAY offers 5/5 as an option (as well a 4/4, and other sizes too), and I'm only using two sizes of holes.

OSHPark offers 5/5 and 10mil holes on all 4-layer boards, which I need for the 0.8 pitch BGA I have to use. This seems to be typical capabilities these days. I can't really increase my PCB size, I am bound by the 600mil package of the original 40-pin DIP IC that my board replaces. Now that parts costs have come down, and the capabilities I need are available at hobby levels, I can finally make the board I wanted to make back in 2011. Believe me, I would *love*, for once, to work on a design that can use a larger PCB. It always seems I pick projects with very restrictive PCB sizes and pain-in-the-ass PCB pins to deal with.

Certainly making more boards is going to reduce the cost, and you are probably right, I was probably paying for a whole panel or something. But they should at least tell me as much. But I also do not need that many boards right now since I am still proving the prototype and possibly making changes. I was just curious to compare the quality with other PCBs I have had made at various places.

@BillO: I don't know why it took so long, the web page said "1 hour" and it was about 2pm China-time when I ordered. My gerbers were fine for OSHPark to make the boards, so I don't know what the hold up was. I thought I read somewhere that PCBWAY, JLCPCB, and few other names were one-in-the-same company. I don't remember where I saw that conversation, and it may be false.

[GARTHWILSON]

matthew180 wrote:

I can't really increase my PCB size, [as] I am bound by the 600mil package of the original 40-pin DIP IC that my board replaces.

Have you thought about putting parts on both sides?

I've been using DirtyPCBs for hobby stuff and even prototypes at work for the less-complex boards. Three days ago I just ordered 120 boards of 1.250"x.800", two-layer, which will get SMT parts mounted on both sides, tightest pitch being TSSOP, for $52 total, including shipping and expedited service. Vias are tented. DirtyPCBs used to accept .005"/.005" trace/space, but they've gone back up to .006"/.006" because they had too many bad boards at .005"/.005".

Quote:

Now that parts costs have come down, and the capabilities I need are available at hobby levels, I can finally make the board I wanted to make back in 2011.

15 or 20 years ago on this forum, there used to be topics where someone would try to get people in agreement as to what should be on a single-board computer to share the NRE and do a group order. Now the prices are low enough that anyone can do their own (which is good, because agreement was never reached).

Quote:

I thought I read somewhere that PCBWAY, JLCPCB, and few other names were one-in-the-same company. I don't remember where I saw that conversation, and it may be false.

It could be that they, like DirtyPCBs, use a variety of board houses, and they which one they send your design to depends on how busy each one is at the moment and what their strengths are compared to your requirements.

ElEctric_EyE, I know we've gotten a little OT, but you can pull it back of course. I would do via tenting with PCB Express (now part of Sunstone), but it sounds like you're saying ExpressPCB still requires you to use their software rather than using whatever you want and sending gerber and Excellon files.

[BigEd]

matthew180 wrote:

It looks like the best solution is to shop around based on your PCB design files to know the actual cost. I have yet to find one place that is good for everything.

This does seem to be the takeaway: some businesses will have a sweet spot for 100 parts and others for 2 or 3 parts. (I think it might always be worth getting more than a single board, just in case.)

[BillO]

BigEd wrote:

matthew180 wrote:

(I think it might always be worth getting more than a single board, just in case.)

True words.