JLCPCB - slightly off topic.

BillO · Post by **BillO** » Tue May 21, 2019 6:55 pm

This might sound like an add, but it's not - just sheer surprise.

I just ordered up 5 4-layer boards from JLCPCB. Wow, have prices come down. These are fairly big boards 128mm x 170mm (5" x 6.7"). The price for the 5 boards with gold plating was just $59. It would have been only $43 without the gold. I had them do my (smaller) Jaguar computer on 4-layers a year ago and the price was nearly twice that. Also, for 4-layer boards they now allow 3.5mil traces with 3.5mil spacing.

I'm not going to bother with 2-layer boards anymore unless the design is trivial. The 4 layers gives you so much more flexibility in placement and routing, not to mention true voltage planes if you want them.

The project is for a 6502 (although it could be used on any CPU) - so that makes this post on topic.

EDIT: Corrected typo on company name, which was so much fun I did it twice!

whartung · Post by **whartung** » Tue May 21, 2019 8:40 pm

Sounds great! If only I could get a 2 layer design done.

I almost wish I could just do it in a decent drawing program by hand and ship a PDF or TIFF file than fight the ECAD tools.

drogon · Post by **drogon** » Tue May 21, 2019 9:50 pm

whartung wrote:

Sounds great! If only I could get a 2 layer design done.

I almost wish I could just do it in a decent drawing program by hand and ship a PDF or TIFF file than fight the ECAD tools.

I use Fritzing.

It's not a good package by any stretch and if you google you'll find a "friends don't let friends use Fritzing" article.

However it get the job done. (Save often)

The only reason I've stuck with it is essentially inertia. when I looked to do some stuff some 6-7 years ago, KiCAD was't usable and I didnn't feel that Eagle had a hobby-friendly license. Also Linux for me. The project is now more or less dead, but it works for me, for now until I take the time and energy to learn KiCAD. The one thing Fritzing can't do is 4-layer. It's strictly 2 layer only.

But my current 65C02 and 65186 boards are both done with Fritzing.

-Gordon

GARTHWILSON · Post by **GARTHWILSON** » Tue May 21, 2019 10:37 pm

Wikipedia has a brief comparison of a long list of CADs, many of them free, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compariso ... A_software. See also http://pcbshopper.com/cad/ for some info and reviews on free PCB CAD. (This comes from the custom PCBs section of my 6502 primer.)

You could just draw your board out by hand on a large quadrille paper and use the grid to get the coordinates to type up the gerber files into a text editor—if you would live long enough to accomplish it! Gerber files are plain text, and the gerber file standard is pretty simple; but yeah, the size of the job would be unrealistic for all but the tiniest, simplest boards. I'm still using an old DOS version of Easy-PC Professional, for several reasons, and I run it in the DOSbox emulator under Linux. I would not recommend the same software to newcomers though. It's just my situation that borderline justifies continuing to use it.

I've seen many references to JLCPCB recently. Maybe I should give them a try. I've been using DirtyPCBs (which I think is part of DangerousPrototypes) for simple prototypes recently. They're very inexpensive and have given good quality; but they definitely won't do .0035/.0035 trace/space. They stop at .006", and I think .012" is their smallest hole.

Actually this should have all gone in the "Cheap PCB stories... forum topic!

whartung · Post by **whartung** » Wed May 22, 2019 12:19 am

My best success so far has been with EasyCad?? Something like that, it's "web based", but I managed to Forrest Gump my way through it.

But I was able to find an appropriate connector, and a chip mostly what I was looking for, and then I auto routed it and, oh my. But the idea of using those drawing tools to route by hand, just seemed painful.

I glanced at Gerber files, yea, they're mostly pretty simple. There seems to be utilities to convert SVG or PDF to gerber files. SVG is pretty easy to create.

BitWise · Post by **BitWise** » Wed May 22, 2019 7:42 am

I ordered two sets of boards from JLCPCB last week. The first arrived back by DHL on Monday and the other should be out for delivery today.

The vast majority of the cost for both boards was the DHL shipping. Both where designed with DesignSpark.

drogon · Post by **drogon** » Wed May 22, 2019 8:21 am

BitWise wrote:

I ordered two sets of boards from JLCPCB last week. The first arrived back by DHL on Monday and the other should be out for delivery today.

The vast majority of the cost for both boards was the DHL shipping. Both where designed with DesignSpark.

Do you have an EORI number? Seeed wanted me to use one for DHL or FedEX shipping to the UK ...

-Gordon

BitWise · Post by **BitWise** » Wed May 22, 2019 10:02 am

drogon wrote:

BitWise wrote:

I ordered two sets of boards from JLCPCB last week. The first arrived back by DHL on Monday and the other should be out for delivery today.

The vast majority of the cost for both boards was the DHL shipping. Both where designed with DesignSpark.

Do you have an EORI number? Seeed wanted me to use one for DHL or FedEX shipping to the UK ...

-Gordon

No I don’t. I don't think that legislation applies to imports for personal use. If you import to resell then you would be an 'economic operator' and would need a code. At least that's my understanding of regulation.

BillO · Post by **BillO** » Wed May 22, 2019 11:57 am

I've been using DipTrace for some years now. Back in 2009 I had looked at several cheap/free CAD tools but DipTrace was the one I came up to speed with quickly. They have some pretty reasonable licenses. For free you can design any circuit you want, but only produce 2 layer boards with 300 pins or less. I know they say it's $75, but the software seems to work nonetheless without the key. For $395 you can get their standard license (4 layers and 1000 pins). Back when I bought an unlimited license it was $250.

Anyway, they do allow you to try it out.

EasyEDA is available for free and you can even order your boards from inside the application. Have not tried it though.

cbmeeks · Post by **cbmeeks** » Wed May 22, 2019 12:34 pm

I highly suggest people learn KiCad. If I can learn it, anyone can.

My biggest gripe (and this isn't KiCad directly) is matching my components to the packages. I wished there was an easier way to do that.

drogon · Post by **drogon** » Wed May 22, 2019 12:35 pm

BitWise wrote:

drogon wrote:

BitWise wrote:

I ordered two sets of boards from JLCPCB last week. The first arrived back by DHL on Monday and the other should be out for delivery today.

The vast majority of the cost for both boards was the DHL shipping. Both where designed with DesignSpark.

Do you have an EORI number? Seeed wanted me to use one for DHL or FedEX shipping to the UK ...

-Gordon

No I don’t. I don't think that legislation applies to imports for personal use. If you import to resell then you would be an 'economic operator' and would need a code. At least that's my understanding of regulation.

Hm. Seeed simply won't let me select DHL or FedEx without an EIRO, (which I have, anyway), however the surface post is just as quick IME and doesn't need it. Might give JLCPCB a go next time though!

Cheers,

-Gordon

cbmeeks · Post by **cbmeeks** » Wed May 22, 2019 12:41 pm

I've used JLCPCB twice and I love their work. I only had two issues with them and they were really minor (for me, anyway).

One was they claim you can put the "batch number" (or whatever it's called) on the back by creating a label called "JLCJLCJLC" (it's something like that...can't remember exactly) and then put that label on the back of the board. I did that and it didn't work.

Second issue was that I emailed them about the first issue and they never responded.

That wasn't a deal breaker for me and I would gladly use them again.

BillO · Post by **BillO** » Wed May 22, 2019 4:29 pm

BitWise wrote:

The vast majority of the cost for both boards was the DHL shipping. Both where designed with DesignSpark.

I use ePacket to Canada. It will take 6-8 working days (two weeks (+/-) total) but is 1/3 the price of DHL.

BillO · Post by **BillO** » Wed May 22, 2019 4:35 pm

cbmeeks wrote:

I highly suggest people learn KiCad. If I can learn it, anyone can.

My biggest gripe (and this isn't KiCad directly) is matching my components to the packages. I wished there was an easier way to do that.

I had tired KiCad but not my cup of tea. I was able to get things done faster with DIpTrace. Not that KiCad is bad - just didn't suit me.

DipTrace allows you to build you own shape libraries and either import your favorite shapes from those supplied or make your own. About 3/4 of the shapes in custom libraries are home made or ones I've modified from the DipTrace libraries.. That way you get them as you like them.

LIV2 · Post by **LIV2** » Mon May 27, 2019 9:14 am

I've used JLCPCB a couple of times and they are definitely quick and cheap even for a 4-Layer with ENIG

One thing I noticed though was that if your design doesn't meet the requirements for clearance etc they seem to tweak it to make it work (though I'm sure I set my DRC to match their rules), I'd prefer they tell me so I can fix it but I can see how some people would prefer quicker turnaround etc. I'll take some photos tonight to show what I mean.
I'm a complete noob when it comes to PCB design though so I'm sure it's not even something most people will have to worry about

:edit: actually I couldn't have set my DRC correctly, not even close by the looks of it

JLCPCB - slightly off topic.

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