Just received mail from ExpressPCB:

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ExpressPCB has three new board manufacturing options that you might be interested in. All have been designed to save. The first is:

* MiniBoardPro - Same as our current MiniBoard service, but these boards include the green solder mask and white silkscreen layers.

Beginning September 1st, we are discontinuing our 4 layer boards without the solder masks. We have replaced those with two very economical multi-layer choices that include the green masks and white component outlines / text. They are:

* 4 Layer MiniBoardPro - Multilayer MiniBoards.

* 4 Layer ProtoPro - Similar to our 2 layer ProtoPro, but with the inner layers.

Learn more about all of these choices here:
http://www.expresspcb.com/ExpressPCBHtm/Specs.htm

If you would like to use these new professional options, you must download the current release of the ExpressPCB software at:
http://www.expresspcb.com/ExpressPCBHtm/Download.htm

We hope that you will find these new offers useful to you.

Thank you for your business,

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It looks like the new MiniBoardPro service is basically:

o Same board size as the standard Miniboard service (2.5 x 3.8 inches)
o Two layers
o Includes solder mask and silkscreen
o $75 for three boards (only $14 more than standard Miniboard!)

Last time I did a 2-layer miniboard-sized board with sm/ss it cost me $200 for four boards, so this is much cheaper.

The new 4-layer MiniBoardPro service is:

o Same as the above except 4-layers
o $98 for three boards

Good deals!

Toshi

Which is good. Still wishig they would discover netting and full EDA in there as well as Gerber outputs. Ah well....

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"My biggest dream in life? Building black plywood Habitrails"

Why should they support the Gerber format? If they did, it would be possible to do a PCB layout on EPCB's software and then give the order to one of their competitors. It's a just another form of vendor lock-in.

I would normally avoid vendors who do that sort of thing, except EPCB's quality and service are excellent. I've had hassles with some of the Asian board houses, especially when the layout is real tight. In some eight years of using EPCB, I've never had a problem of any kind.

As for "netting," their software does support netlists, which can be imported from other electrical CAD programs. I use EPCB's schematic drawing software, and use netlists to assist in wiring up the PCB. They don't have automatic routing (which doesn't necessarily improve the design), but the netlisting is a real help on a dense design. I'd post a copy of a schematic and the matching PCB in which netlists are used, except there's no apparent way to link files to a message.

Even if their own software didn't put out gerber, they should accept gerbers from other software. The fact that they don't is why I don't use them. I want to use my same CAD for every board house.

We recently started using gerber 274X instead of the older 274D. 274X sure makes it easier for the board house to understand exactly what you want on the most complex layers, layers that previously used to require several files and a complex process of negating and merging files in a precise order and even with multiple aperture files to form one layer in our dense boards of up to 12 layers.

The importing of netlists is one I would be pretty stoked about, never did it, I guess. Had certfieid in PADS and using Kicad for a design right now. If I can create a net in Kicad and import to EPCB, then mnethinks that will do ok.

Had used EPCB for many projects, always been happy with their quality.

_________________
"My biggest dream in life? Building black plywood Habitrails"

The volume of boards I do around here is too low to bother with multiple board houses. EPCB fills the bill for what I need.

I've gotten many dense boards of up to 12 layers made for our products, but that was always for work, not hobby so far. The prototype houses are nice for getting small quantities made to prove a design before spending a fortune gearing up for production, so we've used a couple of them, Imagineering, and PCB Express in Oregon (not to be confused with Express PCB). When it's time for volume production, the board houses won't be bothered with EPCB's proprietary software output. At the same time however, I have to say that the board industry is always changing, and low-cost prototypes and high volume don't seem to be separated by such a clear line anymore.

Next I would like to see the price of pick-and-place SMT assembly come way down in the U.S.. There was a time when our most complex boards cost over $2K just for NRE & tool-up for first article for just bare boards. After more of the business started going overseas even for low-volume production, some companies seemed to be getting the picture and streamlining their operation so they could much more efficiently and inexpensively do those jobs and avoid getting put out of business. Now we can get prototypes far cheaper, made here in the States. SMT assembly however is ridiculous. We recently got quotes of $15K to set up for a relatively small board, so that's still going to Taiwan. Hopefully a few companies will see the light and the possibilities and set up Stateside and make it worth it to keep the work here again. Ideally, we could even get our hobby boards assembled this way.

Edit, more than ten years later: Yes, SMT assembly set-up cost, even in the States, has come way down. I believe we're getting prototype assembly done for about one-seventh of the $15K I quoted above, with lots of tiny analog parts (resistors, capacitors, diodes, transistors, plus ICs) and lots of part numbers. Also, we've been using DirtyPCBs for extremely low costs on our simpler boards. I just got 360 about the size of an SD card for $77 including setup and DHL shipping from Hong Kong.

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http://WilsonMinesCo.com/ lots of 6502 resources
The "second front page" is http://wilsonminesco.com/links.html .
What's an additional VIA among friends, anyhow?

I'd be interested in what people got and what they paid EPCB to get it. I have never used EPCB, because of the inability to accept gerbers, but I was wondering how my "proto-board" house compares in price.

Jim

I echo this concern/hope.

I do small run (100 boards) production, PCB manufacture and assembly. I've requested quotes from US houses, and they are orders of magnitude more expensive. A recent 100 board run (1.5" square, 20 components) was 10 times the cost of using my overseas firm.

Sadly, I don't have the same positive experience for small run PCB manufacturing. I just my latest set of boards to a local prototype board house in the US. They were 6-9 times more expensive per board, and 3 times more expensive for stencil creation.

Jim

and

We had some made by Imagineering (pcbnet.com) recently that were about half that size but had 120 SMT pads for mostly 0402 parts, two layers, .031" thickness, .006" minimum trace width, and .008" vias. They give you a tooling charge of $100; but if you do a curve fit on the quote for different quantities, it turns out to an additional $250 or so setup charge, and thirty cents a board after that. We got 250 to prove the design and do the initial production run if all works out fine; but if we had gone for more, each additional board would have been about $0.30-- not bad if you can handle the NRE. They made them in Illinois.

We had some other ones made at the same times that were 2-3 times as big, but much simpler, and those were around $0.30/each also after tooling and setup.

The biggest board we got made at the same time for the same project was about 2.4x4.4", four layers, mixed SMT & thru-hole, and after tooling and setup charge, came to something like $2.50 each, which is amazingly low compared to what we've been used to in past years.

We wanted the faster turnaround and better control, quality, and communication that comes from making the set of boards in the U.S. first. Later we might get them made in Taiwan when we have models of the quality we want.

Board houses like ExpressPCB in Santa Barbara and PCB Express in Oregon are nice if you want much smaller quantities. As I understand it, your boards get absolutely no personal attention on the technical side, so there's no engineering time to pay for, and their computers will put your job on the same panels with other people's jobs; and for just a few small boards, it's possible to get the grand total under $100.