BatchPCB review: thumbs up!

Archive BatchPCB
1

Just got my boards back from BatchPCB, and thought I’d share a few thoughts with the community (unasked-for thoughts, but hey, that’s life).

I never received any emails after the “Panelized” email. So I had no idea of the progress or status of my order. Since I wasn’t in a hurry, I didn’t really mind, since others had reported a high level of reliability (if not timeliness), and BatchPCB is specifically NOT for hurry-up projects.

I only ordered two copies of the same design, but received THREE. Not that I’m complaining, but I wanted to alert Sparky/pittuck to a potential money-losing hitch in their operation. If the third board was a present from GoldPhoenix, well Thanks, guys!

The quality of the board itself was quite good. Some additional, unasked-for silkscreening (the characters “#41.1” appear on the board) was weird, but not disruptive. I assume this is part of the GoldPhoenix panelization process.

My design included some silkscreening that was placed directly on top of a solder pad here and there. While other fab houses do not render the portion of the silkscreening that overlaps the solder pad, apparantly GoldPhoenix DOES. Since this is a flaw in my board design based on faulty assumptions, and didn’t really affect my project, I have no problem with this, but other designers should BE AWARE, that if your design includes silkscreen that overlaps a solder pad, THAT SILKSCREEN WILL APPEAR ON THE BOARD. How this affects the conductivity of the pad, I have no idea.

The solder pads appear to be pre-coated with solder (to be confirmed). This was unexpected, but again, not the end of the world.

Traces were well defined (even at 10X magnification), and all connections check out with a naked-eye verification.

Overall, except for the $10 handling fee (which is understandable, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it :-), sparkfun has been a very positive experience, and I will definitely use it for future projects.

Thanks again guys!

2

I just received another batch, and the status on batchPCB still said label printed last I checked. Still some bugs? These were also the first boards that have the extra silk screening (not the same on all boards). I also noticed that most(but not all) pads have solder on them. Unfortunately I did not receive any extras!

Avery

3

Yep, after starting my project last night, I’ve confirmed that all the pads, and even the vias, are solder-plated (though not with enough solder to actually be useful). As well, the soldermask seems to come away from the board a little too easily. Nothing major, just have to be careful…

4

Just one comment about my experience: My first (inexperienced) design originally had much of the silkscreen on top of both vias and pads. When I received the finished board the silkscreen did not show up on top of either vias or pads.

Heh, now I know better… you generally don’t need to have silkscreen labels for all of your 20 identical resistors :slight_smile:

5

I just received my first batchpcb pcb’s, and I’m very happy with the quality. I also received an extra board, although I believe this is due to the fact that gold phoenix make 2 copies of everything in case one stuffs up, and if they both work then you get both :slight_smile:

When sparkfun was changing from the old systemt o the new one I used another board house for the same board and the quality was shocking, 1/2 the soldermask flaked off before I’d even populated the board, and then there were shorts and manufacturing problems all over the board, including some scaling problems which means multipin parts such as CF connectors were more and more out of alignment as you went further down the board.

6

Caffeine:
I just received my first batchpcb pcb’s, and I’m very happy with the quality. I also received an extra board, although I believe this is due to the fact that gold phoenix make 2 copies of everything in case one stuffs up, and if they both work then you get both :slight_smile:

When sparkfun was changing from the old systemt o the new one I used another board house for the same board and the quality was shocking, 1/2 the soldermask flaked off before I’d even populated the board, and then there were shorts and manufacturing problems all over the board, including some scaling problems which means multipin parts such as CF connectors were more and more out of alignment as you went further down the board.

That must have s*cked!(that’s what happends when you DONT use BatchPCB :smiley: )I can’t imagin how much you had paid for those boards. You should complain!(To that company). SFE and sub-companies are the best prototyper’s webshop. I really like the new pricing better than the $5^2. BatchPCB ,SFE, you are becoming better each day.

Also, does this mean we get 2 copies? If so AWSOME!! I LOVE free. :smiley:

7

Caffeine:
I also received an extra board, although I believe this is due to the fact that gold phoenix make 2 copies of everything in case one stuffs up, and if they both work then you get both :slight_smile:

I had originally ordered two copies of the board, and received three. Quality was great for the price. My wishlist:

  • support for more than 2 layers

  • stencil-making service (ie: get a free stencil with each board)

  • support for smaller board thickness, or Rogers Flex materials

Hey, and while I’m dreaming, smaller minimum trace widths.

Oh, and free hookers with every order!

8

GP is still sending us unknown numbers of boards. Sometimes we get a couple extra, sometime we get the number we ordered, sometimes we get nada. It’s a huge pain in the ass.

If you get extra boards - please enjoy them! It’s the least we can do for you guys (die-hard and very understanding when it comes to the turn time). If you’re shorted, let us know! We’ll re-run anything that you’re missing.

It’s good to hear Gold Phoenix quality is standing up to expectation. On a scale of 0-5 stars, I’d give GP 4 stars. They are really good, but some of the US domestic PCB that have much better aligned soldermask/silkscreens. Other than that, GP is always a good way to go.

-Nathan

9

sparky:
It’s good to hear Gold Phoenix quality is standing up to expectation. On a scale of 0-5 stars, I’d give GP 4 stars. They are really good, but some of the US domestic PCB that have much better aligned soldermask/silkscreens. Other than that, GP is always a good way to go.

-Nathan

Agreed.

My CP2103 footprint is going to be hard to solder as the silkscreen is offset enough that it covers 1/2 of one side of pads.

Should be possible still though, going to try out the PCB ovens at work…

10

While I didn’t use batchpcb (needed black solder mask and red silk screen) I did just receive my whole panel of boards from GP and they look great. They left the boards held together with pips for easy assembly and the whole job from submission to doorstep was 10 calendar days. The price was killer as I asked for a quote for the solder mask color and they quoted well under the special pricing.

This was an experiment as I normally use pcb-pool, which would have been much more expensive for my color requirements.

They did a better job with the HAL finish (very flat and even) than I expected, had good registration on silk and mask.

Next experiment will include a 16F916 in the QFN-28 package. Nothing like 8K of program words in a 6mm square area :slight_smile:

Jamie