Is this a joke ?

Archive BatchPCB
1

Hi, after having my design stuck in the DRC bot queue a few times, last time lasted a whole day, I contacted support and explained the issue, they asked for the design number to “forward it to IT”, gave them the number and never heard back for a day or two, so I tried again a few times and it finally worked !

Anyway, I moved on to ordering only to find that there’s no FedEx shipping !! only USPS and since this is an international shipment FedEx really is my only option, so, I contacted support again, and the same guy replied saying I needed a zip code, told him I never needed one before and I have tried that anyway but still can’t find FedEx ! he asked for the customer number to forward it to the “IT”, and of course I’ve never heard back from him, obviously forward it to “IT” really means forward it to the trash.

After getting desperate, I decided to open an account at a US mail forwarder, and I did, went back to batchpcb all excited about my new US address, filled the order form, and guess what, for the US address the only shipping method avialable is FedEx ! seriously ? so FedEx for local shipments and USPS for international shipments ? does that sound logical to you ?

Okay, so whatever, I chose FedEx and placed the order, and then :

Your order could not be placed. Check for errors below or contact support@batchpcb.com. Order id xxxxx

But there were no errors, tried a few times, even contacted support again twice ! but no reply, thank god anyway because it was probably going to be “forwarded to IT”…Finally after getting really frustrated, I took my design elsewhere, thanks for wasting my time batchpcb.

2

Hey heka,

I’m sorry the shipping quotes have been so sporadic for you, and that I either missed the email forwarded from support, or that there was a mixup somewhere along the way.

USPS does actually ship international. Most of our international customers actually prefer USPS First Class mail over FedEx because it significantly cheaper. However, I’d like to look into why you weren’t getting the full set of options. I know you’ve already placed the order you were trying to get from us, but if you can send the two addresses (both your local address and the US based forwarder address) to robert@sparkfun.com, I would like to sort this out in case anyone else might be having the problem.

Thanks,

Robert

3

Why not just use Seeed Studio or Itead (10 PCBs for $9.90)? I don’t understand why people persist with these problems and huge processing times. BatchPCB was a great idea, but others are doing the same thing more smoothly, and cheaper too.

4

Hi Robert, I know that USPS ships internationally, I’ve tried it once before, It’s not USPS that I’m worried about it’s the mail service at this end of world, once it enters the country it takes ages to get here, and things tend to get lost, opened and or excessively over-charged at customs, anyway, I will send you the two address to your mail, thanks !

5

MichaelN:
Why not just use Seeed Studio or Itead (10 PCBs for $9.90)? I don’t understand why people persist with these problems and huge processing times. BatchPCB was a great idea, but others are doing the same thing more smoothly, and cheaper too.

you’re right, but I’ve never had any problems with batchpcb before the new site, anyway, after doing some research, I figured that most services out there have basically the same or lower quality as batchpcb, when making a prototype you probably don’t need 10 bad boards to know that it doesn’t work, so I prefer to have less quantity with a bit higher quality, so I finally went with OSHPark, the quality is great and the price is $5 per squar inch for 2 layer boards and $10 per square inch for 4 layer board but you get 3 boards for each order.

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I go to OSH Park as well. The quality is outstanding.

7

Thanks for the pointers to Seed, Itead, and OSH. I’ll be using OSH for the forseeable future as BatchPCB has way too many problems.

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I’ve had the same experience at batchPC so even though I like SparkFun and would like to use them, I have yet to successfully place an order and there is zero support from them. So, I’ve gone to OSH. Easy to use site, it works, and if you do have a question you will get an answer in a few hours.