Are there any low-volume, hobbyist-friendly PCB manufacturers that have prices competitive with Itead/Seeedstudio, and allow V-scoring? I have a few projects around 0.5"x0.5" that I want to purchase in quantities of 50-100 boards. Last time I had a project like that, I made a panel of 6 of them that fit within Itead’s 50cmx50cm limits, then just cut the boards apart myself with an Exacto knife (I got 0.8mm thickness, so they snapped easily once scored with the knife), but that’s a real pain, and next time I’d like to get V-scored panels. I’ve also used OSHPark for small boards, but they don’t have an option for anything thinner than 1.6", and on some of my projects, I don’t want “mouse bites” from the tabbed routing they use for panelization. Pretty much everywhere else I’ve looked has tooling fees upwards of $50-100. My basic requirements would be:
~1.0mm thickness (I don’t need that specifically, but the typical 1.6mm is thicker than I’d like)
0.5"x0.5"x100pcs = 25 sq" total panel size, give or take
V-scored panelization
Soldermask color doesn’t matter, but options are always nice
Silkskreen on one side only
8 mil trace/space
I don’t care about the turnaround timeframe, so something like Itead/Seeed’s 3-4 week turnaround is fine
Target price point: $25 + shipping ($15 + shipping for 50pcs)
Of course, the target price is flexible, but for $100 tooling fee, I’ll just keep hand-scoring my boards, considering I got 60pcs for $9.90 + shipping at Itead from my last order. Is there any place that can do that kind of price for panelized small boards with V-scoring? Otherwise, I’ll probably just start looking into better/easier methods of cutting the PCB’s myself like hard-mounting my Dremel tool as a table saw configuration or something like that (it cuts well enough, but the blade jitters a lot when hand-held).
