I get price quotes from www.pcbshopper.com . It presents price & delivery options for about 20 different printed circuit fabs. Usually I end up choosing either JLCPCB or Elecrow , their cost and speed appeal to me the most. I'm in California USA.
Hi Mark,
Thanks for the link. Have you noticed any appreciable quality differences between the vendors you have used?
Regards,
John
JLCPCB is in China.
OSHPark is Bay Area, roughly.
That is what I meant when I said it all depends on how much we are willing to spend.
JLC is a big operation with high volume. There is a sort of economy of scale involved here.
For what it's worth, JLC is recommended quite often. People seem satisfied with the PCBs.
OSHPark is Bay Area, roughly.
That is what I meant when I said it all depends on how much we are willing to spend.
JLC is a big operation with high volume. There is a sort of economy of scale involved here.
For what it's worth, JLC is recommended quite often. People seem satisfied with the PCBs.
OSHPark is the new name of the multi-project PCB aggregator formerly called DorkbotPDX .
You might know that PDX is the International Air Transport Association's three letter airport code for Portland International Airport in Oregon, USA. The company founder and only employee is Laen who lives in Portland, and he put PDX in the company name. (link) . Portland residents seem to really love their airport. Its custom carpeting is called "iconic" in the Wikipedia article.
You might know that PDX is the International Air Transport Association's three letter airport code for Portland International Airport in Oregon, USA. The company founder and only employee is Laen who lives in Portland, and he put PDX in the company name. (link) . Portland residents seem to really love their airport. Its custom carpeting is called "iconic" in the Wikipedia article.
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Ha! Yes! I forgot! Sorry Portland!
Though, from a Portland perspective, being confused with the Bay Area is much less insulting than being confused with say, Seattle or any localities Southern California.
Funny you mention, I have often been confused by the tendency to conflate an entire city (or region) with an airport. Airport as regional metonym. This is taken to an extreme in Portland. PDX BBQ, PDX Tacos, PDX Carpet Cleaners, and so on, and so on. Nearly none of which are actually located near the airport.
My best guess is that there is a misplaced pride in having an airport at all-- that is to say, Portland prides itself on being small and provincial. Being proud of having an airport at all would be an outward sign of this highly conscious provinciality, and as such is a very ironic gesture. I would also assume this is mixed with a form of class pride at the ability to travel, (thus use the airport) which is shared across all classes in Portland, whether one has the money to travel or not.
I could go on, but I won't. Obviously I have spent too much time pondering the subject, while staring at the carpet Mark mentioned, waiting for planes at PDX.
Though, from a Portland perspective, being confused with the Bay Area is much less insulting than being confused with say, Seattle or any localities Southern California.
Funny you mention, I have often been confused by the tendency to conflate an entire city (or region) with an airport. Airport as regional metonym. This is taken to an extreme in Portland. PDX BBQ, PDX Tacos, PDX Carpet Cleaners, and so on, and so on. Nearly none of which are actually located near the airport.
My best guess is that there is a misplaced pride in having an airport at all-- that is to say, Portland prides itself on being small and provincial. Being proud of having an airport at all would be an outward sign of this highly conscious provinciality, and as such is a very ironic gesture. I would also assume this is mixed with a form of class pride at the ability to travel, (thus use the airport) which is shared across all classes in Portland, whether one has the money to travel or not.
I could go on, but I won't. Obviously I have spent too much time pondering the subject, while staring at the carpet Mark mentioned, waiting for planes at PDX.
Well, if we can accommodate a US made PCB, I'm not averse.
JLC price is much more tempting, however.
Oshpark is a bit more competitive when the board is physically smaller.
What other US PCB prototypers are there?
I've used Advanced Circuits in the past. About the same price as OshPark, but you can pick your solder mask color instead of only Purple. The cheapest solution is standard green SM. They have a fab in the Denver area as well as Twin Cities and Chandler AZ.
FYI, I also use PCBWAY in China. Very good quality, fast turn around (faster the OshPark even with overseas shipping) and about 1/5th the price of OshPark. Board thickness, copper weight, solder mask color and other options don't adversely affect the price. I prefer to buy local when ever possible, but at 5x the price, it's difficult not to go overseas.
FYI, I also use PCBWAY in China. Very good quality, fast turn around (faster the OshPark even with overseas shipping) and about 1/5th the price of OshPark. Board thickness, copper weight, solder mask color and other options don't adversely affect the price. I prefer to buy local when ever possible, but at 5x the price, it's difficult not to go overseas.
Sounds like that was for the "all-in-one" merged board (with PS filter & 12 DIP-adapters attached), but that's actually slightly MORE costly from OSHPark than buying the individual boards.
All of the individual boards are already available to buy from OSHPark.
If there's enough interest for a "group buy", buying 10 thru their "bulk-medium run" service (10-board lots) is 40% less than the standard 3-board cost.
eg, the standard 3-board main preamp is $143, or $47.33/board.
10-board buy is $285.98, or $28.60/board
The smaller boards should be ordered at the same time (in qty. 10) to get the same discount.
Main LOMC preamp: https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/xwHa1yt9
PS Filter: https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/skxW4p7M
Headphone amp: https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/x0Z0ZjS1
SO-DIP adapters: https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/McxKzszT
Hi,
I've not been paying too much attention to this thread recently, so my apologies. I've had some health issues and other matters that have reduced my on-line time considerably.
1. I've essentially always used Chinese sources for the boards, and I settled on ALLPCB after trying two or three vendors. There has only ever been a problem once, and that was when, for some reason, ALLPCB shipped all of the boards in a batch, including a couple of defective ones, instead of rejecting the poor ones. I ended up with significantly more than I paid for, but the discovery and debugging of the few bad ones was not worth it. The two dozen or so other batches have all been flawless.
2. The filter for the SMPS can be used with any SMPS that I've evaluated. It's intended to reject the noise around the switching frequency and works extremely well from c. 100kHz to 1MHz.
3. The commercial version uses much, much, more expensive linear supplies (not my choice) and there is no measurable (or audible) performance difference due to this choice. There are other differences that both degrade and improve the performance, but all in all I think that the DIY version is just a tiny bit better.
4. The commercial version is all SMD and uses C0G precision caps rather than polypropylene film- a choice made by the manufacturer.
The measured distortion is identical to the DIY version and the DA characteristics of the caps were evaluated by me and measured essentially identically to the PP ones.
Wyn
I've not been paying too much attention to this thread recently, so my apologies. I've had some health issues and other matters that have reduced my on-line time considerably.
1. I've essentially always used Chinese sources for the boards, and I settled on ALLPCB after trying two or three vendors. There has only ever been a problem once, and that was when, for some reason, ALLPCB shipped all of the boards in a batch, including a couple of defective ones, instead of rejecting the poor ones. I ended up with significantly more than I paid for, but the discovery and debugging of the few bad ones was not worth it. The two dozen or so other batches have all been flawless.
2. The filter for the SMPS can be used with any SMPS that I've evaluated. It's intended to reject the noise around the switching frequency and works extremely well from c. 100kHz to 1MHz.
3. The commercial version uses much, much, more expensive linear supplies (not my choice) and there is no measurable (or audible) performance difference due to this choice. There are other differences that both degrade and improve the performance, but all in all I think that the DIY version is just a tiny bit better.
4. The commercial version is all SMD and uses C0G precision caps rather than polypropylene film- a choice made by the manufacturer.
The measured distortion is identical to the DIY version and the DA characteristics of the caps were evaluated by me and measured essentially identically to the PP ones.
Wyn
