PCB Manufacturer from Adverts section of this forum

I used PCB International after seeing them in the Adverts section on this forum. I had them run three boards for this (prototype) project. I've inspected the boards under a 0.7 -4.5x stereo microscope.

The "touch sensor" board has some very fine lines (touch sensor boards don't follow a lot of the rules we usually go by for "good design practices").

The "transmitter" board has a very (very) small (U2) dc-dc converter IC. In both cases the traces are very clean and show no signs of shorts, under or over etching. All holes are clean. I used a HASL finish. They have other colors available for soldermask and silkscreen; I used traditional green/white (boring I know). Some companies complain about special routing; they did it without saying a word (the transmitter board goes in a Hammond "hand-held" case).

Communication with them was very responsive; usually getting a reply within one hour. They were dead-on with delivery from when they quoted to when I received them. Price was extremely good (less than $200.00 USD for 10 of each board). I did merge the three board files into one board file to save costs. There is a per board charge for doing this but again very very good.

Here are some pics. I used our color scanner so they look kind of crappy (the boards are much sharper than they look in these images).
http://www.scarydesign.com/pcb/xmit_top.jpg
http://www.scarydesign.com/pcb/xmit_bottom.jpg
http://www.scarydesign.com/pcb/touch_top.jpg
http://www.scarydesign.com/pcb/touch_bottom.jpg
http://www.scarydesign.com/pcb/rcvtop.jpg
http://www.scarydesign.com/pcb/rcvbot.jpg

I have a bunch more projects under way and will be using them for these as well.

I don't know if they do international; if you are in the USA I wouldn't hesitate to use them.

Mike Tripoli

Thanks for the report Mike.
I've been thinking about giving them a try on my next board design. Good to hear some nice feedback about them.


steve