Submitting a design to a board house#

Part of the assignment was to go through the process of submitting a PCB design to a professional board house. I picked PCBWay since they seem popular and have a straightforward quoting system. didnt actually pay or ship anything, just went through the full flow to understand what it looks like

Getting an instant quote#

PCBWay has an instant quote tool right on the homepage. you pick PCB Prototype, enter your board dimensions and quantity, select layers and thickness, and it gives you a price

Filled in my board dimensions: 80 x 50mm, quantity 5, 2 layers, 1.6mm thickness

• Dimensions: physical board size in mm. mine is small, 80x50
• Quantity: minimum order is usually 5 pcs
• 2 Layers: top and bottom copper. my design only uses one side but 2-layer is standard/cheapest
• 1.6mm thickness: industry standard PCB thickness. matches what we used on the mill

PCB specification selection#

Clicked Quote Now and got the full specification page. this is where you configure everything about how the board gets manufactured

• Board type: Single pieces - not panelized, just individual boards
• FR-4 material - standard fiberglass PCB substrate. same family as FR1 we mill but FR4 is glass-reinforced, stronger and more heat resistant
• TG 150-160 - glass transition temperature of the FR4. higher TG means it handles more heat before softening. 150-160 is mid-range, fine for most stuff
• Thickness 1.6mm - standard. thinner boards flex, thicker boards are heavier
• Min track/spacing 6/6mil - minimum trace width and gap between traces. 6mil (~0.15mm) is way finer than what our SRM-20 can do with a 0.4mm bit

Top of the full page showing the gerber upload option and board type options

Uploading the gerber files#

Opened Finder to grab my gerber zip file. PCBWay wants a zip/rar with all the gerber layers and drill files. you can see my KiCad project folder on the left

Selected the zip archive with all the gerbers. its the automatic backup zip that KiCad generates, 21KB

Upload successful#

Upload went through. PCBWay parsed the gerbers and auto-detected some parameters. it set it to 1 Layer (since my design only uses the front copper), 80x50mm size, FR-4, TG 130-140

• 1 Layer auto-detected - PCBWay read the gerbers and saw I only have F_Cu, no back copper. makes sense for our single-sided design
• Copper layer: Top layer - only the front copper is populated
• Soldermask/Silkscreen dropdowns - for adding protective mask and labels. mine doesnt have silkscreen

Manufacturing options#

The bottom half of the spec page has all the manufacturing options. lot of choices here

• Min hole size 0.3mm - smallest drill hole diameter. 0.3mm is fine for vias and small component holes
• Solder mask: Green - the colored coating that covers the copper traces. green is classic and cheapest. protects against shorts and oxidation
• Silkscreen: White - text/labels printed on the board. white on green is the classic look
• UV printing: None - no color printing on the board. its an option for logos/graphics
• Edge connector: No - gold fingers for plugging the board into a slot, like a RAM stick. dont need it
• Surface finish: HASL with lead - Hot Air Solder Leveling. they blow hot solder across exposed pads so they’re pre-tinned and easy to solder to. leaded is cheaper than lead-free
• Via process: Tenting vias - solder mask covers the via holes. prevents solder from wicking through during assembly
• Finished copper: 1 oz Cu - copper thickness on the traces. 1oz/ft² = ~35 microns. standard for most boards, enough current capacity for LED circuits

Pricing#

Total came out to $27.76 for 5 boards. $5 for the PCBs themselves, $22.76 shipping via DHL to the US. build time 24 hours which is wild, boards ship next day

• $5 for 5 boards - thats a dollar a board. insanely cheap compared to milling your own
• $22.76 shipping - shipping costs more than the boards. DHL 2-4 business days
• 24 hour build time - they’ll manufacture and ship within a day
• Remove product No: No - PCBWay stamps their order number on the board by default. you can pay extra to remove it

Didnt actually place the order since this was just the exercise, but good to know the full flow. for $28 you get 5 professionally manufactured boards with solder mask, silkscreen, and proper plated holes. vs spending an afternoon fighting the SRM-20 for one board with no mask. tradeoff is time vs cost and iteration speed vs finish quality.