Intro

Let’s get something out of the way at the top: this is a sponsored post. PCBWay asked me if I wanted to write something up in celebration of their 10 year anniversary. That being said, while the subject wasn’t my idea, the content is, and I stand by it: I’m not writing anything that I don’t believe to be true and correct. Now, to the meat of the post:

PCBWay as you may know already and probably guessed it from their name is a company that makes – wait for it – PCBs. They are located in China, like many many of their competitors. However, what differentiates them from some that I’ve worked with in the past is their vast array of additional services they provide. On top of PCB manufacturing, they do PCBA assembly, can make stencils for you, create housing and other mechanical components using 3D printing, injection molding, CNC machining or sheet metal processing techniques. Even just within PCB manufacturing, they offer rigid, rigid-flex and flex PCBs with many many options ranging from simple single-layer affairs to 64 layers and God knows how many lamination cycles. They offer all sorts of mechanical and laser vias, base materials, and finishes. In short, they can do anything I can afford and lot that I can’t.

Review

My experience with them so far has been through two projects: one was a relatively straightforward 2-layer PCB project. I’ve used KiCAD for creating the design. The submission process was straightforward. Communication from both of their sale and DFN teams was prompt and efficient. We worked through the flagged issues (either fixing or waiving them) and the design went into production. Even though I opted for the slowest (cheapest) option, the boards got made in a couple of days and delivered all the way to my doorstep in only a few more. End-to-end it might have taken 10 days? Maybe even less. It certainly took less time then for DigiKey to ship me the components. The quality of the PCBs was also good. Granted, this is not top-of-the-difficulty-scale stuff, but still, nothing to complain about there.

For my second and most recent project with them, I went for something more ambitious. Not only I upped the PCB layer count to 4 (still nothing crazy, only through vias and no impedance-control), but I also tried out their assembly service. Since this is my first time contracting assembly, I don’t have a comparison. Here’s my experience though: the submission process was a bit more involved, needing to generate pick-and-place files as well as a BOM. PCBWay provides a KiCAD plugin to make that process easier, but it didn’t do what I wanted and even worse, it automatically submitted the generated files without giving me an option to review. Your mileage my vary. On that front, I wasn’t terribly impressed, but at least it gave me a starting point to improve from.

Once I had the design files ready, I could upload them to the website. Soon, I got contacted by their team and the fine-tuning of the BOM started. I’ve opted for a ‘turnkey’ solution, where PCBWay was going to buy the components. The reasoning was that it was easier for me and probably cheaper too as most of the components I was using are generic. They probably already had most of them in stock. While I was right on most accounts, there were a couple of exceptions: the LED I picked for instance they didn’t have, so we had a little back-and-forth about finding a suitable alternative. Normal, expected.

Then there was the big sticking point: the FPGA I was using. This is something that not too many distributors carry. I was hoping that PCBWay can get the components direct from the manufacturer (both being Chinese), but that fell apart. The manufacturer (or rather their representative) and PCBWay couldn’t agree on the shipping terms which would have resulted the parts getting shipped from China to me here in the US, then back to China for assembly, then, finally back again, assembled. Not only crazy, but expensive both for shipping and tariffs. I would have also had to fill-out all sorts of serious-looking forms (import/export declarations, shipping details) that I knew next to nothing about. Not saying it was PCBWays fault, but I am saying that this was frustrating. The end result was that I decided to manually mount these components myself and released the assembly process with PCBWay with that particular part unpopulated.

From there on, the process was rather smooth, but much longer than a simple PCB order. It took several weeks for them to collect all the components and get ready for the build. What I did like was the communication. I got regular updates of where the project was, they even did a first-article build and sent me several pictures (normal and microscopic) to ensure the components are the way the should be. Here’s one of them:

Once the boards got made, the crazy fast shipping was a great plus yet again.

Outro

While I was looking at cost-reduction options, I came across their page describing the PCB process. I really liked this description of how a PCB gets made complete with short videos and detailed description of each step. If nothing else, its a great learning tool. They have a similar page, albeit not as detailed on their assembly process.

I guess this goes into the good communication bucket, but this kind of material really increases my trust in the company.

PCBWay also has a projects page. This is a location for customer-submitted content. Videos, projects, tutorials. There’s a lot of material there and I’ve noticed some projects that I’ve learned of though other means to pop up there as well. For example the Gremlin HDMI video card, an awesome project indeed. I guess the idea here is that you can order the PCBs and potentially the assembled device from PCBWay directly, driving more business to them. It – presumably – also increases the visibility of the projects. You of course don’t have to use their services: you can download the design files and shop around or just go to your preferred fab. Or order from the owner/creator.

I myself have not contributed projects there, but maybe I will in the future.

So, PCBWay is turning 10. They have been a good partner for me, I was satisfied with what they provide and will use them in the future.