• Machining at PCBWay

    Jakub Kaderka • 2 hours ago • 0 comments

    I was contacted by the PCBWay representative that they have found my blog and hackaday.io projects (previous DarkStar versions) and are offering me a sponsorship of my next project. Who am I to say no when I'm offered something for free, so I've accepted the offer and increased efforts on my new project, the DarkStar mk.3.

    There was quite a lot of work left on the PCB/FW side, but I was quite close to the mechanical design - there were few 3D printed test fit parts already made.

    The machining price optimization was done using the JLCPCB online quoting tool as it reacted quite nicely for design changes (e.g. replacing fillets with chamfers made a huge price difference). The PCBWay also has an online tool, but the pricing there is quite crude, the price changes were almost negligible while on JLCPCB is shaved like 100 USD from the order by changing few details.

    Btw, the PCBWay has a nice documentation on the cost optimizations in machining, this can really save a lot, especially in larger batches.

    I've never ordered anything from PCBWay before, so I was curious about the process, I knew about them as they are one of very few manufactures offering a direct thermal path cooper MCPCB with reasonable surface finish (JLC offers only OSP), but I always thought they specialize on larger orders as the price for 10 and 1000 MCPCB boards was almost identical.

    After placing the order, and engineering review is done - the price of the smaller parts was cut in a half while the most complex part price remained unchanged - the other vendors offered like 25% higher price, so this was quite nice for such a small batch of parts.

    The parts were made in few days, but then the order got stuck on the "Order surge, your order might be delayed" for several weeks. After contacting support, I was offered a finish date in about a week and the next day, the support contacted me with the photo of the already finished part asking if it's OK one of the tolerances is not met - I needed a H7 hole for press fitting the button, but the actual size was more than twice the tolerance value bigger, not a big deal as the counterpart was not made yet, but I expected this to be noted during engineering review and accounted for in manufacturing, or refused if they can't match the precision required...

    Also the anodized color looked not that red as I expected on the photos from support, I guess I could just complain a bit to get it right, but I didn't want to wait any longer, so I agreed to ship the parts as they were. Five days later the machined parts were at my doorstep, neatly packed in a foam so each part would be separated from the others.


    I was quite happy with the PCBWay, there were some minor issues (delayed order, red color not that red, missed tolerance), but nothing serious. The machining quality and surface finis are quite nice and the support was more than helpful anytime I needed. Only thing that bugs me a bit is the online quoting tool that is not very precise and the actual price can easily be like 50% off...