Best software to for designing a few PCB's?

[Bartimaeus]

Hey guys! I want to start designing my own PCB's and ordering them from a site that will actually create them. A lot of the links in the "DIY Info Collection" thread are dead, so I decided to make a separate thread for this. I've read about one called EAGLE, but I don't know if it's appropriate for a small scale build. Thanks a ton!

[eatyourguitar]

most guitar stuff will fit in the small PCB you can make with the free eagle. if you are a student I would maybe think about buying it. bigger circuits fit the free eagle with SMD. you could make a free phaser.

[crochambeau]

I'm happy with KiCad, though I haven't spent any time trying everything else out.

[Teej212]

I use robot room. Its super intuitive and it exports to gerber. So easy to use conpared to eagle and the others. Prob less functionality too but its more than enough for me. It is 50 bucks though, so worth it.

[Bartimaeus]

Thanks for the replies, everyone! I think I may go for KiCad. I don't need anything too fancy, and I don't mind upgrading later if I need to.

So once I export to a Gerber file, are there any preferred site(s) that I should I send it to in order to get it constructed? 4pcb?

[crochambeau]

I've been extremely satisfied with OSH Park. https://oshpark.com/

Though if you are looking at bulk orders there certainly are cheaper options in the world, but limiting the runs to three or ten (OSH tiers) until you have the bugs worked out is nice.

[eatyourguitar]

Oshpark messed up a lot very unhappy look around the net for bad reviews with pictures. I use itead.

[multi_s]

i would second itead for small run, but from my experience oshpark did OK quality (used 4-5 times), just that it was so damn slow, not worth waiting, always longer wait time than advertised, brutal shipping costs to canada (may not apply for you).

silvercircuits is another option for fast small qty, they have better tolerances/capabilties than itead but usually i don;t need their precision so you may not either. i used them many times though, really great service.

[crochambeau]

Oshpark messed up a lot very unhappy look around the net for bad reviews with pictures. I use itead.

Ah, well, I've yet to have a single issue and have spent hundreds there. I will pipe in should that change though.

They claim they'll ship globally free of charge, so maybe there's been a change of management?

Anyway, I'll shut up now before I get marked as a shill.

[multi_s]

Oshpark messed up a lot very unhappy look around the net for bad reviews with pictures. I use itead.

Ah, well, I've yet to have a single issue and have spent hundreds there. I will pipe in should that change though.

They claim they'll ship globally free of charge, so maybe there's been a change of management?

Anyway, I'll shut up now before I get marked as a shill.

yes sorry let me give my comment more context, i'm not trashing osh park that hard, i've just found better alternatives that are cheaper and faster. But to be clear whatever works for you, works for you, im just giving my 2 cents.

It's true OSH will ship globally for free with the slowest shipping ever from USPS, if you want faster service internationally they charge 50 USD for USPS 3-7 business day service, which for 3 pcbs is a bit absurd. itead usually you can get DHL 2 day for about 25 bucks (coming from China). So that is why i would say their shipping charges are ridiculous for international.

[crochambeau]

Yeah, international doesn't apply for me. I can hop in a car and open the OSH front door in about two hours, so, that may factor in to keeping me happy too. hahaha

Any experience doing fully populated with itead? Not that I'm considering going that route any time soon, but it seems germane to the conversation.

[multi_s]

Yeah, international doesn't apply for me. I can hop in a car and open the OSH front door in about two hours, so, that may factor in to keeping me happy too. hahaha

Any experience doing fully populated with itead? Not that I'm considering going that route any time soon, but it seems germane to the conversation.

I have only outsourced PCBA twice ever so i don;t have too much insight. Once was with itead though and once was with 7pcb (TOronto based office with factory in China). I won;t go into much detail here but my experience with 7pcb was superior and they were quite professional. 1 order is not enough to really make any great sweeping statement though, but i would probably never do pcba with itead again just because there are so many options and it was not that great an experience, maybe they will improve with time though, certainly their pcb fab service has.

Main gripe would be both services took longer than advertised, but itead was about 4-5 weeks late on their quoted time which was totally brutal. 7pcb was about 6 days later than quoted. The final quality was marginally better with 7pcb although itead included some very basic circuit testing for free (mostly just power up and check for short circuit), 7pcb just did visual inspection from what i understand.

Two other services people suggested to me were Myro (Ottawa based consulting firm that outsources to China) and Darkplace (West coast USA assembly, but has no board manufacturing in house). I would try both of those one day just to see, ive talked to both over email and the prices are competitive. SEEED studio apparently also has fab in California now at a small premium, so that might be an interesting look for people in the USA.

[Bartimaeus]

Thanks for the replies, everyone! I don't need assembly, just PCB fabrication.

I'm in the US, so SEEED Studio seems like it could be the best option for me – assuming that they are fast and don't charge too much for shipping to the US.

I may also try OSH, even though they seem very unreliable, since I won't have to worry about slow international shipping(?)

[eatyourguitar]

I have had completely opposite experiences with OSHpark regarding shipping time, shipping price, and wait time. OSHpark was always really good about that but I stopped using them 2 years ago. OSHpark started as Laen's PCB order. it was just a guy with an email address and nothing more. you email him your stuff, he waits till he has 10 people. then he combines the order to one panel and brokers it to the cheapest fab house. when it was converted to OSHpark they started doing realtime gerber preview. they at some point in time had a free trial of super rush service. I got 30 PCB for $9 and I got them at my house in 3 days exactly. these PCB were small but I think you will have a hard time beating my record for price, speed, and gold plated PCB. they did however have a 2mil offset to all the vias on that PCB. this is a big NO for me when my via are 8mil or something and I am using via inside a pad. I was using the smallest via they do and it was not passing my inspection. just barely something I can sell. from what I can tell, they have an error rate between %5 and %2 or more depending on what you consider acceptable. they claim less than %1 error but that is just plain false when you consider %20 of my PCB from them had drill alignment problems, missing or bad silk screen, over etched missing pads, botched solder stop mask. most of these were fixable but I have never ever ever had a mistake from itead in 4 years. I think I used seeed once but they had a huge problem with one employee either quiting or just being really bad at his job. everything was 3 months of a black hole money goes in and orders don't come out. they blamed the scapegoat to make the business look like they were not responsible. I say bullshit. I think after a few weeks the managers should have that situation fixed or they are just selling for a guy they don't really know who is anywhere in china. not a good business model. I have no need for seeed when itead is the same price.

[truth.hz]

I've been using elecrow.com for awhile now(maybe a dozen orders or so). I've been super satisfied with everything I've gotten from them.

As far as PCB design software, I use diptrace, and think it is quite good.