It's incredible how cheap it is to get custom PCBs made at prototype scale these days, even ones with advanced features. It feels like we're living in a golden era of custom manufacturing.

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ge96 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It is unfortunate hope local companies like OSH Park get love too. The marketing of companies like JLC or pcbway whenever I post a hardware project on a website like Hackaday or Hackster always reach out to me to use em. Not that it would matter so many big makers on YT use em.

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radeeyate 35 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

I can vouch for OSH Park. Wonderful company, nice people, and really good quality boards. Pads lift so much easier on the cheap Chinese boards that I think it alone makes it worth it to choose local manufacturers. The price is a bit steep for bigger boards but if you're working on a project that they are interested in, they provided financial support every so often. I've gotten a few boards sponsored by them!

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Waterluvian 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Is the cost and quality comparable to the Chinese options?

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bschwindHN 3 hours ago | parent [-]

OshPark's quality is high, but their prices are certainly higher too. Good to support them though if you live in the States, since that's where they manufacture the boards.

	▲	hananova 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That's kind of the problem though. jlc/pcbway aren't just "cheaper", for anything 2 or 4 layer that doesn't require special coatings, thickness, or finish such as gold fingers, it's just so cheap and fast that it makes no financial sense to buy locally. You'd pay several hundred percents more to get the boards maybe 1-2 business days earlier. In addition, china is where all the world's pcbs are made, even for commercial stuff, it's not unreasonable to expect them to deliver higher and more consistent quality than home fabs. The gap only begins to slightly close at more complex boards, but not that much.

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klysm 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This and sheet metal manufacturing from Oshcut have been game changers for me

	▲	taylor-tg 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		To throw another in the mix, SendCutSend has consistently been a reliable and affordable option for 2D cut parts. They recently added CNC machining offerings, though I can't speak to their affordability on that. Overseas will almost always win on price (at least in small quantities), but it's hard to beat the turnaround from local manufacturers...
	▲	adamgoodapp 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		They were just on Linus Tech Tip.

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tadasv 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I was actually very surprised myself. As I mentioned in the post, I don't do that type of work so it's all new to me. This got me also interested in CAD. You can design parts and don't need to own the 3d printer, could just get parts manufactured online.

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geerlingguy 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Yeah, and since it seems there's some competition there, the prices are decent. You can get milled metal, 3D prints, populated PCBs... crazy what you can do now and how quickly it can be turned around, if you are willing to pay.

I wish there were more regional places like PCBWay and JLCPCB in US, EU, etc (with similar pricing) so shipping didn't require circumnavigating the globe.

	▲	lrasinen an hour ago \| parent [-]
		EU has Aisler but what you win in shipping times you lose in production lead time (unless you pay for faster service). And there are probably others but with even less visibility / willingness to interact with private customers. Hell, I used to live next door to a sales office for a local PCB fab, but they never bothered to answer my inquiry about prototypes. (That's another thing the proto-friendly companies do right: instant quotes without log-in requirement)