Archadious

JLCPCB In full disclosure the main purpose of writing this is to “win” a $50 membership card offered by JLCPCB. However, I am such a satisfied customer of JLCPCB that I would have written this review with much less incentive. In the past, I used standard stripboards for my projects, thinking that designing and producing custom PCBs would require skills far above my meager knowledge of electronics. Having some ideas for projects centered around the IoT I purchased a number of nRF24L01 wireless modules. These small devices have a 2x4 row of header pins and are impossible to use in a standard solderless breadboard. I could have purchased ready made adaptors or built my own using stripboard. But the simplicity of what I needed helped encourage me to take on the learning curve of creating a PCB layout and generating the board’s gerbel files. Well, several excellent Youtube videos also helped. My design was a simple single sided board with pin holes for the module and headers. I created an account with JLCPCB and uploaded my design as a ZIP file. There on the webpage was a simulation of the front and back of my simple board. So far so good. A promising and helpful web interface. I was actually surprised to find that I could order my boards in any one of several colors. Naturally I selected red and placed my order. I could not believe it was this easy and I kept expecting the whole process to end in failure. It did not. Seven days after placing my order I received twenty copies of my design, and they were manufactured exactly to my specifications. The boards not only looked great but they worked precisely as I intended them to. This spectacular success encouraged me to attempt a second project. One involving a 1-Wire ID device from Maxim Integrated. The layout for this design required two layers, holes for a short set of header pins and two discrete components. Again, this would be a tiny board but slightly more advanced. I was feeling adventurous. I logged in my JLCPCB account and uploaded the ZIP file of the project gerbel files. I was still marveling at how simple this process was. The JLCPCB website is easy to use and understand. Even for an absolute beginner such as myself. Within 10 days of placing this second order the boards arrived. I could not wait to test them and I was not disappointed. JLCPCB manufactured my second design flawlessly and they worked like a charm and looked fantastic. I have created and submitted several additional designs to JLCPCB. Once I forgot to include drill hole files but the sharp individuals at JLCPCB notified me and I was able to correct my mistake. Great customer service! I should mention the amazing cost to value I have found JLCPCB to be. I weighed the cost of each project against the time it would have taken me to cut and shape stripboard multiple times. Using JLCPCB and custom boards I have much more time to focus on the software and other components of my projects. To me that makes all the difference. I give JLCPCB five full stars and highly recommend their service.