That $2 soon adds up

I probably could. But I generally dislike getting involved in stuff like that. With the new space it may be an option.

Big Clive

I had to look up what vee-cuts were. Cool. Maybe you could show a quick video of them before and as you break them apart.

Nani Isobel

Clive could probably get a modest CNC router and peck drill just by asking. "Aging Wheels" on YT get's the same kind of spams for product reviews. He received a laser engraver he meant to make fun but it turned out decent. He then went on to buy all the accessories. lol

I have in the past. I should maybe use a spread of different suppliers.

Big Clive

I've learned from this sort of thing and now specify (and pay a bit more) to have the stencil made a bit bigger then the actual PCB

Russell Couper

Have you tried others like PCB Way?

Gadgetman

I muffed up an order with JLC when I order a pcb stencil for a tealight size pcb. It cost me a fortune as I needed it shipping fedex as well and I couldnt understand what I did wrong - until it arrived and it was a full sheet stencil - with a tiny cut out for my board right in the middle of it.

I think it's just for tiny boards.

Big Clive

Maybe its better to drill a 'dotted line' or a serious of fake anti tracking slots which wont count as an extra board expense

Raven Luni

Is that "new"? - I ordered some 18x22mm boards (breakouts for RGB LEDs), panellised (30 per panel, 5 panels), from them a while ago (2019!) and didn't have that charge applied.

David Reader

It does look like it would have been a lot cheaper getting it made as separate PCBs.

Big Clive

Technically speaking I could have had them made free in return for promoting their service. But I prefer to pay myself and see how they treat normal customers.

Big Clive

And airline tickets 🤔

Zeedijk Mike

I was about to say the same thing - I had 80 tiny little PCBs made up for LED retrofits for a vintage amplifier, panelizing it myself and having them paneled by mousebite/stampholes meant the whole order came in at $9.22 shipped.

Chewie

The engineering V cut fee is because you have gone below the 20mm minimum distance for the V score machine. for widths less than 20mm use panel by stamp hole ( mouse bites ).

I got them to do it so it fitted in with their system better.

Big Clive

I might try some price tests on their site. The large array may make it easier to solder the SMDs though.

Big Clive

If you say $23.30 quickly, then it doesn't sound so bad.

Andrew Donaldson

I could, but I fancy trying the v-cut option.

Big Clive

I'm not too bad that way. Although I can imagine that a surge of orders for supercomputer PCBs with hundreds of surface mount components could annoy them.

Big Clive

And a different colour screenprint and maybe remove the order number too.

Big Clive

Yeah, it was about $30 by the end.

Big Clive

You just cant put a price on lighting especially Christmas stuff we just love it waty too much

DC Allan

Clive, do you panelize the boards yourself or do you have them do it?

Chris Parsons

It's like the tax man coming up with new names for taxes, 3 different names for an engineering fee! I bet the boards come back lovely though, they always do a good job.

electronbox

Sometimes works out cheaper to order 100 individual tiny PCBs than getting them to v-cut a larger one. Depends if you need them in a single panel for assembly.

Dave Curran

For that it would be about 10-20 times the cost from my experience. Although the quality might be better overall.

still pretty cheap for 260 PCBs !!! although is seems they are trying to get their money back with the "extras"

Arthur Clampitt

Has anyone any comparable prices from a UK manufacturer? Next time someone places an order there is apparently a PBC price comparision site https://pcbshopper.com/ (I have not tried it). Maybe something on Discord where we can pool PCB info / costings?

Tokkan FX

You do have that nice PCB shear, could always just slice them your self and save the 15.

Elliott Krimchansky

That’s good intelligence ⬆️👍

Chris

Holy shit its that big guy again, quick look busy, always the awkward boards.

Always worth checking pcbway. I used to use them until jlc became cheaper. Pretty much identical service

Simon Howroyd

...and that doesn't include the shipping!!

Mike Hughes

irta as "tiny beards" the first time around.

Chris Crowther

Have you tried gold plating too? Just kidding

Nathanael Jurg

I asked JLCPCB about this, and they say the fee is for boards smaller than 15x15mm. They don't seem to indicate that anywhere on their site though.

The devil is in the detail (extras)!

Dr Andy Hill

Did you try getting a price on say 250/300 boards? I recently had 300 9mm X 45mm boards made by them for £10.99 (and shipping was £9.09 - but IMHO still good value).

Paul Kemp

I should add it's preferred to have 2 V-cuts per board direction that are symmetrical. This allows the operator to set the machine up once and then it's just a matter of passing all the PCBs through and then cleaning them up afterwards. As you have 36 V-cuts (18 each direction I assume) they will have to adjust the machine at least 18 times, 36 times if your PCBs aren't square. Plus those tiny PCBs can be difficult to handle, often they will have to make up special jigs so the machines can hold them. Note for large production runs this doesn't matter, they will instead just use a machine with multiple V-cut blades.

WizardTim

vintage russian style string lights.. Sounds interesting

Stuart Goggin

No family promo codes?

Submit a low price and make it up on variations. Sounds like a government contract 🤣

On an order like this with 52 boards/100mm square the V-cuts will be done manually by a person with a manual machine they have to manually adjust for each different cut (difficult on tiny boards). The larger PCBs they can just CNC mill without having massive wastage and difficult cut islands.

WizardTim

Yeah, same Clive. You get fuck all for your $2:00, it’s nearly all option extras just to get some boards made

Mike Wynne

WTF

Dane