Author: Bob

ITead Studios Temporarily Down

Bob

ITead Studios has made significant changes to their web site. As a result, PCBShopper is unable to retrieve PCB prices from them.

We have disabled ITead Studios for the time being. But we know they’re an important PCB manufacturer and we’re working on modifying our code to match their new site. We hope to have everything fixed and to re-enable ITead in a few days.

New Manufacturer: Breadboard Killer

Bob

We’ve added our first Australian company, Breadboard Killer. Their manufacturing is actually done in China, but the staff at BK aim to make ordering PCBs easier, faster, and cheaper, with tools like automated uploads and a system that allows easy re-ordering of previously manufactured designs. They’re also developing more tools for the future.

Win a Digi-Key Gift Certificate

Bob

We’re running a sweepstakes for two $50 Digi-Key Gift Certificates! Write a review for a PCB manufacturer or a PCB CAD software package, and you’ll be entered to win one of two gift certificates worth $50 at Digi-Key.

You can read the complete rules here, but the highlights are:

  • The sweepstakes is open to residents of the 50 United States and Washington, D.C. Apologies to our non-U.S. users.
  • Go to PCBShopper’s main page and select a manufacturer, or go to our list of free CAD software and click the “Read or write reviews” link for a package. Click the button labeled “Click here to write a review”, write your review and submit it.
  • If you write a review of a manufacturer, you must have bought PCBs from that manufacturer. If you write a review of a CAD program, you must have used that program.
  • Reviews must be informative. You don’t need to write an essay, but you should write at least a couple of sentences describing your experience with the manufacturer or CAD program and what you like or dislike about it.
  • Employees and affiliates of PCB manufacturers and PCB CAD software vendors are not eligible.
  • You must give us a valid e-mail address. How else can we contact you if you win? Don’t worry: we won’t publish it, we’ll never give it to anyone else, and we won’t spam you. We might contact you to verify your review and to let you know if you’ve won.
  • You may enter multiple times, and multiple entries improve your chances of winning.

The sweepstakes runs from June 22, 2015 to July 22, 2015. Winners will be notified shortly thereafter.

New CAD Software: CircuitMaker

Bob

Altium has made a big splash with its free CircuitMaker software, so we’ve added it to our list of free CAD software (although, as of this writing, it’s in “public beta”; it hasn’t been released yet).

CircuitMaker imposes no limits on the complexity of the design – the one gotcha is that your projects are stored publicly, online, and “[b]y using CircuitMaker you acknowledge that any project you post will be subject to one or more open source software or hardware licenses. The exact terms of GPL, LGPL, and some other licenses are provided to you with your particular product.” That doesn’t mean you can’t use it on commercial products; it just means your board design will be public.

It also means that you must have Internet access to work with your design.

 

 

 

Manufacturer Removed: PCB Fab Express

Bob

We have removed PCB Fab Express from our price comparison. Since May 15th, we’ve been unable to get prices from their web site. We’ve contacted them, and we hope they’ll work with us to solve the problem. But until then, there is no point in our claiming to show prices from PCB Fab Express.

Better for Mobile

Bob

You might’ve heard that Google has changed its search algorithm to factor in how mobile-friendly a site is. PCBShopper isn’t. But we’ve made it better. If you access PCBShopper on a phone, we think you’ll see that it’s a lot easier to read and enter your PCB specs than it was yesterday.

There’s still work to be done, and maybe we’ll do it someday. But using PCBShopper will probably always be easier from a desktop computer or at least a tablet, and that’s what we recommend you use.

AP Circuits Broken, Fixed

Bob

AP Circuits changed their web site, which unintentionally made PCBShopper unable to get prices from them. We’re not sure how long ago this happened, but we just became aware of it today. And so we fixed it, today. AP Circuits is once again appearing in our price comparison.

New Manufacturer: PCB Zone

Bob

We’re excited to announce our first PCB manufacturer in Oceania. PCB Zone is based in New Zealand and specializes in fast turn-around and delivery. They can manufacture in one day and ship overnight to New Zealand and much of Australia. They’ll ship to the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa too.