low cost good quality PCBs from oshpark, aisler and jlcpcb, a comparison
I'm taking a brief look at cheap quality PCB providers oshpark, aisler and JLCPCB.
PCB quality
All 3 provide nice quality good looking PCBs. (Click on a picture to see the full scale photo)
oshpark
As always in beautiful OshPark Purple. Only small downside compared to others is the rough breakoffs.
aisler
Looks great.
jlcpcb
Looks great as well. No gold but it still soldered great. A bit sad they include a production code on the silk screen, which could be a problem for PCBs that are visible.
Ease of Order
oshpark
Just upload the .kicad_pcb file, very convenient. Shows a drawing of how your board will look.
aisler
Same, just upload the .kicad_pcb file and shows a drawing. Option to get a stencil.
jlcpcb
Upload gerbers and shows a drawing. Option to get a stencil.
Price
This is where it gets a bit more tricky to compare ;)
oshpark
3 boards $1.55 shipped, as cheap as it gets for a 20 x 10 mm board.
aisler
3 boards 5.70 Euro shipped, still a good price.
jlcpcb
This is of course a bigger board (the other two were the same).
10 boards $2 + $5.7 shipping gives $7.7.
Delivery
oshpark
- ordered: April 30th 2018
- shipped: May 8th 2018 (from USA)
- arrived: May 15th 2018 (in Belgium)
Took 15 days from order to arrival.
aisler
- ordered: April 30th 2018
- shipped: May 9th 2018 (from Germany)
- arrived: May 11th 2018 (in Belgium)
Took 11 days from order to arrival.
jlcpcb
- ordered: May 5th 2018
- shipped: May 7th 2018 (from Singapore)
- arrived: May 18th 2018 (in Belgium)
Took 13 days from order to arrival.
Conclusion
All three show an impressively fast delivery and a good quality board. Oshpark is still the king of cheap for tiny boards. JLCpcb gives you 10 boards, and could be cheaper for bigger boards. Aisler is the fastest, but only marginally.
Both Aisler and JLC have an option for a stencil which is interesting.
I'll be using all of them depending on the situation (need for stencil, quantity, board size, rush shipping, ...)