Awesome PCB

We just got our latest revised PCB of Reflow Oven Controller Shield and TraLog Shield! These awesome PCB are manufactured by Circuit Mart in China. To be honest, these are the best quality PCB we have ever received our entire life! We have decided to go back to Circuit Mart after some trial with other manufacturers (go figure!).

All the PCB are vacuum sealed with a desiccant pack inside.

Despite the bluish color, the PCB is not manufactured with blue color solder mask! The camera is unable to capture the awesome light sea green color solder mask. We’ll be using this color for all our future boards.

One aspect that we are very happy about is the quality of the silkscreen. It’s very sharp and clear even on the mesh copper pour area! Even the silkscreen of the tiny SOD-523 and SOT-416 components are clearly visible (some manufacturer will just clip them off). On top of that, tented vias are done perfectly and no misaligned drill holes are found. The ENIG (immersion gold) finish is perfectly made with no dark spots that usually present when an ENIG finish board is badly manufactured.

If you are small maker like us, making board in small batches (50-500), Circuit Mart is definitely worth trying. But, if you are looking at making 5-10 pieces for some price like USD9.90, you’ll find them in places like Seeedstudio. We use Laen’s DorkbotPDX PCB service for all our prototypes and will definitely use Circuit Mart for final product version! Now, we have to start assembling the boards!

Take care and happy tinkering!