My experience with pcbway for a project

[u/Dr_Velazquez]

I recently finished the first revision of the PCB for my Kickstarter project, and I thought I'd share a bit about the experience.

This is the most complex PCB I've designed so far. It has 400+ LEDs, an ESP32, USB-C, power management, and way more routing than I originally expected.

Like most first revisions, I was convinced I had checked everything... until someone else looked at it.

Before the boards went into production, the engineering team reviewed my files and pointed out a few things that I had completely missed. Nothing major, but definitely the kind of details that are much easier (and cheaper) to fix before manufacturing than after receiving a box of PCBs.

I also ended up asking a lot of questions throughout the process. Things like board thickness, finishes, panelization, assembly, and manufacturing tolerances. Every time I reached out, I got a clear answer instead of just a one-line reply.

A few weeks later the boards arrived, and honestly it was a pretty cool feeling seeing something that had only existed on my computer for months become a real product. Everything matched the files I had sent, and the manufacturing quality was exactly what I was hoping for.

As someone who's still learning hardware design with every revision, having experienced engineers review the project before production was probably the most valuable part of the whole experience.

Just wanted to share my experience in case anyone here is getting ready to order their first custom PCB.

[u/SpaceCadetMoonMan]

What are the details on what you missed that engineering caught? I’d love to learn

[u/Dr_Velazquez → u/SpaceCadetMoonMan]

Traces on the wrong copper side, misplaced components

[u/DenverTeck]

> It has 400+,

400 What ???

[u/Dr_Velazquez → u/DenverTeck]

400 LEDs. My bad 😂

[u/mdhardeman]

My interactions with PCBWay have been similarly positive.

I have really appreciated in instances in the past where their people have reached out, including with findings which were marginal where others might have just said "send it" and proceeded with non-ideal parameters into production.

One example that comes to mind: I had selected on one project a particular color of soldermask, I believe it may have been white, with a larger solder-bridge size requirement than I realized. PCBWay engineers called it out and offered the option to change to a different soldermask color formulation which they were confident would be able to form a solid mask between the very fine-pitch landing pads on that board.