The Breakout Fin is here!

Since the boards were coming from China, I expected it to take a lot longer to get them – if nothing else, due to customs and shipping delays.  Apparently, I was wrong.

They arrived on Tuesday…

The Job

This is a terribly simple board: 1.9 inches by 1 inch, double-sided, solder mask and silkscreen on both sides.  Only 16 drill hits, all the same size.  On the upside, this board is very useful – but on the downside, I don’t suppose my experience will be terribly representative for a complex layout.

Before submitting, I ran it through FreeDFM and fixed the usual bevy of silk screen font problems; nothing else was detected, which is no great surprise.  And yes, I checked the drill sizes this time; I’d really rather not have a bunch of useless boards lying around.

When I built the TuneConsole, I was somewhat budget-constrained (unemployment will do that to you), but that’s no longer the case, which means I can finally order things exactly the way I want them.  I love non-standard mask and screen colors, so I decided to go with that on this order.  Red silkscreen on a white solder mask sounded like a great idea.

Standard FR4 0.062″, 1oz copper, HASL, etc.; nothing real special beyond the colors.  Note, however, that (unlike Advanced Circuits) lead-free HASL is an extra cost; the default is tin/lead.

The House

Gold Phoenix is the same board house used by Sparkfun’s BatchPCB service, and they have a fairly good reputation.  This is why I chose them for my first run at overseas fabrication; I’m leery of handing my credit card information to just anyone.  But I’ve heard so many good things that I figured that they were worth a shot.

Seems they now have a Canadian office as well, though I don’t think they do any manufacturing there.

I was originally going to use someone else, but I’ve heard the name tossed around so much that I decided to try them first.  They don’t specialize in prototype runs – there’s no special prototype pricing, though you can pay extra for faster service – so don’t expect to purchase just a few boards.  They also offer assembly, but that would be somewhat pointless for this particular board…