Non Chinese PCB makers for USA Amateurs? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / projects

author: watchmaker
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 12, 2025, 11:30:00 am
content: The new tariffs imposed by the administration will make PCBway very expensive for small lot orders. And at least one US maker is basically an order aggregator that still has them made in China. SO that does not help.What are the choices for small orders by USA citizens?THANKS!

author: mtwieg
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2025, 01:43:45 pm
content: Advanced circuits still has the good ol'$33 eachand$66 eachandbarebonesdeals. That's what I used when I was still a student. Make sure you read the terms closely (last I checked you can't put multiple designs on the same board without an additional fee).It's been a while since I used advanced circuits for quick prototypes. Overall the cost and lead time are comparable to JLCPCB (even with the recent tariff nonsense). And JLCPCB's web interface is light years ahead of anything else I've seen, makes placing an order extremely easy.

author: UnijunctionTransistor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2025, 02:00:05 pm
content: I used ExpressPCB for many years prior to “discovering” the far east vendors.But they will be more expensive and their capabilities are significantly reduced. For simple boards worth a try.

author: ifonlyeverything
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2025, 02:04:26 pm
content: I've heard that OSH Park is cheap for made in the USA.https://oshpark.com/#servicesI'm not sure if this tool is still up to date/accurate but it might be a useful starting point.https://pcbshopper.com/

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2025, 03:24:57 pm
content: Those tariffs need to go up 5x before anything in the US becomes even remotely viable.OshPark only works for small boards, since the cost increases rapidly with board area. You also don't have color options. And the default one is atrocious. They are also quite slow. With After Dark color, I've had boards take almost a month. The purple ones will likely be faster, but I'll pay more to not have that puke color.

author: Terry Bites
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2025, 04:02:12 pm
content: China is still the best for VFM and customer service.You haven't insulted them nearly enough yet.......

author: watchmaker
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 12, 2025, 06:52:38 pm
content: Thank you all. PCBway it remains. I tried OSHPARK twice; once they simply aggregated my order into others going to China; the second time they were 2 or 3x higher than PCBway.

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2025, 07:00:18 pm
content: How did you know that the order was aggregated? They are making all their boards in the US. They do aggregate them, of course, they are not making the boards themselves.Including shipping, their prices start to cross over at 3-4 square inches (assuming you actually need up to 3 boards). For small boards they are more cost effective. And if anything, tariffs actually help here, since they push that cross over point. Too bad their capabilities are very limited.

author: watchmaker
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 12, 2025, 08:13:14 pm
content: Because I got note saying that my order had to wait for enough orders to be processed. Took two weeks for 5 small boards and about $60. PCBway did a very similar board two weeks later for $30 and less than a week.All of my projects at this point are simple shareware projects such as those by Imsaiguy.Are you indicating something went amiss in my comms with OSHpark and I should try them one more time?

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2025, 08:22:51 pm
content: Yes, this is their whole business model from the start. This is not one time, this is every time. It did not go to China though, it went to a US factory.Define small. Their pricing is fixed, for a two layer board it is $5/sqare inch. So, assuming you picked free shipping (and there is no reason to pick anything else), your boards were 12 square inches, which are not really small. Obviously this is still lower than 10x10cm limit of Chinese vendors.OSHpark prices are better for 5-6 square inch boards.OSHpark was the only good option for cheap PCBs when they started. Before China figured out cheap PCBs, US manufacturers were even more impossible to deal with than now. OSHPark idea was that they can pool orders from hobbyists and deal with retail side that US vendors can't figure out.

author: ejeffrey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2025, 09:25:15 pm
content: It's really embarrassing how bad the US board manufacturers are at just doing business. Aside from the cost, the capabilities, level of automation, and speed are all generally bad. These days PCBWay is of course huge and highly capable, but if you look at what eurocircuts was doing already 15 years ago there is no comparison. Having to email for a quote and get a response "next business day" is just unacceptable in 2025. Eurocircits automated pricing engine and especially their DRC checking should be standard.

author: mtwieg
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2025, 11:14:29 pm
content: Quote from: ejeffrey on October 12, 2025, 09:25:15 pmAgreed, it should be embarrassing. I wonder if USA fabs are even aware of the fact that such easy alternatives exist.From my experience, I think US fabs and CMs generally do not care about prototype services. They want to make all their revenue from as few different customers as possible. So they net themselves a couple big customers, and put nearly all resources into making them happy. Everyone else gets forwarded to voicemail.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2025, 11:24:22 pm
content: I suspect strict environmental regulations are also a factor in the cost; and even if the current administration cuts those back, there will still be plenty of paperwork and accumulated bureaucracy remaining.

author: slburris
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2025, 11:26:21 pm
content: I just had some boards made in China. Even with the current tariffs, (not the additional 100% one starting in November) plus shipping, it was still 1/3rd the price for my particular board compared to anything I could do in the US. And many US board makers aren't particularly hobbyist friendly. So except for really small boards (I've had some made at oshpark, some with Digikey's DK Red service), tariffs would have to go up much more to even hit the breakeven point.What I haven't done is order recently from lcsc.com for parts -- I think that may or may not still be the way to go, depending on the part.

author: mtwieg
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2025, 11:27:34 pm
content: Quote from: amyk on October 12, 2025, 11:24:22 pmI'm not sure how much environmental factors play a role in cost. Likely that cost of labor is a far bigger factor.But neither of those explain why getting a quote can take three days instead of three minutes.

author: slburris
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2025, 11:34:10 pm
content: Quote from: mtwieg on October 12, 2025, 11:27:34 pmI think the China factories have done a good job automating how they handle Gerbers. I used to get questions all the time about boards I sent out, I can't think of any design that hasn't sailed through and been made correctly for at least 2 years. So accept a ton of designs through the internet, check if it meets your DFM rules, then auto panellize huge boards and start having robots make them. Of course I'm talking about JLCPCB.

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2025, 11:50:26 pm
content: Quote from: mtwieg on October 12, 2025, 11:27:34 pmBecause they still operate on the notion that you need to visit your customers and pay for the lunch and may be buy them game tickets.Here is an easy cost saving measure - fire that person that does quotes over email and install some automation.Even if you don't want all those retail customers, go talk to OSHPark and see if there is some deal that cam be made to increase their offering. May be come up with some better cost structure, and at least align with 10x10 cm standard.And even quality-wise, whatever vendor OSHPark uses is pretty bad. I've got bad boards from them multiple times. They always redo them, of course, but it takes time. And frankly embarrassing to have poor QC like that.

author: Smokey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 13, 2025, 12:03:32 am
content: All of the discount PCB manufacturers combine orders on panels. JLCPCB and PCBWay just do it at a scale that it doesn't take very long to get enough boards to run the panel. This is the innovation, along with automating that process, that lets us all get small quantities of boards so fast and cheap.This is especially obvious if you change too many of the default options. Eventually you will get messages that says something along the lines of "this is a combination that not many people use so it might take longer to fill the panel".

author: ejeffrey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 13, 2025, 01:17:52 am
content: Quote from: amyk on October 12, 2025, 11:24:22 pmNah. The fabs still exist, and they can produce high spec boards in high volume for acceptable cost. They don't match the Chinese fabs, but it's acceptable for a lot of customers.It's just that they can't be arsed to develop the infrastructure to offer smaller volume boards practically. They are based around old school high touch customer service and they may use automated tools but they aren't customer facing.US fabs don't even bother to offer pooling services except for 2 or 3 shitty obsolete production rules like 4 layer 6 mil. Sure you can do a lot with that but they should be offering 6 and 8 layer with multiple stack ups, better resolution, higher spec dielectrics, RF materials, interactive quoting and automated DRC. None of that has anything to do with environmental regulations, that's just a BS excuse people give.Eurocircits does all this and more with at least as strict environmental rules as the US. And they have been doing it for decades. And it even means they give shitty customer experience for their high paying corporate customers. I end up buying a lot from US fabs due to both the demand for their other manufacturing capabilities and for export restricted stuff and it sucks ass.

author: ejeffrey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 13, 2025, 01:30:44 am
content: Quote from: ataradov on October 12, 2025, 11:50:26 pmUgh. I hate this. I've got a family, I've got friends. I even like my colleagues at work. I'd rather have lunch with any of them than a rep from some PCB vendor. Instead of telling me about your new products, just put the fucking information on your god damn website. The last thing I want to do is have a round of golf with a rep from a resistor manufacturer. The second to last thing I want is for one of my colleagues to go do that during business hours when they should be working.

author: Songhua
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: October 13, 2025, 02:04:57 am
content: Quote from: watchmaker on October 12, 2025, 11:30:00 amThe China PCBWay or JLCPCB are still nice approach though the U.S. tariffs hurts everyone badly.Quote from: Smokey on October 13, 2025, 12:03:32 amSurly if you want to make things faster and more adequate, JLCPCB and PCBWay are still nice. People from all over the world can benifit from JLCPCB and PCBWay but only U.S.A. citizens can't have and have to pay lots of money (tariffs) to U.S. government.Quote from: slburris on October 12, 2025, 11:34:10 pmTheir online CAD and tools are very handy to use. You don't have to install anything, mostly you can make all these stuff in a browser which is amazing. Not even mentioning about its massive productivities.Quote from: Terry Bites on October 12, 2025, 04:02:12 pmIn this case, if they don't let me order PCB so conveniently in the U.S.A., I would rather make PCB at home for demonstration purposes using CNC or chemical methods.

author: Berni
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 13, 2025, 11:43:06 am
content: Here in Europe it is also impossible to get prototype PCBs made locally for any reasonable price.Ever since Chinese PCB manufacturers have gotten nice online portals for submitting orders we never had boards done locally anymore.So even if tariffs were to make the price 4x for Chinese PCBs, they are still a lot cheaper than what you can get locally and the quality is just as good if not better in some cases.Problem is that pooling PCBs together like this actually involves a lot of manual labor and labor is very expensive in the US or Europe. Not only is this labor much cheaper in China but they have also automated the prototype pooling process to perfection, so much less labor is needed to make it happen (pretty much only customer communication in case of problems is still manual... for now, wait for AI). The huge volumes they work with also means that they fill a pool multiple times a day, so no delays are created because of order pooling.Tho i am pretty sure that the 2$ PCBs that JLCPCB offers is actually a loss leader. There is no way they are making any money on those at such a price point. It is to lure in customers with cheap prototype boards so that later on they can charge them more for more complex boards or for bigger production runs. You can't compete locally against prices like those.

author: watchmaker
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 13, 2025, 06:47:46 pm
content: OK...I just order 35 boards (7 projects) from PCBway for a total of $110 which includes the shipping (and tariff I think)