Sponsored Review
There are a few large and well known PCB manufacturer on the market every PCB maker is using.
But beside the big ones there is a large number of smaller PCB manufacturing companies. One of them is WellPCB, an Australia registered company that belongs to Uniwell Circuits Co., Ltd. WellPCB is located in Shenzhen, China and is focused on Printed Circuit Board Fabrication and PCB Assembly.
WellPCB contacted me and offered me some free PCB in order to test and review their PCB service. I agreed and started with ordering the test boards.
Online Quote
As most of the PCB suppliers WellPCB provides an online platform in order to request an offer and order Printed Circuit Boards. With click on the link Online Quote the user will guided to the PCB Online quote page.
By entering the PCB dimensions in mm, an order quantity and the number of layers the WellPCB website can calculate a price.
Test Projects
I chose 2 of my current PCB projects - a round PCB for my IR Blaster and a rectangle board of my wireless Sensor Board Mini, Version 3. Both PCB projects are designed with Eagle CAD.
PCB Upload and Order
After registering and login to the website I was able to enter the PCB specifications.
With another click the full specification for the current project is available.
For a standard project you only need to choose the Solder Mask Color and the Surface Finish.
On the right side you will immediately see the price of the project including the shipping method. I chose DHL for the delivery to Switzerland.
After upload the order item the cart shows the content of the shopping cart.
This is only the product you entered but without the board data. With the link "Upload File" you need to upload the PCB data. As a test I uploaded the board data in Eagle CAD format.
Since I did not receive any error messages WellPCB can handle board data in Eagle format. The shopping cart shows both PCB projects.
Finally I payed with Paypal and the order is on the way.
A few hours later I received an email with the ordered boards converted to Gerber Format. I checked the files and confirmed that the data is correct.
After the weekend, I ordered the PCBs on a friday, the order status shows the following. The first project has a production status at 20 percent, the second project is at 40 percent.
PCB arrived
14 days after sending the order the package arrived at my home address.
WellPCB sent the two small PCB project in a quite large and well packed box. The box also included test reports for both PCBs and a micro section of the boards.
Building the PCB
Both boards are clean and easy to solder by hand or with the Hot Air Station. The silkscreen mask on the boards is clear, even and easy to read. The solder mask colors are nice and powerful colors. Especially the red Sensor Board PCB 🙂
My projects worked immediately after soldering - no errors in the PCB design and no production errors.
Conclusion
The PCB supplier WellPCB is an other option for your PCB manufacturing. The boards are in a good quality. The ordering process could be improved by adding a Online Tool for the Gerber Review.