A Good PCB Manufacture for Hobby PCB

[Smokey]

The PCBs are scheduled to arrive today, so I'll have a better idea if I made any drill file errors. I'm assuming the obvious would be the holes wouldn't go all the way through.

Blind or buried vias would have drill holes that don't go all the way through the PCB. So not necessarily an error, but usually the PCB will cost more.

Ya, but if you didn't have the inner layers set in your via definition it would just be holes on outer layers that don't go anywhere.  That should fail DRC at the fab.

[bostonman]

The PCBs arrived Friday and look perfect.

Whether I made any electrically incorrect connections and/or make an error with the many jumper wires I'll need to connect is another story.

I'm curious, are blind/buried vias set within the drill file? Most likely any boards I layout will never need them, but, since we are on the topic of drill files, thought I'd ask.

[mikeselectricstuff]

The PCBs arrived Friday and look perfect.

Whether I made any electrically incorrect connections and/or make an error with the many jumper wires I'll need to connect is another story.

I'm curious, are blind/buried vias set within the drill file? Most likely any boards I layout will never need them, but, since we are on the topic of drill files, thought I'd ask.

You need to generate a seperate drill file for each blind/buried hole set. e.g. one for layer 1-layer 2,  one for l3-l4 and one for L1,2,3,4. You also need to set up the via style definitions to  select which layers are connected to the via.

[bostonman]

Ah okay, makes sense. I actually found the menu (see attached) that would allow setting the via definitions.

Had I not asked, I would have assumed I needed to tweak the drill file only to set drilling depth limits or something like that.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Ah okay, makes sense. I actually found the menu (see attached) that would allow setting the via definitions.

Had I not asked, I would have assumed I needed to tweak the drill file only to set drilling depth limits or something like that.

You only need to get into that for blind/buried vias - default is to connect to all layers so correct for normal 4/6 layer, but you do need to actively add any new signal/plane layers in the drill data export

[phil from seattle]

This is another reason why I switched to KiCAD. With the Fab Toolkit, it is way easy to use JLCPCB.  I used to use Eagle.  Switch about 4 years ago and haven't looked back even once.

KiCad requires me to click "Generate Drill File" in addition to "Plot" when creating the gerber files. Otherwise no drill files are generated.

Probably not going to help the OP, but I use the KiCad external plugin "Fabrication Toolkit" to create all the files needed for JLCPCB fabrication and assembly.  Of course you need your components (Symbol Editor) to include the JLCPCB or LCSC catalog numbers, which I have added to my library.  You still want to check everything, but that toolkit is pretty handy.

[Doctorandus_P]

I think the easiest solution is to switch to Kicad for future projects

even easier if using jlcpcb for your boards is  easyeda,jlcpcb's  own software.

I consider using a vendor specific PCB design program a disadvantage. You never know when they would go broke, change their policy or do other things to attempt to take their user (data) hostage. And this is happening ever more often these days with many software programs going "cloud only". I'm a happy KiCad user myself, and one of the reasons I'm happy with KiCad, is because I am sure that there simply is no possibility of such things with KiCad. I am very certain that the time and effort I have invested in KiCad is going to serve me for many years to come.

[Doctorandus_P]

The cheapest should be allpcb with their $1 promo for the first order.

https://www.nextpcb.com/free-pcb-prototype

^$18.50 with PCB and shipping promotions.

I find such things quite annoying. When I'm looking for a PCB manufacturer, I want to see what their normal prices are for repeated orders. I really don't care at all if they want to give me a PCB for free, even if it's true and there are no hidden (shipping or other) costs. And instead they are bombarding me with all kinds of useless advertisement shit, and with that they are wasting my time. I usually just close such websites and find another one.

[fourfathom]

The cheapest should be allpcb with their $1 promo for the first order.

https://www.nextpcb.com/free-pcb-prototype

^$18.50 with PCB and shipping promotions.

I find such things quite annoying. When I'm looking for a PCB manufacturer, I want to see what their normal prices are for repeated orders. I really don't care at all if they want to give me a PCB for free, even if it's true and there are no hidden (shipping or other) costs. And instead they are bombarding me with all kinds of useless advertisement shit, and with that they are wasting my time. I usually just close such websites and find another one.

I find the typical JLCPCB promotion discount welcome, but not a significant factor.  With or without the discount it's still a bargain so I don't get bothered by it.

[Doctorandus_P]

I find the typical JLCPCB promotion discount welcome, but not a significant factor.  With or without the discount it's still a bargain so I don't get bothered by it.

When there is some promotion to have some product at a lower price it's OK, but when they start pushing their promotions in such a way that it becomes difficult or vague what the normal price is, then it starts getting annoying. Even without the discount it's already cheap enough indeed.