Elecrow PCB downhill

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cmorley
Posts: 296
Joined: 28 May 2019 17:46

Elecrow PCB downhill

Post by cmorley »

I've bought a lot of PCBs from Elecrow and been generally very happy with the quality until recently. 40+ orders and $1500 with them.

Penultimate order they put the order codes on the boards which is something they don't do and a reason for using them. I got an appology and they offered to remake the order - which I declined. Other than the silkscreen the PCBs were of good standard.

My last order however the PCBs were complete garbage. It's like the etch resist was flaking off so there were shorts and holes and broken traces. So clearly they hadn't inspected the PCBs by machine or human. They used to flying probe test everything.

I caught all the bad PCBs except one which I built up and found a break under the silkscreen! Another had a short between a pin and the power plane on a 0.1" connector - I'm pleased it wasn't to the +12v pin or it would likely have fried the Amiga.

So I complained and the remade the order. The didn't replace the whole order, just sent 7 boards. These are of equally poor quality. Another built up board doesn't work & another break in a 10 mil trace.

So they didn't bother to inspect the replacement PCBs!

Let's see what they say this time but their quality has gone massively downhill. :(
terriblefire
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Re: Elecrow PCB downhill

Post by terriblefire »

cmorley wrote: 30 Oct 2020 17:31 I've bought a lot of PCBs from Elecrow and been generally very happy with the quality until recently. 40+ orders and $1500 with them.

Penultimate order they put the order codes on the boards which is something they don't do and a reason for using them. I got an appology and they offered to remake the order - which I declined. Other than the silkscreen the PCBs were of good standard.

My last order however the PCBs were complete garbage. It's like the etch resist was flaking off so there were shorts and holes and broken traces. So clearly they hadn't inspected the PCBs by machine or human. They used to flying probe test everything.

I caught all the bad PCBs except one which I built up and found a break under the silkscreen! Another had a short between a pin and the power plane on a 0.1" connector - I'm pleased it wasn't to the +12v pin or it would likely have fried the Amiga.

So I complained and the remade the order. The didn't replace the whole order, just sent 7 boards. These are of equally poor quality. Another built up board doesn't work & another break in a 10 mil trace.

So they didn't bother to inspect the replacement PCBs!

Let's see what they say this time but their quality has gone massively downhill. :(
I tried them out once and was unimpressed. Similarly with PCBWay. JLC is the only “good” one
———
"It is not necessarily a supply voltage at no load, but the amount of current it can provide when touched that
indicates how much hurting you shall receive."
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stephen_usher
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Location: Oxford, UK.

Re: Elecrow PCB downhill

Post by stephen_usher »

All my PCBway boards so far have been very good, but then again I'm only doing 2 layer.
Intro retro computers since before they were retro...
ZX81->Spectrum->Memotech MTX->Sinclair QL->520STM->BBC Micro->TT030->PCs & Sun Workstations.
Added code to the MiNT kernel (still there the last time I checked) + put together MiNTOS.
Collection now with added Macs, Amigas, Suns and Acorns.

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