Story Time

This project variant was sponsored by PCBWay.

Wow. Now there's a sentence I never expected to write in connection with this project. I don't consider myself to be any sort of influencer, and certainly not a (shudder) social media influencer. I really just do this for the love of my favorite retro console of all time, and I've never sought to make any money from my work.

So, imagine my surprise when I received a sponsorship offer in my e-mail from PCBWay after I updated the PCBWay+ Community Project for the last release. Honestly, I thought it might have been a mistake at first. I was asked if I had any future revisions or projects that I was working on that they could sponsor.

Well it turned out that I had this idea for a board variant sort of floating around in my head ever since the rev 6a release: a design variant that uses all through-hole components for those who are less experienced with soldering.

The terms were simple: I design the board and they comp me the fabrication service for the prototype run, and in return I produce an article (this one, in fact) describing the services I received and whether or not I was satisfied with the services.

PCBWay Services

Okay, I'm not going to bore you with the usual YouTuber spiel about who PCBWay are and what services they offer. If you're here, odds are very good you already know all of that. The truth is, I've never used PCBWay for PCB fabrication before, so I thought this might be a good way to compare services with my usual vendor.

So, here's what I ordered:

• Board type: Single design
• Size: 126 x 45 mm
• Layers: 2
• Thickness: 1.6 mm
• Material: FR-4
• Solder mask color: Blue
• Silkscreen color: White
• Surface finish: ENIG
• Finished copper: 1 oz Cu

Here are the prototype boards that I received:

Nice, right? I thought so!

Thoughts on Product Quality

Assembly Pre-Processing

The board cuts look like they were done with v-cuts, with the result being no mousebites left on the board for me to sand down or cut away. A light cleaning with IPA is all that was required to prepare the boared for assembly.

Tolerances

The dimensional accuracy of the PCB outline and mounting holes are exact to within 0.1mm of my original design.

Markings

Silkscreen markings are all clear and legible.

Pad Finish

The ENIG finish seems to be hard and durable, which is exactly what I want for a PCB with button contacts. These should hold up for quite a lot of SNES gameplay sessions.

Solder Mask

My only complaint about these boards is that the solder mask quality could be better. Solder mask cutouts for the pads, vias, and board decorations were all very accurate, which is good I don't know if this property is specific to the blue colored mask, though, but I found that solder has much more of a tendency to stick to the solder mask on these boards than I'm used to, leading to a higher risk of solder bridges forming.

The solder did come away from the mask with just a bit of gentle nudging with tweezers, but resisted my efforts to clean it off with IPA and a brush. Cleaning up that bridge on the cable header pins was much more difficult, though, because the solder mask didn't seem to want to repel the solder the way that I think it should.

Thoughts on Service

Customer Service

I really connected with Serene, the PCBWay rep who reached out to me with the sponsorship offer. She was very friendly and answered every single question that I had about this process.

Ordering Experience

Placing an order on the PCBway website works as you would expect for any other PCB fabrication service. It was suggested that I try using the PCBWay plugin for KiCad, so that is exaclty what I did. Also worked exactly the way I expected: it opened my default browser and automatically uploaded a Gerbers zip file to begin the ordering process.

Their website is not without its issues, though:

1. It doesn't allow you to upload Gerbers until after the PCB dimensions and other parameters have been entered. This is very annoying because parameters like solder mask color and surface finish reset after Gerbers have been uploaded.

2. The Gerber-to-image preview tool on the site has been broken for quite some time, at least for PCBs with complex outlines like mine. I honestly expected this to be fixed by now, and don't really understand how the company can be okay with their customers experiencing this type of thing in their journey.

   

Thoughts on Cost

Now we come to the single negative thing I have to say about PCBWay, and the reason why I have never used their services before: the cost. Here is a cost comparison of just the fabrication of this PCB from the three different fabs that I have used:

Vendor	Minimum Order	Total Price	Price Per PCB
JLCPCB	5	$23.90	$4.78
PCBWay	5	$51.11	$10.22
OSH Park	3	$43.90	$14.63

Note that I have deliberately left shipping costs out of this estimate - I live in Alaska, so shipping to me is naturally going to be more expensive than shipping to someone that lives elsewhere in the United States.

OSH Park loses overall due to being the most expensive option, but PCBWay is still more than twice as expensive as JLCPCB. I have to be honest here: if this order were not sponsored by PCBWay, I would not have ordered from them.

Conclusion

Overall, I feel that PCBWay is a decent, if a bit more expensive, PCB fabricator for hobbyists. Their customer facing web technology could use some work, but the PCBWay+ Community is an innovative way to integrate hobbyist PCB designers into the company's product offering.

Go Get It!

Gerbers, BoM, and everything else can be found on my Codeberg repo release page. If PCBWay is your jam, you can order this revision now from the PCBWay+ Project page