My Full Review and Experience with PCBWay

To start off with, PCBWay is a Chinese-based PCB (printed circuit board) prototype, PCB assembly, SMD Stencil and Flexible PCB manufacturer. They ship to more than 170 countries worldwide and process more than 2100 PCB orders a day. I have reviewed many other PCB manufacturing companies in the past, but I feel like PCBWay combines an excellent price and customer service factor in one single serving. What is also spectacular about PCBWay to me, as a maker and customer, is their service. From their friendly support staff to their intuitive, user-friendly website features, it all counts towards what makes PCBWay an ideal company and brand for any electronic hobbyist. In this article, I will state and give information about my personal opinion regarding every aspect of PCBWay: from their shipping to support team to website design to much more. I will additionally be concluding this article with my personal opinion on the final product which I created with PCBWay, accompanied by some images as well. For my first subject, I will talk about their website design.

When I first approached PCBWay, the easiness to navigate around their website really amazes me, especially since their website is full of features, PCB functions and information about the brand. I also observed their sales statistics displayed on their webpage especially, which intrigued me a lot because of their high figures of successful payments, partnerships, projects published and time saved. Not many companies truly display their sales information, so this factor really caught my eye. I also realized that they have a gift shop to celebrate their 5th anniversary, and with the free lucky draw to any members registered, I thought that this website is excellent for anybody in general. I myself even spun the lucky draw wheel to earn some 'beans', which eventually led me to exchanging them for PCBWay merchandise from their gift shop. You could stand a chance to receive a PCBWay official t-shirt, free PCB boards, electronic components or Arduino accessories as well. Moreover, their website includes an instant quote feature, so if you are directed right to their home page, you can instantly insert your custom PCB details to receive an estimated price. This is a picture of their homepage:

Furthermore, their PCB prototyping customisation options are endless, with every aspect of your PCB having an option to be made your own. Aspects like the solder mask, silkscreen, surface finish, material and much more has an option to be changed to your own, personal preference. PCBWay also accepts special requests for your PCB board if you need any further requirements. This is the PCB Prototype customisation page:

Addressing their SMT stencil service, it is often ordered with your standard PCB boards if your design includes surface mount components being soldered on. It acts as a template to make soldering easy for you, since surface mount soldering isn't the easiest skill to grasp. Besides the PCB prototyping customization options, PCBWay offers many interchangeable options when designing your SMT stencil as well, such as the stencil type, thickness, existing fiducials, whether you like electropolishing or not etc. Plus, you can request for a special request if needed, where they will take your special request into consideration when designing your SMT stencil. Here is the SMT stencil customisation page as seen on their website:

If you ever require soldering or proper placement of components on your custom PCB, PCBWay offers a PCB Assembly service, where components can be assembled right away, meaning that your PCB will be ready to be used upon arrival to your doorstep. PCBWay offers three packages in terms of PCB Assembly. You could either choose the option to have PCBWay supply all the components on your design, or have the option for you, the customer, to supply all the parts. Alternatively, you could choose the combo option, where PCBWay supplies some parts, but you will have to supply the remaining components. I recommend going for the combo option if you have some of the parts you need for that project, but if you totally do not have any of the parts required, the turnkey (PCBWay supplies all the parts) option will be your best bet. From there, you have the choice on what your board type would be in regards to your PCBs (single pieces or panelized PCBs) in addition to what assembly side the components will be soldered onto. It is also mandatory to state down the number of unique parts, SMT parts and/or through-hole parts which you would like assembled on your PCB. Once again, there is a designated black space for you to put any specific details or requests regarding the assembly of your PCB. Here is the picture of the PCB Assembly Service page on PCBWay's website:

Now, once you have put all your customisation options in place and made your final choices, you can receive a quote directly from the website with a rough price estimate. The price of your product will be based on the options you choose, with the higher, more expensive options contributing to your price more heavily. Shipping is also included separately, with DHL being the most expensive method and standard airmail being the cheapest method of shipment. Your country's location also matters when determining the shipping cost. The nice thing about PCBWay's website is that you can see how the final price is broken down by certain costs. Furthermore, there is a choice for you to select your build time and shipping method so when you change it, you can instantly see the price difference. It also gives an estimated delivery time and the estimated order confirmation time, which is helpful for commercial or much larger orders. Here is that side box with that information given to you:

For your shipping method, it mainly depends on your country you are residing in, but there will be a choice of DHL, FedEx, China Post, UPS and others, with prices varying depending on the carrier which you select. Regarding payment, you also do have a variety of payment methods available which are all similar in terms of easiness to pay as they can all be used directly with PCBWay's site. This includes PayPal, Western Union, Direct Bank Transfer, etc. VISA is also accepted through PCBWay, making it very convenient for certain paymasters who prefer this method. These are your available, ready-to-go shipping and payment methods:

From here, you will go through a whole process until your PCB is fully completed and ready to be shipped. PCBWay also does a phenomenal job at keeping you up-to-date with all the various steps which they have completed regarding your PCB and provides you with an update, via email of any questions which they may want to clarify with you. More information about that will be explained in the later paragraphs below. Here is a rough overview of the basic steps which you will need to take to successfully order your PCB with PCBWay:

If you have made PCBs before, you should be familiar with the process of uploading your Gerber file to PCBWay's website, which can easily be made with programs such as Eagle, Frtizing or KiCad. PCBWay also offers an Online Gerber Viewer, so that you can quickly view your Gerber file before proceeding with payment. This feature is straightforward to use as it only takes a few clicks to view your PCB in almost every possible angle. You can further see the different sections of the PCB, including the copper, solder mask and silkscreen layers while viewing all the mechanical features of your PCB as well. Here is a snapshot of what this Online Gerber Viewer is like:

Now, moving onto the process of ordering your PCB, you will need to insert your shipping information, payment details and your choice of shipping method. However, you must already have a PCBWay account, which you can easily sign up for using your email. The website is very user-friendly, so making an account should not be a tedious process at all as it only requires a few of your personal details. Back to inserting your shipping and banking information for your PCB order, it is fairly simple as the order page isn't hard to follow due to the amazing graphics which will assist you in completing this process. In this phase, you can also finalise your payment method and the shipping method which you desire. Here is a picture of what it is all like:

After this phase, your order will be approved by one of PCBWay's agents before it moves to the fabrication process. This can be a fast process, all depending on the size of your file. For me, it took a few hours of a business day for this approval to be completed. An invoice can also be viewed from this same page, which is helpful to know that your order has been paid and sent out to you. Also, PCBWay gives you a live feed of every step in designing your PCB as seen by the images below, this includes time stamps of every job done:

From this stage, a tracking number will be given out to you from your specific carrier, and you will be able to track it from its respective website. If you haven't received your order in the timeframe given, you can also select the choice to file a dispute with PCBWay, which will inform PCBWay of the problem and they can help you to solve the case. Additionally, once you have received it, you can leave some feedback about your order to let the staff at PCBWay know how your product turned out to be and if you have any questions or queries. Plus, once you have received your order, you can go ahead and confirm the delivery to let PCBWay know that you have received your PCBs successfully. Here is what the delivery page and confirmation page looks like:

From this step, you have the optional choice to suggest anything directly to PCBWay or share your final creation with PCBWay. You could personally talk about your experience with this brand and something which you feel like it will need some improvement on, for the better and benefit of others as well. PCBWay will kindly take any and all suggestions for you to create a positive effect in the future for you and other makers as well, so please feel free to put in a suggestion at any time. This is what the suggestion page looks like:

At the moment, you will have a rough idea of how the process of ordering your PCB is like with PCBWay and the basic steps which you will have to follow. I will now mention one of the main points I appreciated while making a PCB with PCBWay, and it is their support team. Many other PCB companies or electronic suppliers do have amazing support teams but with PCBWay, what I really like is the fact that one of their service agents will reach out to you upon confirming your order and making sure that customs isn't an issue when shipping internationally. These are some of the emails they have sent me before and after my PCB had arrived, ensuring that I am aware of any customs information and whether my PCB has arrived safely:

What I also like during the process of PCB production and fabrication is the automated emails which PCBWay sends to your registered email when a stage of the PCB process is completed. These emails can inform you about when your PCB is approved to be fabricated, successful payment, shipment information updates etc. These are some examples of these emails which I have received:

Based on all of these amazing factors which add up to the amazing customer support and service which PCBWay offers, I think that they all contribute to making a customer's experience much better when browsing on their site or when ordering a PCB. However, PCBWay offers a live chat service to users on their site and you can simply access this by clicking on the bottom right corner of every PCBWay website page. Look for this button:

By clicking on that button, you will be redirected to one of PCBWay's own service agents, which can help you to answer any query, question or inquiry which you may have regarding PCBWay. As an alternate method, on the top right of every screen are details of a service agent willing to help you. His/her Skype account and email are present for you to contact them directly and without any hesitation. Here is what this looks like:

Since we are coming to a close of my article review and experience of PCBWay, I will mention what I think about the PCBs which I have received and how it turned out in the end. First of all, these are pictures of how I received the boards in and how the boards were before soldering:

Regarding the packaging of the PCBs I ordered, it did come in a very nice PCBWay-designed box with the PCBs wrapped in bubble wrap and in a zip lock bag. Thus, I cannot complain about how it was nicely delivered to my doorstep via DHL Express. About the PCB itself, it had a nice build quality as the boards were very study, the text I designed were engraved in a clean fashion, and all edges of the boards were polished smoothly. The hole spacings for components were also uniform, making component assembly extremely easy. The tracks were also done perfectly on the front and back of the PCB with a clean finish as well. Overall, I really like PCBWay's build quality and how they package your orders. Here are some pictures of the soldering and leg clipping process being done to the PCB:

For more technical information about my build, my PCB is a double-layer, single board PCB with dimensions of 30.5 x 34 mm, it uses FR-4 TG130 material. Regarding more specific dimensions, it has a minimum hole size of 0.3 cm with a minimum track spacing of 6/6 mil, this PCB also has an overall thickness of 1.6 mm. I did not select the option to add gold fingers to the PCB but I chose the copper weight to be 1 ounce with a nice yellow solder mask contrasted by a white silk screen and its surface finish is of HASL Lead Free material. From my experience with soldering this PCB, my leaded solder flowed around each hole well and filled it with ease, holding every component well. The pictures below are what my touch circuit looks like after everything is done. This circuit triggers an LED due to your body's resistance connecting the circuit up well. If many people are lined up together and are touching one another through skin contact, this circuit can also work due to the electrical current being able to travel through bodies, all because of your skin's conductivity.

​All in all, I have really enjoyed my experience with PCBWay's PCB prototyping service due to how efficient their service was from the fabrication process to my experience with soldering, to how well the final product turned out to be. Some specific aspects of the whole experience included PCBWay's professional service/support team, website's live build feed, fast delivery and the smoothness of the PCB itself. In my opinion, I will honestly recommend PCBWay to all the fellow makers out there. It isn't the cheapest of PCB manufacturers, but other factors, like their build quality or easiness to order a PCB just surprises me instantly. Now, go ahead and go check them out with the link below: https://www.pcbway.com

​Enjoy! Contact us for any inquiries!