Chinese circuit board prices

[Paul Boyd]

Gosh - Chinese circuit board costs have rocketed! I've just ordered 10 boards at $28.14 total, whereas the same size boards cost about $18 a couple of years ago. I won't complain though - an equivalent UK supplier quoted £126.10, plus VAT, plus postage...

 

[Rob Manchester]

Hi Paul,
Maybe the far-eastern workers are actually making a decent wage now - unless the company bosses are just raking in the profits.

I don't suppose you came across any companies selling copper clad strip in 3.3 and 4mm widths ( for 4mm scale sleepers and timbers ) at decent prices. A number of people have been looking for them in the UK and the prices are rising all the time. Buying the bare boards isn't a problem, it is getting them cut into strips that makes a huge difference to the prices. I thought one of those mini ( think 6"x6" work surface ) circular saws with diamond blades would do it but the blades get VERY hot. Somebody suggested a tile saw with it's water colling for the blade but they are a bit heavy duty.

Rob

 

[Paul Boyd]

Hi Rob,

I don’t know anyone who can cut copperclad strip economically, but I do know that various regulations have made cutting materials like that very costly in terms of protecting employees from the dust. One of our long-standing suppliers had to eventually turn down our orders for cutting Tufnol sheet into strip (nothing to do with model railways though!). In the end Tufnol themselves machined it for us - I suspect they realised that if they didn’t, and no-one else would, they’d lose sales of the sheet. It cost an arm, a leg and a couple of kidneys though, and took months!

It’ll be a shame if our copperclad strip becomes unavailable. I still use it for flat bottom track, and I also rather like building track with Masokits chairs. If only there was an alternative, innovative new solution to track building in the pipeline

Cheers,
Paul

 

[Martin Wynne]

Hi Rob,

I don’t know anyone who can cut copperclad strip economically, but I do know that various regulations have made cutting materials like that very costly in terms of protecting employees from the dust. One of our long-standing suppliers had to eventually turn down our orders for cutting Tufnol sheet into strip (nothing to do with model railways though!). In the end Tufnol themselves machined it for us - I suspect they realised that if they didn’t, and no-one else would, they’d lose sales of the sheet. It cost an arm, a leg and a couple of kidneys though, and took months!

It’ll be a shame if our copperclad strip becomes unavailable. I still use it for flat bottom track, and I also rather like building track with Masokits chairs. If only there was an alternative, innovative new solution to track building in the pipeline

Cheers,
Paul

@Paul Boyd @Rob Manchester

Hi Paul, Rob,

Presumably these don't make much dust:

https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/pcb-lead-cutting-forming-equipment/1932024

https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/pcb-lead-cutting-forming-equipment/4727103

As far as I know SMP/Marcway strips are/were? produced this way rather than sawing or laser-cutting. Hence the strips were sometimes slightly tapered/variable in width.

Martin.

 

[Trevor]

Hello,
How about one of these old beauties?

 

[Rob Manchester]

@Paul Boyd @Rob Manchester

Hi Paul, Rob,

Presumably these don't make much dust:

https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/pcb-lead-cutting-forming-equipment/1932024

https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/pcb-lead-cutting-forming-equipment/4727103

As far as I know SMP/Marcway strips are/were? produced this way rather than sawing or laser-cutting. Hence the strips were sometimes slightly tapered/variable in width.

Martin.

Hi Paul,Martin,

We ( that is me and my track / wife and her crafting ) do have a shear similar to the items on rs-online although at a cheaper price point ( £35.00 if I remember correctly ) and it will cut PCB upto 1mm thick but the material comes out twisted due to the forces set up during the cut. It will cut boards into 6 inch squares without issue but with thin strips I guess there isn't enough material to resist these forces.

The reason for the thinner PCB material is for places where the sleepers are buried in undergrowth. I am not a fan of thicker sleepers in general. Any PCB could be used in goods yards, harbours etc where the surface was to be paved or covered in setts.

I understand there is a clever chap working away on a new track building system which looks promising. Once he gets it all up and running I may actually buy a 3D printer, providing of course I can just hit the PRINT button from Templot and sit back while the track is produced

Rob

 

[Martin Wynne]

providing of course I can just hit the PRINT button from Templot and sit back while the track is produced

Of course. There is a hopper at the top where you pour in molten nickel-silver and scanned copies of chair drawings.

Martin.

 

[Stephen Freeman]

Hi Paul,
Maybe the far-eastern workers are actually making a decent wage now - unless the company bosses are just raking in the profits.

I don't suppose you came across any companies selling copper clad strip in 3.3 and 4mm widths ( for 4mm scale sleepers and timbers ) at decent prices. A number of people have been looking for them in the UK and the prices are rising all the time. Buying the bare boards isn't a problem, it is getting them cut into strips that makes a huge difference to the prices. I thought one of those mini ( think 6"x6" work surface ) circular saws with diamond blades would do it but the blades get VERY hot. Somebody suggested a tile saw with it's water colling for the blade but they are a bit heavy duty.

Rob

Well I do use a water cooled tile saw (diamond disc) to cut copperclad board but it is messy and I haven't tried to use it to produce timbering, rather time consuming, leaves a ragged edge which needs cleaning up and tricky to get a precise cut. Guillotines designed for cutting paper and card can't really deal with 1.6mm copperclad board, it just tends to bend rather than being cut. I much prefer timbering from plywood, preferably laser cut.

 

[Phil O]

Hi All

Gordon, late of this parish, used a Proxxon circular saw with a fine blade to cut copper clad sheet. He must have gone through loads of sheets when he was building the various iterations of Eastwood Town.

 

[Hayfield]

@Paul Boyd @Rob Manchester

Hi Paul, Rob,

Presumably these don't make much dust:

https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/pcb-lead-cutting-forming-equipment/1932024

https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/pcb-lead-cutting-forming-equipment/4727103

As far as I know SMP/Marcway strips are/were? produced this way rather than sawing or laser-cutting. Hence the strips were sometimes slightly tapered/variable in width.

Martin.

Martin

The last batch I brought from Marcway were machine cut single sided, thankfully the days of guillotine cut are long gone as the quality became awful towards the end

 

[Paul Boyd]

Gosh, this thread went in an unexpected direction! I didn’t think anyone still cut copperclad with guillotines any more - the quality of cut was always pretty bad so it was a relief when CNC cutting became available/economical for our purposes.

 

[Paul Boyd]

This is what I like about this company - ordered on the 20th, the data was verified by a human, then full process tracking shows that assembly has completed on the 21st. Still to go through inspection, but I chose to use a slow delivery so it'll be a week or so before it arrives. Still massively faster and cheaper than anything we can do in "the West", and quality is absolutely fine. For UK manufacturing, PCB Train (Newbury Circuits) is the nearest equivalent using this manufacturing model.

Edit:- it’s now been shipped!

 

[Paul Boyd]

And here they are! In round numbers, that's a 10 working day delivery for the 10 boards with £23.86 charged to my card which includes a non-sterling transaction fee. To make these in the UK would total around £165 for the same quantity and lead time, but different plating spec - if I'd had these made with IS (Immersion Silver) to match the UK price they would have cost about $43 instead of $28...

I haven't felt the need to etch my own circuit boards for quite some time now - the availability of Chinese manufacturing is a game-changer for home electronics hobbyists.

The board is a simple layout connector to connect DCC (or DC) and CBUS to a small layout.

 

[Stephen Freeman]

And here they are! In round numbers, that's a 10 working day delivery for the 10 boards with £23.86 charged to my card which includes a non-sterling transaction fee. To make these in the UK would total around £165 for the same quantity and lead time, but different plating spec - if I'd had these made with IS (Immersion Silver) to match the UK price they would have cost about $43 instead of $28...

I haven't felt the need to etch my own circuit boards for quite some time now - the availability of Chinese manufacturing is a game-changer for home electronics hobbyists.

The board is a simple layout connector to connect DCC (or DC) and CBUS to a small layout.

View attachment 7636View attachment 7638

SEEED perhaps? Always found them quick and inexpensive.

 

[Paul Boyd]

SEEED perhaps? Always found them quick and inexpensive.

AllPCB, but I’m sure the various names are all the same company!

 

[roythebus]

Back in the late 1970s, early 80's when I needed PCB sleepers for the MRC's layout, I found a local PCB company in Mitcham. they had a power guillotine and let me use it to cut all the sleepers I needed for the lyout and some left over. It was a bit tedious as there was over 100m of plain track and upwards of 50 points to make. The switch for the guillotine was foot-operated. I cut the sleeper strip to required length, 28mm or whatever it was, then to width. Point timbers wr cut in 3,5mm or 4mm strips the full width of the board. Simple.