Ordering PCB from seeedstudio.com

This is an updated short tutorial on how to order your PCB from seeedstudio.com

I am not associated with seeedstudio but just a satisfied customer. They have competitive pricing and decent quality. They also recently automated design file submission process, although there is still some kinks.

Let’s assume that you have finished designing your PCB with EAGLE CAD, you should use seeedstudio’s CAM file to export your design into several files. The CAM exports many files but only the following are useful and should be zipped in a .zip file, per their instruction (http://support.seeedstudio.com/knowledgebase/articles/1176532-how-to-generate-gerber-file):

Copper traces:

• Top Layer: pcb_name.GTL
• Bottom Layer: pcb_name.GBL

Solder masks to apply solder resist around pads and pins so solder bridges don’t form and short circuits:

• Solder Mask Top: pcb_name.GTS
• Solder Mask Bottom: pcb_name.GBS

White text information for human assemblers and end users to read

• Silk screen Top: pcb_name.GTO
• Silk screen Bottom: pcb_name.GBO

Drill file for drilling pads and vias:

• Drill Drawing: pcbname.TXT

The boarder of the circuit:

• pcb_name.GML

Once you have a .zip file, direct your web browser to https://www.seeedstudio.com/fusion_pcb.html  and you will see their PCB printing service:

There are a lot of options on this page. I will list what they are below:

• Add your gerber file: Pick the .zip file that contains your design. You may examine your design after the upload. As of the writing, they are experimenting with a new gerber viewer that has some bugs. For instance, a board I designed 178mm wide only shows about 155mm of area. If I view with the old gerber viewer, everything shows up.
• Material: typical boards are made of fire-retardant materials (default FR-4)
• Layer: You will pick 2 layers. This means you will have circuits both on top and bottom of your circuit boards. I don’t see many single layer PCB any more but they were popular decades ago.
• PCB Dimension: This is the rectangular size that encloses your PCB. Typical sizes in their price tiers are 5cm*5cm (about 2″*2″) for $10 (10 boards), and 10cm*10cm (about 4″*4″) for $25 (10 boards) although they usually run discounts on them. In the past, the board dimensions are taken automatically from your PCB design files but not anymore. You have to supply it yourself now. But you also get a “gerber viewer” after you upload your design.
• PCB Qty: Seeedstudio PCB service doesn’t make one PCB, the least amount is 5 although 10 usually has the deepest discounts. Go ahead and pick 10, unless you want 50 or 100. Sometimes if I want 20 and the price of 20 doesn’t make sense, I would just go with 10 and then add another PCB design, which is the same as the first 10 and just order another 10.
• Different design(s): you don’t want to change it to anything other than 1.
• PCB Thickness: Go ahead and pick 1.6mm. Most common thickness is 1.6mm. If you want some added mechanical strength on your larger boards, you can go with 2.0mm.
• PCB Color: Green is the default and other colors used to cost $10 extra. Now with smaller 10 QTY board all color cost the same, more or less. Your PCB will be painted with color paint although text is always white. I’ve never tried white or yellow but I assume the text may be black. I’ve used green, red, blue, and black. They all come out fine.
• Surface Finish: Pick HASL (Hot Air Surface Leveling). It’s a technique that plates holes with hot molten solder and the excess is removed by hot air. You can also pick lead-free HASL if you want to go ROHS. You may upgrade to ENIG, which is Electroless Nickel Immersion Gold. Holes will be covered by a thin layer of gold to prevent oxidation.
• Min Solder Mask Dam: I don’t know this enough so I’m going with default 0.4mm.
• Copper Weight: this is the weight of copper clad per square foot. 1oz is a typical choice. Thicker copper clad offers less resistance with the same trace size. It’s simple physics.
• Min Hole Size: this is the least drill size. 0.3mm is good enough. We are talking about very small via holes. Only multi-layer boards with a large IC that has lots of pins or ball grid array ICs will need more vias and smaller vias.
• Min Tracking/Spacing: this is the thinnest copper trace width. 6mil is good enough. Unless you have multi-layer board and ICs with hundreds of pins, you don’t need any thinner traces.
• Blind Vias: oh my, just go with default NO.
• Half-cut: go with NO. Never done it.
• Impedance Control: unless you have specifically designed your board to control impedance of your traces, go with NO.

After everything is selected and the service is added to cart, I would proceed to check out. You need to set up an account with seeedstudio and have a paypal account. Regular shipping is slow and not that cheap. I average about 3 weeks between design submission and delivery (to Mid-west, USA). You can also pay DHL and save maybe a week or more, although I never used it. I guess that’s it.