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Date: Mon, 20 May 2013 17:28:30 +1000
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Subject: Re: [geda-user] ITEAD?
From: Stephen Ecob <stephen DOT ecob AT sioi DOT com DOT au>
To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com
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I posted a reply to this thread a few days ago but it seems to have
been rejected, I guess because I had photos attached.
I'll repost now without the photos, feel free to contact me offline if
you'd like to see the photos
Stephen
--------------------------

Yes, I've used Itead 4 or 5 times recently for 4 layer 5cm * 5cm or 10cm * 10cm.
The least two times I ordered the PCBs on a Friday and received them
here in Australia on a Monday 10 days later.  I used the $21 DHL
shipping option.

In each case I received 11 PCBs instead of the advertised 10.

All PCBs were designed with gEDA PCB :-)

I'm really happy with the quality.  They specify their boards as 6mil
trace and space, 0.3mm smallest hole and 6 mil annular ring.  Looking
at the boards under a magnifier the quality is easily enough to
support that spec, the traces are very clean and well defined and the
drill hole to copper pad registration is good to very good.
They don't provide the board cross section and 7 page quality report
that I receive from the more expensive fabs (see last photo), but
that's fine for $99 PCBs :)

With this quality and at these prices a lot of boards that I would
take extra time to reduce to 2 layer will now be 4 layer.

Only one of the PCBs in these photos isn't from ITead, it's the one
with the Virtex 5 chip.  I  sourced it from Bright Circuits
http://www.brightcircuits.com/ because I needed 4 day turn time.
I'm not sure if I'd solder a Virtex 5 LXT330 onto a $99 PCB, but
really the quality of ITead is high enough that I probably would have
if I hadn't needed the PCBs in a rush.

So yes they are good and yes they digest PCB gerbers just fine.  I
used a build of PCB fetched from git head in March outputting metric
Gerbers with outline copied to each layer.  These Gerbers were
accepted with no queries or problems.

Stephen