On Thu, 10 Apr 2008 21:06:01 -0700 (PDT), rickman <gnu...@gmail.com
wrote:



On Apr 10, 5:54 pm, "TheM" <DontNeedS...@test.com> wrote:
"rickman" <gnu...@gmail.com> wrote in messagenews:c9e9e9eb-c180-420a-a160-1cc6c87ffcd3@d1g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
On Apr 10, 1:41 pm, "TheM" <DontNeedS...@test.com> wrote:
Thanks for your suggestion. I thought of that, but I don't have a way
to test the bare boards. Turns out I have four more weeks to order
the panels, so I have some time to evaluate the boards in the
prototypes.

PCB vendor surely has a machine to check for continuity, even the cheap
vendors do. Ask them.

You are suggesting that I temperature cycle the boards a few times and
send the blank boards back to the vendor for retest? I guess that is
an idea. So far they have been a bit difficult to communicate with.
I shouldn't say "difficult", just very slow getting answers from
them. I ask a question and it seems to require a lot of research to
get an answer. Then I hear back after a day or so. It is like they
don't seem to feel like they screwed up and are not making any real
effort to help me deal with the resulting repercussions.

I'll give them until tomorrow (Friday) to get back to me with
something substantial. If we don't have some sort of dialog going
that is likely to result in an improvement in my satisfaction, I will
just cut my losses and move on. I need to keep my customer happy and
I can't do that with an unresponsive vendor.

Just be sure that you tell them that. There are a lot of native
English speaking "Front ends" for Chinese fabs that are several time
zones away. It could explain the lag and the poor information
transmission quality.

On production boards I usually order electrical testing of the PCB blanks.
If you spend enough time hammering the online quote system you can get the
best balance of qty vs. cost. For example, one of my boards jumps from
$50/order to $250/order additional for electrical testing when I order over
38 boards. I've always thought electrical testing should be included in the
price (what if I charged my customers extra to verify the product I sell
them works?), but I'm not aware of anyone who doesn't charge an additional
fee.

On Apr 20, 5:59 am, JosephKK <quiettechb...@yahoo.com> wrote:
On Thu, 10 Apr 2008 21:06:01 -0700 (PDT), rickman <gnu...@gmail.com
wrote:



On Apr 10, 5:54 pm, "TheM" <DontNeedS...@test.com> wrote:
"rickman" <gnu...@gmail.com> wrote in
messagenews:c9e9e9eb-c180-420a-a160-1cc6c87ffcd3@d1g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
On Apr 10, 1:41 pm, "TheM" <DontNeedS...@test.com> wrote:
Thanks for your suggestion. I thought of that, but I don't have a
way
to test the bare boards. Turns out I have four more weeks to order
the panels, so I have some time to evaluate the boards in the
prototypes.

PCB vendor surely has a machine to check for continuity, even the
cheap
vendors do. Ask them.

You are suggesting that I temperature cycle the boards a few times and
send the blank boards back to the vendor for retest? I guess that is
an idea. So far they have been a bit difficult to communicate with.
I shouldn't say "difficult", just very slow getting answers from
them. I ask a question and it seems to require a lot of research to
get an answer. Then I hear back after a day or so. It is like they
don't seem to feel like they screwed up and are not making any real
effort to help me deal with the resulting repercussions.

I'll give them until tomorrow (Friday) to get back to me with
something substantial. If we don't have some sort of dialog going
that is likely to result in an improvement in my satisfaction, I will
just cut my losses and move on. I need to keep my customer happy and
I can't do that with an unresponsive vendor.

Just be sure that you tell them that. There are a lot of native
English speaking "Front ends" for Chinese fabs that are several time
zones away. It could explain the lag and the poor information
transmission quality.

These guys are in the US. I did finally get someone who could at
least try to get a little info, but I didn't get a lot. I was told
they checked the chemistry and didn't find anything out of whack. He
offered to do a destructive test, but never gave me a RMA. Finally
someone called as a general follow up and I told her what had
happened. It was a bit surprising that she didn't know ahead of time
that there was a problem. She also didn't have access to any
information on the problem or the contacts I had already had about
this. She asked me to send her the last email about what they had
found and promised to get back to me on Monday.

At this point I am ready to release the test fixture to be made and I
am looking for someplace else to do it. It is 8" x 10", 4 layers and
I only need a small number, say 4. Any suggestions?

Out of curiosity, can you identify the PCB house you were using? I've used
PCBExpress/ECD/Sunstone (all the same company) since 1998 with mostly good
results. Generally speaking I've been happy, though they've pulled a few
boners over the years with respect to quality. Things have really improved
in the last 6 months or so, and they've always been willing to fix their
mistakes.

On production boards I usually order electrical testing of the PCB blanks.
If you spend enough time hammering the online quote system you can get the
best balance of qty vs. cost. For example, one of my boards jumps from
$50/order to $250/order additional for electrical testing when I order over
38 boards. I've always thought electrical testing should be included in the
price (what if I charged my customers extra to verify the product I sell
them works?), but I'm not aware of anyone who doesn't charge an additional
fee.

Anyway, IMO they offer the best balance of price vs. quality vs. speed. It
doesn't hurt that they are about 100 miles away which makes the free UPS
ground essentially overnight for me.

These guys are in the US. I did finally get someone who could at
least try to get a little info, but I didn't get a lot. I was told
they checked the chemistry and didn't find anything out of whack. He
offered to do a destructive test, but never gave me a RMA. Finally
someone called as a general follow up and I told her what had
happened. It was a bit surprising that she didn't know ahead of time
that there was a problem. She also didn't have access to any
information on the problem or the contacts I had already had about
this. She asked me to send her the last email about what they had
found and promised to get back to me on Monday.

At this point I am ready to release the test fixture to be made and I
am looking for someplace else to do it. It is 8" x 10", 4 layers and
I only need a small number, say 4. Any suggestions?