iteadstudio PCBs

Ordered my most recent batch of PCBs from itead studio, today they came in the mail. The batch I ordered was their 5x5cm double sided service. For the price of $9.90 you receive 10 peices of your board design, upto 5cm by 5cm in size. 

Slightly over 0.8mm, This measurement includes the solder-mask and copper layers as my whole board is covered.

I selected my board to be 0.8mm think, all the other options were default. Every other PCB I have ordered has been the standard 1.6mm thick, as this option didn't affect the price I decided to try it out. The PCBs are alot thinner than I thought, even though I've seen other 0.8mm boards. My boards seem fairly durable, if you had less copper fill on each side or a larger board it might be a bit fragile at 0.8mm thickness.

Overall I'm quite happy with the results from these PCBs considering they are only $0.99 each. A price you would only expect from buying higher quantities.

 

itead offers an opensource PCB option. For $0.10 you accept that 2 of your PCBs will be sent randomly to two other users of the system. In return you receive two random PCBs. Above are the two PCBs I recieved.

The Black pcb seems to be a simple Dallas IIC RTC breakout. Funnily enough I have 1 IC that I believe will be compatible with this board. Woo :P

The smaller green board is a 0.1" to 0.05" pinheader adapter board. I'm guessing some kind of JTAG adapter, based on how the 14pin header is connected to the 8pin 0.05". I've already got some plans for this one, gonna use to to breakout the SWB (0.05" pitch) used by TI's MSP430 FETs. Hopefully I'll be able to splice into the power rail to measure current consumption on my projects.