Shenzhen Huaqiu Electronics Co., Ltd, better known as NextPCB, is a PCB manufacturer with multiple factories in China that has been in business for over 15 years.
The headquarter of the company is however located in Paris, France, under a company called NOVA SILK ROAD SARL, but most operations are managed in China from the branch office in Shenzhen, and the company operates three plants all certified by IATF16949, ISO9001, ISO14001, UL, CQC, RoHS and REACH:
- A PCB prototype factory in Bao‘an District, Shenzhen, Guangdong
- A PCB mass manufacturing factory in Xigang District, Jiujiang Economic Development Zone, Jiujiang City, Jiangxi Province
- A PCB assembly plant in Dongguan City, Guangdong Province, China.
The prototype factory always for fast turnaround for prototype, while the mass manufacturing factory targets higher volume production with further lower costs. Beyond just making PCBs, the assembly plant works on soldering BGA, Micro-BGA, QFN, and other components to your board. Finally, the company also runs an online parts shop. You don’t even need to go to China to visit NextPCB factories and check the equipment thanks to the “PCB factory VR visiting” page which brings you to various rooms within the buildings and shows equipment such as automated optical inspection (AOI), X-Ray Testing, and multiple functional testing machines among others.
In order to let board designers try out NextPCB manufacturing services, the company offers ten free PCB prototypes for the first order.
Dimensions must be within 100x100mm, with green or white solder mask, and up to four layers. The company will also add the “NextPCB” logo to your design for the free PCB offer. The company still promises a 24-hour turnaround for 1.6mm thick PCBs, but it may take 72 hours for a different thickness. All you’d need to pay is shipping, which to the United States is $13.62 via China Post or $22.44 via DHL for ten 100x100x1.6mm PCBs.
The shipping price will be lower depending on weight, options, shipping method, and country of destination. As you can see above, a set of 10 Raspberry Pi-sized PCB would ship for under $10.
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I know this is an ad but it would be so nice to actually see pictures of their boards. I don’t think many people want to look at a VR tour of their machines.
Give me a picture that shows that your solder mask isn’t totally awful, your silk screen doesn’t make anything but massive text look like a smudge and your drill holes aren’t so massively off that for small vias the drill isn’t completely inside the ring.
If the boards are super cheap but I have to spend hours reworking every single one of them it’s a false economy.
Well, I tried it last year in April, and had a hard time to get a clear quote based on my Gerber files. I ended up ordering it with Seeedstudio, which went great as usual.
No idea how it is today, but I wrote them about my experience back then, and they would take it in account.
I thought the electronics world had supply shortage issues?
I know this advert pays CNX’s bills.
Prices for 4-layer PCB are much higher than at JLCPCB.
Requesting black solder mask adds 23 US$ to the cost (free at JLCPCB).
DHL spipping is also higher.
5 pieces 100×100 mm 4 layer PCB, DHL shipping to EU comparison:
JLCPCB (green or black): 16.8 US$
NEXTPCB (green): 90.22 US$
NEXTPCB (black): 113.23 US$
This pricing data difference basically show that this is a scam to earn obscene amount of money from shipping to unsuspecting customers. I will not order from them.
For me, the prices are too high. Even with the free PCBs, registered shipping is 20+USD, when at JLCPCB 10 PCBs for 5USD registered shipping is only 7.65USD, so in total its 12.65USD 🙂 Added to this, you can order cheap components from JSCS with free shipping after ordering the PCBs 🙂
Just wondering, how do you get free shipping on orders from LCSC?
For me, even when doing small and personal projects, having lead free materials is a must. Not only for environmental reasons, but also for health ones. Choosing a lead free HASL makes the cost rise from 0/~4$ to 30$.
Thanks, but no
I thought I was the only person that actually prefers lead free.
The amount of insane stuff people write about it makes me think some people must be eating rolls of solder or injecting the paste into their arms instead of making stuff with it.
Well, people write everything to appear smart, like for vaccines… The two only issues I’m aware of with lead free solder is tin creating whiskers that may lead to short circuits over time, and less flexibles solder joints which tend to make BGA assemblies less reliable over time. These are definitely not issues that hobbyists nor small production manufacturers should worry about in my opinion.
The tin whiskers and brittleness are actual issues we can observe. You know rational things to consider.
I’ve seen stuff like RoHS is actually a conspiracy to make electronics less reliable.
After reading all comments, I felt this post seemed to be an advertising for JLCPCB. 😮
JLCPCBs soldermask and silkscreen is pretty crap from my experience.
Never got a good price offer from this manufacturer. Also JLCPB is a bit picky on design features they will not manufacture (V-grooves too near each other, too many holes in line, etc.) My best experience always was either Itead or Seeedstudio, so I no more bother to check the others.
Anyone else wondering about the Silk Road parent company? For anyone unaware, this was a dark web drug distribution syndicate.
> Anyone else wondering about the Silk Road parent company?
Nope.
Not the same Silk Road. Many things got the name “Silk Road”, even the commercial world domination program from Chinese president is named “Silk Road”.
But you raised a good point: what about the mother company “NOVA SILK ROAD SARL” ??? It is a SARL (anonymous company with limited responsibility) registered in France with 7.500€ capital. It seems like a shell company which ran many drop-shipping websites and facebook ads scams. You know the kind of business like: facebook ads flood for super deals, customers click and buy items on an e-commerce website (which is in fact a drop-shipping website), customers complain they never receive the item, the e-commerce website disappear after a couple of month of existence. Many of such scam closed e-commerce websites were directly related to NOVA SILK ROAD SARL.
It is very curious that a PCB manufacturer with real factories could be related to such shady actors.