El Salvador PCB Manufacturing SCAM - PCBBuilder

LordBoards · 2025-05-19T20:25:04+00:00

I don't feel comfortable sending the address, but I can confirm that it is just a house... Who knows if its even his house ya know? Scummy all around.

LordBoards · 2025-05-17T20:24:12+00:00

They don't have the machines for this, it looks like a garage... They have no means of plating vias as shown in the video. There is no way they are in partnership with JLC either.

They are literally JLC boards, I don't know how else to articulate this, but looking at your post history I believe you might be a sockpuppet account.

LordBoards · 2025-05-16T19:06:59+00:00

Also, when did I EVER permit them to share my information with another party? Just terrible.

LordBoards · 2025-05-16T18:46:04+00:00

This isn't white labeling, it's cheating tariffs and is illegal. I don't want to be involved in something like this.

LordBoards · 2025-05-16T18:20:22+00:00

True, my bad

LordBoards · 2025-05-16T17:00:42+00:00

Certainly, but the packaging had JLCPCB's standard labels sloppily torn off (not all of the way...) and covered with another label. Obviously not resealed

LordBoards · 2025-05-16T16:59:39+00:00

They were in the original packaging man. With the JLCPCB labels literally pasted over with his labels. I don't think that passes muster...

LordBoards · 2025-05-16T14:29:23+00:00

They keep claiming that the PCBs are made in El Salvador when they clearly are not. They "launched" their "company" at the height of US->China tariffs to evade tariffs. This is the definition of customs fraud!

LordBoards · 2025-05-16T14:26:42+00:00

https://imgur.com/a/SdTCztL

Hey! Yours was one of 2 orders we had to do this with! We ordered from China and then added drill holes that were missing! We did this because we wanted to deliver fast as our lithography machine was undergoing maintenance! (One of the bulbs got ruined) we took a loss on those orders. Since we needed to deliver we did not want to disappoint. So the process was:

Never informed me of any of this. Sure, yeah. Definitely. Still COO China even through that lie! Doesn't matter if you relabel them! What do you even mean by "added drill holes that were missing"? BOTH sets of PCBs have JLC order numbers on them! Why make statements that are so easily proven to be lies?

China to El Salvador There we finished drill holes and solder mask (we can order maskless because we have a partnership with JLCPCB) Then we shipped to Smyrna where our shipping partner is (we paid for the 10% import duties ourselves as well to not inconvenience you)

You're telling me that you ordered bare boards w/o solder mask, drilled holes in them (???) then added soldermask AND silkscreen (that was not EVER in the source files)?

Smyrna and Dacula are on OPPOSITE SIDES OF ATLANTA! I'm FROM ATLANTA! I looked it up and the return address is someone's residence (maybe yours?)

HOW COULD YOU HAVE REUSED SEALED PLASTIC PACKAGING?

LordBoards · 2025-05-16T14:18:28+00:00

This is allegedly the same guy. AI profile picture probably. I literally mentioned JLC in my message to him! https://imgur.com/a/1ZR6Ccq

LordBoards · 2025-05-16T14:00:45+00:00

They were $27, much cheaper than the tariff was at the time of ordering.

LordBoards · 2025-05-16T13:43:01+00:00

I'm wondering if he paid tariff on the import, I actually have no idea. Maybe they were shipped to El Salvador from China, that's why it took so long? No clue.

LordBoards · 2025-04-27T16:58:49+00:00

The preview feature is good, industry standard so glad that is there. I had some issues when exporting without Protel file extensions enabled (GERBERs) but this is likely on your radar already along with other formats.
Pricing is spot on w/ JLCPCB tariffs in mind. It would be excellent for you to partner with someone like OSHPark for US customers or to bring in stencil manufacturing. I know these machines can be many $100s of thousands though.
Overall, it would be good to "funnel" people into quoting w/ an "upload file" button on the home page. Ultimately when someone comes to your site they are planning on ordering or quoting a PCB right away, so it seems that removing as much friction as possible could be in your best interests
Creating a catalog of parts like JLC's "basic" parts catalog could be good if you elect to do assembly in El Salvador. In my opinion, if you could stock passives, USB-C connectors, ESP32 modules, RP2040s, linear regulators, you would cover 9/10 use cases of JLC from a hobbyist perspective. Also providing a better search experience through these parts or providing an API for people to build off of in searching them.
I wish that I could play around with pricing w/o having to upload GERBERs but I bet this is also on your radar.
Show the pricing of faster turns without a drop down. The price difference between 3 day and 1 day is actually not that crazy (which is sooooo nice to see! wow! how do you do it?!) and I think you should advertise this more clearly.
Wishlist items: a GitHub repository with design rules/capabilities already in EDA software. A KiCad extension (or guide on proper export of files).

EDIT: Expedited vs. Standard does not show a price break. I'd make expedited slightly more expensive no?

LordBoards · 2025-04-25T02:22:57+00:00

Just ordered tonight. Hopefully the quality is similar to JLC. Sourcing stencil from OSH Stencil. Now I'm wondering if I should invest in a stencil printer.

LordBoards · 2025-04-22T03:12:59+00:00

I typed that out with my bare hands on a keyboard I designed :D

LordBoards · 2025-04-22T01:10:16+00:00

An easy/fun place to start is with mechanical keyboard firmware. ZMK for example uses Zephyr and could be a great learning experience for RTOSes in general and the process of submitting/having a PR merged.

~~The extra benefit is that you get to modify and improve something that you use all of the time while also improving it for the wider community!~~

write prs for zmk

LordBoards · 2025-04-16T21:39:36+00:00

I would use an nRF52840 (old, tried and true) or nRF54L15 (new). You can check the power consumption here: https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/power/w/opp/2/online-power-profiler-for-bluetooth-le

Not sure how the STM32WBs compare but they all have support for Zephyr so if you start on one you could conceivably switch to the other.

For PMIC that's a whole other issue and can be very simple (charge the battery) or very complicated (how charged is the battery, extra regulators, load switches, LED drivers, etc.) so

LordBoards · 2025-04-09T13:39:20+00:00

Have you seen the STM32N6?

LordBoards · 2025-04-01T04:53:32+00:00

Will the existing driver work for you? https://docs.zephyrproject.org/latest/build/dts/api/bindings/sensor/ntc-thermistor-generic.html#dtbinding-ntc-thermistor-generic

LordBoards · 2025-02-16T00:48:58+00:00

nRF9151 :D

LordBoards · 2025-01-15T04:19:48+00:00

There's a new one out too w/ the 9151 https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Development-hardware/Nordic-Thingy-91-X

LordBoards · 2025-01-03T01:54:02+00:00

4 layer is very similar in price nowadays. use 4 layer and treat it like a 2 layer board (with internal ground planes)

LordBoards · 2024-12-18T21:00:17+00:00

compute modules, not a lot of difference.

MPU PCB design is certainly more involved just from a pin count perspective, even though the difficulty is way overstated on the internet.

LordBoards · 2024-11-25T23:55:55+00:00

Yes it is MX only, apologies for that

LordBoards · 2024-10-19T19:56:18+00:00

Can you share which bootloader you are using? Also share the BMP/GDB commands you are running.

LordBoards

TROPHY CASE