Best PCB manufacturer/seller?

[strat68]

I'm not asking about the specifics of any one pedal type but the physical boards themselves.  I've found that some sellers make boards where the solder holes (lack of a better term) are a bit larger with more metal to which to solder.  On my list for this is madbean, aion, and rullywow.  At least for the boards I've purchased so far. 

Some board makers have the holes smaller and with less metal to solder to.  For me this comes into play when I have to remove/replace a part and the metal around the hole tends to come apart or just fall out. 

Once place from the UK has this problem which leads me to almost always have some type of trouble with their boards.  The boards from the above sellers work almost always at first power up or after checking connections.

Don't even get me started on vero boards.   I have far better luck etching my own.

[midwayfair]

The holes on the PCB are set by a parameter in the PCB design software called "drills." It doesn't have anything to do with the manufacturer of the board but everything to do with the library used in the CAD software by the PCB designer.

The durability of the board is going to be something that actually matters from the manufacturer. For instance, OSH Park boards seem practically indestructible to me even after multiple desolderings, but it's impractical for someone to use them as their main manufacturer due to price, so you'll almost never see someone selling boards like that in quantity. While PCBs are better for desoldering and resoldering components than something like a perfboard build, they aren't a breadboard and you still need to take care when desoldering and replacing components regardless of how well made the part is. This is one reason it's best to identify parts that could be modded ahead of time and use sockets.

[GermanCdn]

Not really a question that's easy to answer, and Jon's covered most of it.  If what you are asking is "who's boards are most friendly to work with", my experience is as follows:

Easy to work with, well labelled - Madbean, Grindcustoms, JMK, Aion, Chi_boy, 1776, Blackhorse Effects, TH, Lectric-FX, anything culturejam, midwayfair, pickdropper, or (in general) anyone who is a fairly heavy contributor here put out in limited runs.  I guarantee you I've missed some obvious ones as well, my apologies in advance.

Not as easy to work with - GuitarPCB (holes and pads are smaller), pedalparts.co.uk (earlier boards I found to have the same small holes as GPCB, newer ones have had that issue fixed)

At your own risk - anything you find on ebay.  Had some really poorly designed boards from ebay sellers that worked in the end, but could have been done a lot better.

Please note, when I say "not as easy to work with", I'm not saying they're bad, I'm saying they take a little more patience and attention to detail.

[madbean]

Jon has made a crucial point: durability from the manufacturer. Ideally the durability of pads should be the same across the board when specs are identical. But, this is definitely not the case. Like Jon said OSH Park is pretty much king here. I have gotten hundreds of boards from them and I've only ever lost a pad via desoldering on I think...three boards? Pretty unbelievable. Silver Circuits, whom I use for making my larger boards, is very similar. I very rarely ever destroy one of their boards. iTead and Elecrow, whom I use for smaller boards now, are more susceptible to lose a pad I've found. However, it also depends on how you go about it. If you you space out how much you heat the pad they are very durable. But, if you overheat the pad it will come off. So, if I am desoldering one of those boards and I cannot get the solder out within one or two tries I will wait a couple minutes for the pad to cool down. That gives much better results.

I tend to like decent sized pads myself, and I think the diameters and drills I have on the MBP boards work pretty well. Small drills are much harder to desolder IMO. But, then again, the quality of your tool has an impact. This new Hakko FR300 I got pretty much eats solder for breakfast whereas my older Ayuoe one had a lot less suction power.

[strat68]

Thanks guys.  I just saw the replies.  Yes, I've found GuitarPCB and PedlaPartsUK boards a little more difficult to work with but no major problems.  I've had a few built by OSH Park and I think my last run was missing some traces according to a person I sent them to.  Not a big deal.

[Muadzin]

The PCB's I find hardest to work with are GuitarPCB. And not so much the de-soldering. I recently tried to build a G2 and I just couldn't get to make any solder stick to any ground pad. Like in nothing would stick, period! Anything that was not connected to ground, no problems applying solder. Anything connected to ground, you're f***ed! Had to actually apply some solder to the other side.

The easiest fabbed boards to work with, as in having insanely large pads and easy to desolder were those of Musikding. Their Big Muff boards have solder pads so big you can land a 747 on them. For easy soldering and desoldering nothing beats vero though.