PCB guide

1 layer or 2?

A 1-layer board has copper on one side only. It's cheaper and fine for simple circuits — power supplies, LED drivers, basic sensor boards — but every track has to be routed without crossing another, which gets hard fast. A 2-layer board has copper on both sides connected by plated holes, so tracks can cross by hopping to the other side, and the spare copper usually becomes a ground plane that reduces noise. If you're using a microcontroller, or anything with more than a handful of components, choose 2 layers. The price difference is small next to the time you'll lose fighting a 1-layer routing job.

1 layer

2.4 EGP / cm²

2 layers

3.1 EGP / cm²

Soldermask — what it does

Soldermask is the coloured lacquer covering the board, with openings only where components solder. It stops solder bridging between adjacent pads, protects the copper from oxidising, and is what makes a board look finished rather than home-made. You can skip it to save money, but bare copper tarnishes within weeks and hand-soldering fine-pitch parts becomes much harder. We recommend it on anything you intend to keep. All six colours cost the same — green is the most common because it gives the best contrast for inspection, black looks the most striking, and white is easiest to read silkscreen on.

1-layer board

+50 EGP

2-layer board

+100 EGP

HASL surface finish

Exposed copper pads have to be coated or they oxidise and stop taking solder. HASL — Hot Air Solder Levelling — dips the board in molten solder and blows the excess off with hot air, leaving a bright tin layer. It's the most durable finish for hand assembly, stays solderable for years, and is very forgiving if you're learning. It's included on every board we make, so there's nothing to choose. Its one limitation is a slightly uneven surface, which matters only for very fine-pitch parts below roughly 0.4 mm — uncommon in the work we see.

Every board

+50 EGP

Board size and price

Price is driven by area, so shrinking a board is the most effective way to cut cost — halving both dimensions quarters the area. Keep at least 5 mm between your outermost components and the board edge, and remember mounting holes need clearance for a screw head. If you upload Gerbers we read the outline automatically from the Edge.Cuts or profile layer; if that layer is missing, or you're pricing a job you haven't designed yet, type the size in manually instead.

Minimum

5 × 5 mm

Maximum

400 × 400 mm

Why order more than one

Most of the cost of a small run is setup, not material, which is why the per-board price drops sharply with quantity — 25% off at a hundred boards. Beyond the discount, a spare board is worth having: if you lift a pad while soldering or a design fault only shows up under power, a second copy saves you days of waiting. For a first prototype, five is usually the sensible minimum.

10–49

−10%

50–99

−15%

100+

−25%

Exporting your Gerbers

Export the complete set, not a selection. We need the copper layers, soldermask, silkscreen, the board outline and the drill file — leaving out the soldermask or silkscreen means the preview can't show you an accurate board. In KiCad use Plot then Generate Drill Files; in EasyEDA, Fabrication Output; in Altium, Fabrication Outputs then Gerber Files plus NC Drill. Send the whole folder, either zipped or as loose files. We accept both, and if you send loose files we bundle them for you.

What we don't include

The price covers the bare board only — no components, and no assembly. If you need boards populated, send us your bill of materials on WhatsApp and we'll quote that separately. We also don't currently make boards with more than two layers, flexible boards, or boards on aluminium; contact us and we'll tell you honestly whether we can help or point you elsewhere.