I bought a couple of driver PCBs off OSH Park, but when I needed a few different designs I tried to find a cheaper alternative. I have 5 different designs on one 10x10cm panel, which I panelised myself. I eventually went with Dirty PCB. For $25.95 ($16.95 + $9 shipping) I received 12 panels (although the order was for 10).
If I was to order all these separately from OSH Park (i.e., not panelised) it would cost me about $200, but for the number I’m likely to use about $36. I tried a couple of other sites, like JLC, but because there was more than one design, for 5 of the 10x10cm panels they wanted $76.
I also had some boards made up for LT1083/84/85/86 regulators, to be used for charging 12v car and SLA batteries from my solar panels. These were only $8.62 ($2 + $6.62 shipping) for 5 10x10cm panels from LocoPCB. Although its 2 circuits panelised, there is no extra charge because they are the same circuit. Delivery was much faster than DirtyPCB.
This charging extra per design on your panel, even when panelising it yourself, seams daft, but common amongst most of the cheap Chinese PCB prototype companies.
For panelising the driver PCBs I used the free tool from:
http://www2.thisisnotrocketscience.nl/software/pcb-panelizer/
There is a price comparison site for PCBs that can help find the cheapest for your project:
I’ve used Oshpark and PCBWay in the past. I attempted to panelize my own boards before sending to PCBWay and they increased the pricing considerably for doing so. Good to hear about Dirty PCB not charging extra.
