I've used
Advanced Circuits a few times as well, and I've likewise been impressed with their work. Turnaround time is reasonable. Their DFM tool leaves a bit to be desired; I've found that it has problems parsing my drill file unless I place the entire board in the negative X, negative Y quadrant. It just doesn't like the lack of a sign in front of the values.
PCBExpress/Sunstone Circuits, who make the PCB123 design software, are hard to beat for convenience. They have reasonably cheap boards (in qty 25, they are about $1.50/sq, silkscreened) and their live time quote system built into their CAD package is handy. They do 24 hour turnaround on all purchases without charging an arm and a leg, and the fact that they offer a fairly full-featured CAD package for free is a nice deal. However, the CAD package kinda sucks. Okay, REALLY sucks. I don't really plan on using it again, if I don't have to- but sometimes, at work, the need for a quick-turn, very simple PCB comes up and the one week lead time of Advanced Circuits just won't cut it.
I'm curious about
batchPCB. I might give them a try on some board designs I'm thinking of trying out soon. I'm impatient, though, and I don't like the thought of waiting 3-4 weeks. On the other hand, it's for early protos of an at-home project, so buying 25 of them for $300 versus buying one or two for $20-$30 each is not such a hard decision to make.
Edit: Very interesting- Advanced Circuits (
4pcb.com) has a
free CAD package now, too. I'll give a try.
