Semi plated hole - Is it necessary?

[browntownington]

I followed instructions for ordering free PCB with allpcb.

"The hole is on the slot. Should we make as PTH or NPTH?", say "do not add extra metallization, cut over PTH".
The reason they ask for extra metallization is this, you can assure them it's okay to cut over the PTH (Plated) hole and leave slots as is (Non-Plated, NPTH):

But they have come back and said it's an extra charge for plated hole and it's not covered by free PCB offer.

They stated its a special order and needed to be selected in the quote and manually quoted.

[joric]

No. Well maybe ask removing metallization altogether.

[joric]

OK that's unfortunate. Tell them something along the lines "you may remove metallization from holes on the slots". Updated wiki.

[browntownington]

It's pretty ridiculous. Jlcpcb don't seem to discriminate with it.

If you select "semi-plating hole" under manual quote with allpcb the price goes from $18 to $27! Though I wonder if that may change after a manual review. I won't bother. Thanks Joric

[joric]

@browntownington The price should be zero in all cases and free shipping also. Where's that $18 comes from?

[browntownington]

My understanding is you get a freepcb offer when you sign up then one a month. If you have already used the offer than you need to pay the default price? Sorry I made a mistake $18 was for the Puyuan/A3 board not Kingboard/KB-6165F (offered with freepcb.)

I still have an offer pending so I can't actually find their price for 5pcs Kingboard/KB-6165F.

[joric]

You don't select anything except PCB color (it's either cool white or green). When you click Quote you should see the "free" label instantly. Coupon recharges every month. I ordered in the end of July and it recharged at August 1st. I was registered for a while but I think it should work for new accounts also. There's also some kind of IP filtering involved I guess but I didn't use VPN at all.

[browntownington]

Black is free too.

I think you get one offer every month which starts at the start of the month and is valid until the end. I registered at the end of July and was given a free offer (sign up offer I think) that had to be used within 48 hours. Then on the 1st August there was another offer valid until the end of the month.

[joric]

No, black is not free, just checked.

[browntownington]

Whooops looks like I might of messed that up then. I confused silkscreen with solder mask.

[browntownington]

You should put your referral link on your Free-PCB page @joric https://www.allpcb.com/newmember/invite https://www.allpcb.com/faq/135.html

"How to earn ALLPCB referral coupons? ALLPCB Members can earn PCB coupons and credit balance: (i) A referred friend clicks on their referral link to create a valid ALLPCB account to get $10 coupon (which can be used on orders over $100); (ii) The referred friend completes a qualified order to get $5 credit balance. " "Referred friends who have signed up using a valid referral link will receive $30 welcome coupons. "

Win-win for everyone?

[joric]

Anyone managed to get free aluminum as stated in coupon? I wrote to support but didn't get the answer yet.

[browntownington]

The coupon I had said aluminum 100x150 was covered under free. But didn't work once I generated a quote. Let us know what support says - I wonder if it's a bug.

[joric]

They said "Can you send me your gerber file" so I wrote them back.

>  Can you send me your gerber file

How is that related? I'm talking about the quote form. It should allow aluminum for free but it doesn't.
It's unrelated to gerber uploading at all, gerber uploading happens way after.

How to reproduce:

1. Go to https://www.allpcb.com/newmember/coupon make sure you have a coupon that says 

Free Prototype
Standard PCB
FR-4&Aluminum, 1-2 layers
5pcs, ≤100*150mm

Click Use Now, it brings you to https://www.allpcb.com/online_pcb_quote_new.html

2. Set size 100x150, 5 pcs, Do not touch anything else (it uses 2 layer FR4 by default) Click "Quote", see results.
THERE'S A FREE OPTION FOR FR4, there's a column that clearly says price: FREE and an order now button.
So FR4 works right now.

3. Repeat step 1, select Aluminum, 100x150, 5 pcs, 1 layer, do not change anything else, click "Quote", see results.
THERE's NO FREE OPTION FOR ALIMINUM. There's no FREE price, it wants $13 every time.

HOW TO CHOOSE FREE ALUMINUM?

They didn't answer to that one yet.

[joric]

They didn't answer but they somehow enabled free Aluminum on my account but only up to 100x100 5 pcs. I swear I tried smaller aluminum pcbs earlier and it didn't work but it works now. Looks like free Aluminum is limited to 10x10 cm: https://allpcb.com/aluminum-pcb.html It works for FR4 as 100x150 in the same form.

Posted screens here: https://github.com/joric/jorne/wiki/Free-PCBs

[browntownington]

Thanks for the update @joric shame they won't do 100x150!

[joric]

@browntownington I got an answer from ALLPCB support about free Aluminum: "This is a problem with our system that it's not free for 100*150. I am so sorry for inconvenience and we are solving the problem." So you have a good chance of getting 100x150 aluminum for free if you write to support.

[browntownington]

Sweet next order I will try that!

[browntownington]

Soo my order arrived @joric... They included 6 pieces instead of 5 (bonus!) and they did the semi-plated hole?!?!?! I'm certainly not complaining just really surprised they did it after they told me it would cost extra and I said don't worry about it!

[joric]

@browntownington cool, I'm getting my free order probably tomorrow. Ordered 5 custom jorne PCBs. They ship pretty fast.

Upd. got it. Custom mod with space invaders by @krikun98 They shipped 6 plates instead of 5 which is great, I can make 3 keyboards now.