Frequently Asked Questions

ALR services have been supplying Pcbs for over 15 years. We are now one of Europe’s largest PCB suppliers and have built up a reputation for supplying a quality product delivered on time.

PSP is a service provided by ALR Services Ltd. It allows for the sharing of a panel in order to provide a small quantity or prototype PCB. In PCB costing all boards have an overhead factor which results in small quantities being expensive with the price reducing per board as the quantity goes up. By sharing the overhead cost of a panel the costs for a prototype or small quantity of boards is dramatically reduced.

You can obtain a quotation either online or by contacting ALR Services directly. Once you have accepted the price you can place an order again either online or directly with ALR Services Ltd. An order acknowledgment will be sent to you including a specification of the board, the order value and the delivery date. On the final day of manufacture a delivery note will be raised and the boards sent to you. If for any reason the PCB/s fail to meet the delivery date you will be informed by email.

Data should ideally be in Gerber format with drill files. Where apertures are not embedded a separate aperture list should be included. All file should be zipped into a .zip or a .rar file. It is useful if a readme file is included with all the files listed and what their functions are. Any particular notes can also be made on the readme file.

Manufacturing can only start once the online order is placed, payment is accepted and the data has been received. The cut off time is 9.30am for that day to be day 1.

Example 1: Order placed, payment made and accepted, data sent, all by 9.10am on Monday. - Monday is day 1 so boards will be dispatched on Friday for a Monday morning delivery.*

Example 2: Order placed, payment made and accepted, data sent, all by 11.15am on Monday. – Tuesday is day 1 so boards will be dispatched on the following Monday for a Tuesday morning delivery*

* Bank Holidays do not count as manufacturing days.

The PSP Service is for 5 working days (manufacturing time). We are able to offer faster turnarounds from 24 hrs but you will need to contact us directly.

Yes, we appreciate that not everyone likes to do business online and we welcome telephone or email contact.

Boards are dispatched on an overnight delivery using well known UK couriers.

No, there are no extra costs for Tooling or Bare Board Test. The board price and carriage is all you pay, plus the VAT.

All PSP boards are made in the UK.

The criteria for a PSP are:

• 1, 2 or 4 layers
• Material is a high Tg FR4 (Ventec 150) 1.6mm Fr4
• 1 oz (35 Microns finished copper)
• Minimum hole size: 0.3mm
• Minimum track / gap: 5 thou
• Green Solder resist (0,1 or 2 sides) same or different per side
• White Component Ident (0,1 or 2 sides)
• Lead free Hot Air Level or Nickel Gold finish
• Bare board tested by flying probe

Material is a high Tg FR4 (Ventec 150) 1.6mm Fr4.

Solder resist is a photoimageable semi matt green available on 0,1 or 2 sides (same or different per side).

The PSP service only allows white. It is available for 0, 1 or 2 sides.

Either Lead Free Hot Air Solder Level or Immersion Nickel Gold. There is no price difference for either finish.

All boards are tested using flying probe testers and testing to the the manufacturing data supplied.

• ALR Services are approved to BS EN ISO 9001: 2000 certificate no: 14516
• We can supply boards that are UL approved (UL94V0)

5 Thou is the minimum Track and Gap that the PSP allows for. We can supply boards with much finer features but these fall outside of the scope of the PSP service.

0.3mm diameter is the minimum hole size that the PSP service can cater for. We are able to supply boards with minimum holes sizes of 0.1mm but this falls outside of the remit for the PSP service. Please contact us for further information.

No problem, you can either have another PSP order or if you need more boards you can go to production even having the boards made in China if the requirement is appropriate.

All prices quoted are exclusive of UK VAT which is then calculated on the final checkout value including the carriage at the prevailing rate.

The PSP service is for one design only. However, you can supply us with one single design that involves 2 separate circuit boards. We will count the overall size of the two circuit boards as one single PCB. We would advise you leave a 3mm gap between the two circuits.

The PSP 4 layer multilayer build consist of:

• 1 x Foil ½ oz (35 Microns)
• 2 x Prepreg 2113
• 1 x Core 1.0mm 1 oz
• 2 x Prepreg 2113
• 1 x Foil ½ oz (35 Microns)

We can supply Pcbs up to 32 Layer Multilayer but these fall outside of the scope for PSP,…please contact us for further information.

• A next day delivery is £15.00
• A next day delivery for before 10.30am is £20.00

Please bear in mind that all carriers have a tolerance of at least 30 minutes on their carriage terms.

Yes we can offer many different types of PCB materials, but these fall outside of the scope of the PSP service so please contact us for more details.

We bring in over one tonne of Pcbs a week from China for our UK customers. Please contact us for more details.

The material used for the PSP service has a dielectric constant of 4.2.

• 1 or 2 Layers: 395mm x 288mm or 196mm x 579mm
• 4 Layers: 375 x 278mm or 186mm x 559mm

Yes you can. Our experience is that this often needs to be discussed in order to cover issues such as fiducial marks, tooling holes and border sizes, therefore this is not available online. Please contact us directly for further information.

Currently all payments are processed in UK Pound Sterling.

We always send out order acknowledgements.

Yes, if you prefer not to deal online and have regular business to place we will be happy to open an account for you.

5 Thou is the minimum Track and Gap that the PSP allows for. We can supply boards with much finer features but these fall outside of the scope of the PSP service. We are able to supply boards with smaller features but this falls outside of the remit for the PSP service. Please contact us for further information.

Yes, but unfortunately this service is not currently available online. Please contact us directly for further information.