Our new stencil service has been designed to deliver an unframed, laser-cut stencil with your prototype and small batch PCBs. Many of our users hand-assemble their prototype and low-volume boards. Applying solder-paste by hand for surface-mounted components is a slow and tedious process, so they have asked us if we can supply low-cost stencils to complement our low-cost PCB pooling services.

All stencils are laser-cut from 130 micron stainless steel. You can get an immediate price for the stencil at the same time as the boards using the same simple menus . Then place a single online order for both PCB and stencil. We will verify board and paste/stencil data together to ensure a perfect match and if requested panelise both to suit your assembly process. Board and stencil will be shipped to you in the same package.  Deliveries start from 3 days.

Two options are available:

1. on the basic Verified service the stencil is automatically generated from the paste files with a 20 mm border on each side;

2. on the multi-option A la carte and On demand services you have the option to increase the border independently in X and Y.

We recommend that you supply us with a paste file in the Gerber data to ensure that the stencil matches your precise requirements. Alternatively we can generate a paste layer one-to-one from the SMD pads. If you need tooling holes for alignment purposes they must be included in your paste file.