FAQs of Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs)

AlteraFlex is manufacturer specializing in PCB prototyping, low-volume production and PCB Assembly service all under one roof. We offer quick turn PCBs at a very budgetary price. Thousand of engineers, students and hobbyists are using our PCBs for their daily work and study. AlteraFlex strives to be the easiest manufacturer for you to work with. AlteraFlex – PCB Prototype the Easy Way!

We have salespeople responding to your email requests or processing your online order once we receive them. We start to review your details whenever your order or email reaches us. We work 7/24/365.

The vision of AlteraFlex is to be the world’s easiest manufacturers of all type of PCBs fabrication, and this implies that AlteraFlex should be responsible for saving you money, that is why we MUST keep the price low. Our large number of daily orders ensure we can greatly reduce the materials’ spending and labor cost.

Furthermore, we constantly improve our equipment and develop technical and managerial systems that adapt to flexible setups of machines suitable for fabricating very small number of PCBs without affecting the lead time, cost and quality. All these factors make AlteraFlex your one-stop destination of PCBs of low cost.

If you find any defects with your PCBs upon receipt in your hand, or if you feel any dissatisfaction about our products or services, please immediately let us know via (209) 629-8277 or (833) 722-3539 or sales@alteraflex.com, we will respond within 24 hours. We will serve you till you are finally satisfied. We will either repair or re-fabricate your PCB if quality issue occurs, or we will refund full amount to you without returning the defective PCBs. You may also choose to credit your AlteraFlex account and you may use the credit for your future orders with us.

We have developed an industry-leading system to easily track the fabrication status in your account with AlteraFlex. You can also track the shipping status after we send out your PCBs to your address through the API of DHL. It is easy and fun!

We promise 100% satisfaction and we are keeping a record of 99% on-time delivery! If you feel you can not receive your PCBs as scheduled due to our fault, you can cancel the order and ask for full refund or credit your AlteraFlex account for payment of your next order.

We respect the privacy of all our customers. We promise we will never share your personal information with any third parties.

ITAR, International Traffic in Arms Regulations, controls the export and import of defense-related articles and services on the United States Munitions List (USML). Please inform us if your PCBs are ITAR compliant or not after you place orders with us. For details of ITAR, please go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITAR and http://pmddtc.state.gov/

You can call  (209) 629-8277 and our service person will quote within 24 hours, do not forget to enclose your Gerber files and all other necessary files for PCB quotation.

Due to the complexity of how to determine the turn time of PCB fabrication, our policy is that turn-time begins immediately after your Gerber files and all other necessary files being received, reviewed by us and re-approved by your side. When all these reviews and approvals are done, we will start fabrication immediately.

Yes. But we also offer leaded PCBs.

Panelization is needed when your PCB dimension is smaller than 50mmx100mm, or when your PCB is of any shapes (circular, or odd shape) other than rectangle, your boards must be panelized in an array for fabrication. You can pre-panelize at your side, or we can also panelize for you. In the latter case, we will send the panelization file back to you for your approval before fabrication begins. Panelization is a MUST if your PCBs will use surface mounting machines for assembly.

If the clearance between the board’s edge and copper features is less than 3.5mm (138mil), or your boards need to be panelized for some reason, Break-away rails (Break-away tabs) must be added at the two longer paralleled edges of the boards to ensure that the boards can be assembled by the SMT machine.

Yes, but it is based on the perception that the NEW way of shipping will be speedier for the shipping box reaching your address earlier than the previously chosen courier. All we do is to ensure your best possible ordering experiences with AlteraFlex.

This does happen from time to time, though pretty rare. If this happens, please contact courier company for updated time of delivery. Though legally we are not responsible for the delay, we still will track or phone call courier company for updates. The worst case is that we will remake PCBs for you and re-ship to you. For the extra courier charges, we may talk to courier company for compensation.

As AlteraFlex fabricate your PCBs in our facilities in Manteca, CA, we ship internationally to your country. As the customs policy in different countries may differ, some customs authorities in some countries may levy customs duty on imported PCBs. If this happens, it is your responsibility to pay. In many countries, the duty may be waived or exempted.

We have capabilities of manufacturing most of the PCBs for our customers. If you find your PCBs need special processing or you are not sure if we have the ability to produce or not, please contact us at (209) 629-8277 for an answer, attaching your Gerber files and all other files or drawings for us to assess if we can do or not. For the full list of our PCB Capabilities, please refer to Capabilities