The assembled boards have arrived from PCBWay, wrapped extremely well in plastic bubble and each board in a reusable anti-static bag. I was half expecting a stack of boards, but of course that's wrong as the boards have SMD components mounted.

The quality as you can see is impeccable. They sent me a picture of the first board to confirm that the placement of the parts was correct. It was a photo of a real board because the SS8050 SMD transistors had the marking Y1, the short code for this part.

Naturally my manual but adequate soldering shown above is no match for reflow soldering. The pictures also show that I'm not really set up to take good macro photos, there is reflection from the shiny solder. Maybe I need one of those digital microscopes.

So what were the durations and costs? Bear in mind that this will vary widely with project.

• Day 0: The order was placed and PCB fabrication started on May 19.
• Day 3: The boards were completed on May 22.
• Day 9: The required parts were collected by May 28.
• Day 15: Board assembly boards was completed and they were shipped on June 3. Interesting that the estimated build time was 25-30 days, perhaps for leeway for complex boards or hard to source parts. This project only requires 2 copper layers and widely available parts.
• Day 23: I had opted for cheap Global Express shipping so the boards arrived June 11. Note that the local handling (customs, last km courier) took a few days, so it's not just transport time from China.

As for the costs, the boards are under 100x100 mm so each of 10 boards is $0.50. Parts were $0.71 and assembly was $2.90 resulting in $4.11 per board. Naturally this is highly dependent on the parts and the complexity of the board. You have to decide if it's worth paying for professional assembly. A factor is whether you are a hobbyist or a commercial firm. If you are in a hurry because it's a commercial project, then the cost shoots up for rush jobs. If there are several iterations then the cost multiplies. Then again, manual assembly is more prone to errors, and you have to clean off soldering residue.

So now to populate the boards with 5 mm LEDs, stitch two together and get a display working. By the way if you are building displays out of discrete LEDs like me, eschew 3 mm LEDs and go for 5 mm LEDs. Not only do they look more attractive, like glowing domes rather than points of light, but they are also more robust. The 3 mm LED leads break off easily if soldered more than once, after all the pin spacing is 2.54 mm. Naturally go for diffused bodies rather than clear bodies.