i have done quite a few of these and have learned a lot the proper way, 
by doing it wrong in several different way. several times

my experience is that mouse bytes *do not work* in ALPCB, i had a 
terrible time with them and wound up having to saw with a miniature 
precision table saw and then deburr
the tab width was not excessive, re-drilling the mouse holes larger did 
not help, they were just a total mess, little points, metal slivers
(however i know people do use them, beats me)

OTOH the V-cuts have worked like a dream
i do not specify any particulars wrt depth angle and so on, i do this on 
purpose as a good shop knows best and every board has its own little story

they break easily by hand and the edges are clean, bottom is smooth and flat

i don't know for sure about machine singulation such as slitting 
machines for FR4 V-cuts, but i think they work for ALPCB if you allow 
for the blade width of 0.5mm either side

if the boards are very narrow (around 6mm side) they are too narrow to 
lay side by side and V-cut and you must route a gap but at around >=12mm 
it is ok

for your pear shape panel it is a close call, the shop that says it may 
be too flimsy may well be right
i have just done something similar

can you tolerate a small bump on the sides? at the "hips" ?
if so i would put a tab there and v-cut thru it
many modern machines can do a skip score and cut just there or cut the 
whole way vertically should be ok too

or if not maybe a pair of cuts at the  edges
let us know how it goes
ds

On 2/24/2017 8:46 AM, Steve Gregory wrote:
> Good Morning all,
>
> We're about to build a MCPCB (Metal Core) and I'm having a little issue
> about panelizing it. It's a little teardrop shaped board about 1.5" wide by
> 3.5" long. So I did a panel drawing for the board shop to panelize this for
> me:
>
> http://stevezeva.homestead.com/Aluminum_Core_PCB.jpg
>
> I have one board shop telling me that the v-score is the best way to go as
> far as being able to depanelize it after building it, and I have another
> board shop telling me that a tab routed mousebite is the way to go because
> a v-score will make the panel too flimsy. So what is your take on it? The
> board has doubl sided SMT
>
> I've built metal core boards before at a past employer but they weren't
> panelized, so I'm not quite sure how stable it might be with a v-score, or
> how difficult it would be to singulate with a mousebite. Also we do almost
> all of our depaneling here manually, we don't have anything but a foot
> operated pneumatic tab nibbler.
>
> Any input is appreciated,
>
> Steve
>