Contract manufacturers vs board stuffers

If your definition of North extends into your old home contry talk to James, he does prototyping and can also handle Eagle files:

I have used these guys and for me Colorado is "East":

Another very good one in California:

Why does it have to be Northeast? Since the invention of the steam locomotive and aeroplanes it shouldn't matter much :-)

Somebody within reasonable driving distance that will give you a good tour of their facility and will let you spot-check what they're doing for other clients (modulo NDA issues, of course). How do they handle/secure customer supplied items? Does their ESD and general packaging and handling routine give you a warm'n'fuzzy?

Thanks.

It doesn't have to be Northeast, except that I like to deal with people that I know.

What do you pay for having prototypes stuffed?

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

We use Badger a lot.

They are 'local' for us. (Just down route 90.)

It's nice to be able and go and talk to someone. "This ceramic cap is the one causing problems."

No problems so far.... except even they can put a tant cap in backwards. :^)

George H.

On a sunny day (Mon, 24 Sep 2012 10:44:43 -0400) it happened Phil Hobbs wrote in :

Last series of ten had the boards etched and then build it myself.

Last series of 500 had the boards assembled (expensive), and boxes made.

I can do 0603s manually with no worries, but 0402s slow me down enough that it's usually uneconomic for the client to have me do it.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Just looked up a typical job, probably about 40-50 parts, including some really tiny SMT. Boiled down to this:

Board fab (client wanted 50) : $ 975 Machine asssembly for 5 boards : $ 425 SMT placement machine programming: $ 125 Stencil : $ 250 Components (they bought them) : $ 250 Packaging : $ 50

This was full turn-key, meaning you send them the Gerbers, the BOM and a check or credit card number and later you get stuffed boards back. We didn't even have to order parts, they did. Also included were DRC/DFM checks. Oh, and they sent a bag of trail mix along with the boards which I thought was really nice.

Forgot to mention, that board was about 1.500" by 1.500", figuring that your project is in a similar ballpark.

What I found to be a real problem, and in light of the high unemployment numbers I totally do not understand that: You can't get a decent local tech for a day or two and have him/her hand-stuff boards at their place. I mean, you'd think that in this day and age one would find some folks' web pages. You can find a gazillion PC repair and PC virus fumigator dudes, you can find layouters, you can find 8051 programmers, but no HW assemblers.

There's real biz opportunity out there, money is literally being left on the table or goes out of the community where it wouldn't have to. Beats me why.

I wouldn't want boards with hand soldered SMD components. Especially when the soldering has to be lead free. To get SMD right you'll need at least a good reflow oven preferably with a nitrogen protective atmosphere. To make the most of that investment you are better of getting a pick & place machine as well.

Often time is of the essence. If you need 2-3 prototypes stuffed by tonight it is next to impossible to line that up with an assembly house, even it it was in driving distances (which it usually isn't) or you had the use of the corporate business jet.

Same if you want a bunch of ICs or transistors swapped out. A good self-employed technician with the proper equipment can do that. The equipment investment is nowadays very modest. You can buy decent Chinese hot air stations for $100-200, plus maybe another $100 worth of nozzles. Ok, their pumps may be a little louder than the usual ones but at that prices I wouldn't complain. Then maybe a Metcal iron, and at some point a little reflow oven. All this plus the usual computer won't take more space than a regular work desk provides.

In fact, I am doing something like that right now. Why? Because there are no local techs so I'll have to solder it myself. You can do amazing things with a Weller ETS tip :-)

I don't have access to local techs. My assembly house is an hour drive away and although they are very good to work with, it isn't practical for me to drive up there to get a couple of parts swapped out. I don't like doing this work anymore as both my eyes and hands are nowhere near as good as they used to be. So far it has not been a huge problem since my designs are always perfect... lol!

I work with Niche Electronics Technology in Shippensburg, PA. They are very cooperative and have never let me down in some four years of working with them. I don't think they typically do huge production runs, but a hundred pieces at a crack is no problem for them, either too large or too big. I like to take my test stuff with me so I can test in their factory. At the end of the day I walk out with 100 working and tested boards (or once 99 when they needed to order a part for a repair). They also do mechanical assembly.

Rick

Thanks, that's reassuring. Mine is about 6 x 4 inches, BOM probably $150 per board, 150ish parts.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Lead free? What's that? ;)

SMD work with 63-37 RA flux solder isn't so hard, at least down to 0603 & SC70 size. Smaller than that gets hard.

Niche is about 4-1/2 hours from here, it looks like, so that's on the very outer edge of day trips, but that's closer than Colorado. There are a few round here, e.g. one in Poughkeepsie (an hour north) and a few on Long Island (indeterminate time southeast).

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Any Long Island or NJ lurkers care to chime in?

Thanks

Phil Hobbs

I do most of that work myself. Sometimes I do a bit of rework for clients as well. Swapping out some components to see what went wrong on big production runs.

That is quite expensive. I recently got this one for the things that are too small for a regular heat gun (aka paint stripper):

If you mean 'interesting ways to toss them in the bin' then you are right. I went through lots of these at a former employer until I got a proper Ersa soldering station. These tips are too small to transfer heat properly so you keep cranking the temperature up which burns the flux before it can do something. Get a bigger tip and a flux pen to make your life much easier.

That is neat and small. Oh, a possible new toy, tempting, tempting ... ...

You guys must be doing something wrong. Hint: They are not meant to light a Van Nelle Halfzwaar with it :-)

The ETS in my Weller has been in there for several years. Ok, it's now a bit blue around the collar but so is the exhaust pipe of a well-ridden Harley-Davidson. I soldered a bunch of stuff with it an hour ago, no problem. However, we don't have this meshugginah RoHS law here.

obbs

lt,

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nity to

on

ts

tried how well something like this works?

-Lasse

So? It's not exclusive. We know a guy who ran the assembly lines at a local business -- when they outsourced it, he scooped up some reflow ovens for pennies on the dollar. He does odd jobs out of his basement. :-)

It's win-win for everyone, really, because without the overhead, home-grown assemblers charge a lot less than full-on houses do, and if you don't like the work, you can just drive over and tell him off! :)

Tim