PCB Assembly Services

For 50 off, Chinese will likely be even less inteersted than your local places. At low volumes like these, setup/tooling costs will be the dominant factor so until you get into at least several hundred, the per-board cost will be high.

...

Do it yourself. If nothing else, it might make you appreciate that it's actual work. Follow up with a report on how long it took you, and how much of a million dollar house you think it would buy you. Assembly costing more than the board does is quite typical - board manufacturing processes are highly automated and by combining small orders can be done efficiently in small quantities. With an assembly run of 50, you are either dealing with skilled manual labor (I don't have a million dollar house, but I won't touch this sort of work for less than US$50/hour, and I'm one of the cheaper options) or a job that's not worth bothering with the setup (much less stocking the part feed magazines) of automated equipment better suited to making 5000.

Some folks making stuff for electronics or radio (where the customer might be interested/capable) avoid assembly by selling kits.

--
Cats, coffee, chocolate...vices to live by

places.

until you get into at

This is all quite idiotic since Today the manufacturing process should entirely be automated.

The problem with industry is it is specific minded and not general minded.

No or little flexibility.

Somewhere there is a factory that will build anything at a reasonable cost but it is ,most probably, a classified military research place and not regular civilian industry. People (Civilians) are scared of liability because they do not know what a circuit use may be. Try to buy a decent barometer sometime with units in millibars. They should be as cheap as humidity meters but here in the usa you will only find them as very expensive scientific apparatus. They use money here to control security and not just brute force.

Feel free to make specific recommendations for process improvements.

So, decades of experience in a specific area of technology is a problem?

Yep. That's why we're all still carrying 10 kg cell phones. Oh, wait ...

Um, no. Military equipment tends to be low volume and high unit cost. A large production run might be 100 units per year, and much (or all) may be done by slow, expensive hand assembly.

Could you rephrase that in a way that makes sense?

as cheap as humidity meters

This is indeed a tragedy. I had to look as far as, well, the very first site that I checked in order to find a "decent barometer ... with units in millibars." Truly, Something Must Be Done!

Careful ... "They" are reading this too!

--
Rich Webb     Norfolk, VA

On a sunny day (Tue, 12 May 2009 08:53:45 -0400) it happened Rich Webb wrote in :

Expensive: I have this one, from

15 Euro: Have their hygrometer too.

places.

so until you get into at

Do you think it automates itself? Moron. You think there's no setup, all boards are the same? Kill yourself, now.

We do short-run surface mount by hand. Send them to me here in the U.S. along with all the components, and I'll put them together for you for $25 U.S. each. How's that sound?

OTOH, if you redesign for through-hole, the parts will cost less and the assembly cost will drop to about $8.

Surface mount is designed for automation, and is very cost-effective if you're making thousands of units.

What's minimum wage in Australia? $10-15 US an hour maybe, perhaps a bit less for a student? You can't expect to get things really cheap, particularly if you want skilled assembly.

If you have at least $5,000 in assembly labor you might consider sending it offshore. Either cheap boards and lots of them (watch QC-- don't let them source parts for you unless you really know what you are doing, and expect substantial setup and shipping costs), or few like you have and pay through the nose for skilled hand assembly and manual setup.

If you hire a local student, provide equipment, train and supervise them, to do it by hand ("here, copy the sample") will probably be the cheapest.

If your business requires this, in that kind of quantity "moving forward", I suggest that you are probably dabbling in the wrong business. If it's just to get started, then it's better to pay the money up front and charge it to marketing or product development.

So long as nothing

places.

until you get into at

It is, but there are still setup costs, including solder paste mask, machine programming, component kitting ( I assume you will not be buying full reels of all your parts?).

The industry is minded to whatever is profitable.

>

Another option is to hand-place and invest in a toaster over or skillet.

You did not give any indication as to even the order of magnitude of charges. For a measly 50 boards, it all has to be done by hand...the cost of setting up pick-and-place for that quantity would exceed the by-hand method. If the charge is in the region of $20 per board, then you should not complain or you should DIY.

Stupid...stupid...stupid. It takes TIME to set-up a pick-and place system and the more varieties of parts, the longer it takes; that is an NRE cost that exceeds what manual labor would be for so few boards. And if you attempt to argue "well..many of the parts for one board are useable for others" you are absolutely crazy - as having thousands of pick-and place machines (one per part type and value) sitting in the wings for Mister Justin Case is VERY COSTLY.

However if you design around very common parts that your assembler usually keeps reels on feeders for, and reduce the number of different parts to an absolute minimum ( to the extend of using 2 resistors of an existing value instead of one different one) it can reduce setup costs substantially

- a board I just did has about 80 resistors but only 3 different values.

places.

until you get into at

as cheap as humidity meters

Can I have some of that shit you're on?

Steve, where in Oz are you? You're posting timeline is not revealed due to your gmail address.

I'm in Perth and no, I don't do assembly. I'm over that! But here there are several small stuffers for both TH and SMD. I recently had a batch of TH with

10 IC's and over 50 passive components done (wave soldered, as it was TH) for ~$20 per board). Previously using another firm I had a batch of 20 SMD boards with 42 parts stuffed for ~$15 apiece. That job was all hand p'n'p and reflow.

They are out there.

I had actually contemplated an offshore like GoldPhoenix at their $US0.01 per solder joint/pin assembly, but I had heard of issues with getting the parts into China without a hassle, and I wasn't interested in letting GP source parts.

I've been given a couple of numbers in Melbourne for small stuffers, but found the local guy I used for the TH job to be excellent and more economical, apart from the convenience of proximity. He has machinery for large or small scale, and he will be my first port of call on future assembly work.

--> Ive been assembling boards too long.

If nothing else, it might make you appreciate that it's

--> For most people, just looking at a board is enough information to allow them to appreciate what hand assembly work is involved.

Follow up with a report on how long it took you, and how

--> This is unnesscery work. Id like to focus on assembling my boards.

Assembly

--> No its not.

board manufacturing

--> if you can compete, its not worth being in the game.

--> thanks for trying help.

of

--> $AU6000 for 50 boards - $120 per board. But does this really matter? Im just after some info on good assembly houses that do prototype runs.

--> no it dosent.

.the cost of

od.

--> I dont think so either. Automated assembly is advancing in some countries (obviously not others)

ot

--> Its a 120 per board. too much.

Assuming you're providing the parts, that really is too much, by a factor of about 4. Seriously.