Sending out a PCB for quotes

PCB deliveries are usually in the order of 2-3 wks max. Buy from China if you want to get the cost down.( 8 days del) 50% + saving.) Buy your components from non catalogue sources, not Digikey or Mouser. (future Electronics?) You usually can't get the price down except against volume, unless you are a long standing customer.

10 weeks for a power cable? Find a new electronics buyer :) ( Sorry if that's you).

We buy the bare boards and the parts, put together kits, and send them out to contract assemblers. I suspect that's more economical than turnkey, and it certainly gives better control.

John

For 100 boards, no, it wouldn't be standard... but it never hurts to ask. The PCB house might not be willing to give you a detailed breakdown of their pricing structure (since there's basically nothing there than wouldn't immediately indicate their margins and costs... putting a board together is just labor, how many layers of copper, silkscreen, soldermask, and plated holes you want), but they should be responsive if you just ask them what you could do to the board to make it cheaper.

As others have suggested, they're probably getting them for overseas. If you're just doing "run of the mill" boards (no more than 6 or 8 layers, nothing that needs really tight tolerances, etc.), these days it's little more difficult to order them from overseas than from the guy next door.

You've visited completely automated places like Advanced Circuits

to look at pricing, right? There you can play around with the various options and see how it impacts the price matrix.

For the cheapest prices, 2-3 weeks is typical.

Sounds like the PCB houses you're calling on then are effectively telling you politely to go elsewhere.

Parts vendors often don't "do" substitutions -- that's for your purchasing people and/or designers to do in-house. Clearly you can find hundreds of places that'll sell you standard line cords for no more than a couple bucks each and whack off the ends yourself, right?

Vendors ordering from another (competing) vendor is actually considered a bit unethical by many, so no, most vendors won't do that! Again here, it sounds as though you need a better purchasing department or, if you're too small to have one, start making a few more phone calls yourself to find parts. In this case it sounds as though you've hit a non-stocking distributor and hence they're asking you to foot the bill for the minimum factory order they have to place.

(I would mention, though, that one of the biggest problems I've seen at small companies is non-"technical" purchasing departments spending literally hours trying to find a vendor for some specific part number when it's really a relatively generic part that engineering could give them a substitute for in a matter of minutes...)

For the quantities you're talking, I'd just use DigiKey/Mouser/Jameco/etc. whenever possible, then falling back to the Avnets/Future/Nu Horizons/etc.

---Joel

I have had recent experience with some simple 2 layer PCBs, 1" x 2.5", with

0.032" FR-4 and 3 oz copper. I got a quote from in China, for less than $200 for 100 boards, including tooling and delivery. They also caught a serious error in my soldermask Gerber, which left the mask off of the partial ground plane, so I can attest to their attention to detail, and they have been very responsive to email queries. Their delivey is 8 days, and when I ordered previously, I had the boards in my hand within that timeframe. They do not yet have manufacturing capability, however, but plan to have that ready by the end of the year.

I got a quote for assembly from

for about $20 each, plus about $550 setup, at quantities of 50 and 100, with 12 day standard turnaround and 7 days for 50 pieces as a special deal. We were to supply the parts, as most of them were somewhat special. They also are running a special until July 18:

Get 3 SMT assembled PCBs for only $245 total and we'll ship in 5 days (faster is avail). Includes one Stencil, Setup and placing up to 200 SMT parts.

I'm not promoting either of these companies. These are just my experiences so far. HTH.

Paul

Let us know how assembly at

pans out for you guys. I once asked my contact at whether it's the same company but they said it isn't. Very striking since their street address is just one number different, they must be direct neighbors.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

How many parts on the boards? All SMT, mix or what? Any fine pitch stuff?

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

--
"it\'s the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

I use pcbcart also. My vendor for the last 25 years in California closed shop. He was charging me $12.55 for a 2 layer 3 x 6 board in 25 quantity with a six week delivery. pcbcart delivered 100 boards in 10 days for $1.28 each. I use an assembly shop in Orange, CA. They get $7.35 to put them together in 3 weeks. I have been using them for 20 years and cant wait for pcbcart to come on line for assembly. I hate to go off shore but the savings are too great to stay here any more.

This is mostly SMT, with a few thru-hole components that were to be assembled by hand. Also there are a few bottom-mounted parts that were not included in the quote, and also to be hand-soldered. I used SOIC and a few SOT23 parts, and mostly 0805 and larger resistors and caps. I have hand assembled several similar boards myself with hand tools. So this is a very low tech board.

Part Types: 33 Parts TopSide: 49 BottomSide: 8 Total: 57 Drilled pads: 25 Undrilled pads: 115 Total: 140 Via Name : STANDARDVIA Via Count : 46 Via Name : POWERVIA Via Count : 1 Signal Nets: 29 Connections Routed: 104 Partially 6 Unrouted: 0 Total: 110

Plane Nets: 0 Connections Routed: 0 Partially 0 Unrouted: 0 Total: 0

Routed Connection Length (inches) X: 38.39 Y: 28.21 Total: 66.60 Unrouted Connection Length (inches) X: 0.00 Y: 0.00 Total: 0.00

Number of copper clearance errors: 0

Number of Routing Layers: 2 Size of Board (square inches): 2.38 Equivalent IC count (1-IC/14 pins): 10.00 Board Density(boardsize/14pin-components): 0.24

Paul

Contract assemblers where, may I ask?

Michael

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote in news:9dc19052-aa07-4448-8312-dc03569ff935 @q28g2000prh.googlegroups.com:

Now that the thread has been resurrected, I'll take the opportunity to point out that pre-Olympic anti-pollution actions might be slowing down delivery dates from Chinese sources.

--
Scott
Reverse name to reply

Why not hire an experienced contract designer/inventor/electronics producers and take advantage of decades of experience? I do this work for clients all the time. Contact me for me background and details and I'm sure we ca get to realistic bottom dollars costs and understand the cost drivers, too.!

Marc Popek

On the wrong side of the Pacific; i.e. left side, not the right side. However, labor costs in the coastal regions are too expensive. So, we are moving some work into ground zero (Sichuan)

Perhaps in the North, not in the South.