Good SMT prototype assembler, West Coast?

Silicon Forest in Vancouver, WA. "Does well with intricate stuff" certainly describes them.

One of their lead people used to be the assembler for an engineering group I worked for. She could be the most obnoxious person on earth, but she knew how to harness that for the good of her customers so it was no bad thing.

Hello Tim,

Thanks, have forwarded it. In case others are looking as well:

I used to work at a company called MJS Designs, located in Phoenix Arizona.

Their primary service is doing the type of stuff you have described. Based on my experience working there and knowing Dawn Visser (my former boss, who appears to be the company president now), I wouldn't hesistate to recommend them or to use them for my own board manufacturing needs now that I've moved on to engineering.

I got boards done here quick and low cost--and without the fuss that the "notouch" house did, for a two sided board with a separate ground plane (composite). They also offer PCB assembly. Largo

Largo,

So they made one 2-sided board that was signal & ground, and then a single-sided board that was laminated with the 1st board to get S-G-S?

Interesting...

Their web site is a little primitive, and if I had to guess it looks like the boards are actually built in China, but the prices certainly are cheap.

---Joel Kolstad

"Express" called it composite. Effectively I had four gerber files, ground plane, circuit, solder and mask. The ground plane was created by using the tracks & pads on the comp side but increasing the aperture list by 30 thou. "express" et al. had no way to deal with in their no-touch category offerings. Had to go into the full service spins.

Yes. Strangely enough the boards had Chinese script on the packing. I had four smallish boards done for $92. This was my first experience with pcb fabrications.

Largo

Hello Fritz,

Thanks! That is a great endorsement, I will let my client know (and also add it to my own list).

Hello Largo,

Thanks for the hint. This could be a great place if time is very critical.

Have you seen this list?

There is no date on it, but it was done by these guys:

Hello Jeff,

Yes, there are lots of companies. However, I wanted to find some where the folks on this forum had personally had a good experience. When it comes to stuff such as 0402 and TSSOP things can go horribly wrong on small prototype runs. Not just from a workmanship point of view but also by mis-stuffing. 0402 resistors will often have no labeling. Once it's on the board you cannot see (and often cannot measure) whether they put in the right value.

Joerg wrote

Which is exactly my question, but for the UK. Accuracy and responsiveness rather than rock-bottom pricing. Volumes are pre-production - for us that means up to around 50 fairly small units.

Any suggestions?

-- Tim

I had good service from these people a few years ago, before I learned to do SMT myself:

Paul Burke

I can recommend Active-PCB in Reading.

Leon

Hello Leon,

Ain't that in Pennsylvania?

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions.

-- Tim