Panelized pcb's

Maybe it's answering all the questions that costs money...

Funny, I didn't take you for the type that believed in ESP. I filled out the form, got two different results then asked the question. So somehow they knew to charge me more because I was going to asked questioned about them charging me more... amazing business method. Must be one of the knew MBA techniques for improving revenues. Your a genius! You must have an idea of

IMHO it's a cost-control thing. Fab-size panels are a fixed cost-per, so smaller boards are more profitable (more per panel, less overhead per board), especially with fixed-price deals. The panel surcharge keeps people from "optimizing" the system and reselling the smaller boards, which could be a net loss for the fab if they're setting their prices for the average size board (to be competitive, they may choose to lose $$ on the bigger boards in order to get more small board jobs).

Plus, panelizing for a customer adds tech time at the beginning to build up the panel, tool time at the end to cut it apart, and tech time to shuffle the parts around. In pcb fab, this overhead is far more expensive than the actual per-panel cost, and anything outside the "streamline" slows them down.

I suspect it is the sheer size, a 19.5 inch by 3 inch panel is pretty big for a PCB to be panelised and it depends on the exact size of PCB material they use as to how efficiently it will panelise.

Cheers

Ian

They have to print the artwork X-up, registered. Then, they have to somehow cut up the panels. Ask them if they can do the artwork X-up, or make your own artwork X-up and registered, then order the bigger board and cut it up yourself.

Anyway, that's how I did it the time I needed six boards about 2" X 2"; The local photoshop printed my artwork 6-up, registered. I didn't ask about the price of just one - I etched the panel, then cut them up myself.

But this was ca. 1989, so things have presumably (hopefully!) changed since then. :-)

Good Luck! Rich

I suspect if you supply the X* step up gerbers, the price will be very similar. If you want them to do the stepup, I would expect higher costs for their time and affort. I always supply the stepups X*Y because the panels have to fit my flowsolder machine. At the savings against UK supply, I don't look for a few cents extra saving/cost here or there. My tiny s/sided boards ( 5x10 step- 50 in a panel) came out at 7.5p each compared to my UK price of 49p+vat.(2000 off) Tooling and shipping was almost irrelevant...

They probably do panelize them. They can step and repeat your design across a panel. It's likely more efficient for them to do it than you (they know their limitations better). You can specify how many boards you want left together. Some of our smaller stuff is made two-up of four-up so it fits the pick-n-place machine better.

You're telling them their business. That generally costs more. ;-)

The best use of materials at the fab results from THEIR freedom to panelise. Pcb material comes in set sizes (the ones we used to use when we did this stuff in-house were 1200*900mm) so the bigger YOUR pre-panelised oder is, the more constraint it imposes on the fab in terms of packing the most clients on a sheet. This constraint equals cost, and this gets passed back to the buyer.

If you do non-panelized boards, they get to make masks for only one copy of your board, and run it 30 times, with the rest of the larger board that they cut it out of devoted to other customers' projects.

If you do panelized boards, they make larger masks, each containing five copies of your board, and run it six times.

The larger masks translate to increased tooling costs.

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Perhaps it is primarily a result of process disruption. It may cause a manual interruption of an otherwise streamlines process, thus more labor costs.