pcb assembly

[wjmicro]

I am looking for assembly of about 500 simple 2 sided PCBs. Nothing fancy. Very basic SMD. In this small run is there anyone out there that can do this without charging me an arm and a leg?

[miguelvp]

I recently backed up the papilio duo FPGA/AVR board and they used seeed studio:
http://www.seeedstudio.com/

The board looks nice and clean and they worked out some minor problems with the creator of the board.

[rx8pilot]

I am looking for assembly of about 500 simple 2 sided PCBs. Nothing fancy. Very basic SMD. In this small run is there anyone out there that can do this without charging me an arm and a leg?

It will always feel like an arm and a leg.

First question, where in the world are you? The resources vary greatly in different regions. In southern California, there a a ton of small assembly houses that are reasonable and easy to deal with. Screaming Circuits is good if you want to ship a kit to them or they can make the PCB's through Sunstone, source the components, and assemble. Prices and lead times seem to vary based on the sophistication of the shop. There is one shop close to me that was somewhat low-tech but the prices were good. If your PCB is not BGA or .4mm pitch parts, the prices are not too bad. I personally did not like shipping kits to anyone. I always wanted to deal with people direct to avoid as many issues as possible. Also, I would be present for the setup to answer questions and inspect them myself. 500 PCBs gone wrong can be a serious problem especially if it was my fault with bad documentation.

Anyway, where are you?