[...]
And if it wasn't clear they are gunning for OSHPark before, it sure is now!
[...]
And if it wasn't clear they are gunning for OSHPark before, it sure is now!
I wish DK offered something a little more tasty - e.g. an option to have the boards populated with DK sourced parts seems rather obvious!
I assume that odd color on the bottom of the OSHPark board is due to the lighting.
[...]
And if it wasn't clear they are gunning for OSHPark before, it sure is now!
I wish DK offered something a little more tasty - e.g. an option to have the boards populated with DK sourced parts seems rather obvious!
That would be the killer app, as they say. "Your boards will be manufactured with parts from Digi-Key's trusted inventory."
[...]
And if it wasn't clear they are gunning for OSHPark before, it sure is now!
I wish DK offered something a little more tasty - e.g. an option to have the boards populated with DK sourced parts seems rather obvious!
That wo
uld be the killer app, as they say. "Your boards will be manufactured with parts from Digi-Key's trusted inventory."Kind of a US version of JLCPCB? I shall not be holding my breath.
[...]
And if it wasn't clear they are gunning for OSHPark before, it sure is now!
I wish DK offered something a little more tasty - e.g. an option to have the boards populated with DK sourced parts seems rather obvious!
That would be the killer app, as they say. "Your boards will be manufactured with parts from Digi-Key's trusted inventory."
Kind of a US version of JLCPCB? I shall not be holding my breath.
Also, a + for DKR is the 6 day turn around.
I assume that odd color on the bottom of the OSHPark board is due to the lighting.
What are the design rules for the vias? They look like there is barely an annular ring, but that might just be in comparison to the drill size.
[...]
And if it wasn't clear they are gunning for OSHPark before, it sure is now!
I wish DK offered something a little more tasty - e.g. an option to have the boards populated with DK sourced parts seems rather obvious!
That would be the killer app, as they say. "Your boards will be manufactured with parts from Digi-Key's trusted inventory."
Kind of a US version of JLCPCB? I shall not be holding my breath.
Note my use of the word "trusted." Do you trust the parts supplied by JLCPCB? Are you worried about possible counterfeits and unauthorized parts substitutions? (questions are rhetorical. maybe!) This could be Digi-Key's differentiator. They have the supply part nailed down. Why do we buy from Digi-Key instead of Alibaba or eBay, even though the prices are higher? Because we know they will supply what they advertise and what we order.
DK would have to partner with an assembly service, of course, and then there's the issue of exactly which parts customers could specify for this service. It's not likely that customers could choose from everything DK offers, at least for a "low-cost prototype assembly service." But buy enough boards and I'm sure they'd be happy to stuff them with whatever you want.
All that said, I'm not holding my breath either.
My general skepticism about a US assembly service as described is the pricing will be way too high. I can get 10 4"x4" (er 100x100mm) 4L boards with 101 SMD parts (28 unique) for less than $100 from JLCPCB. I submitted just such an order 3 hours ago. I priced out a 50 board run and it would cost just a bit over $5 a board. You'd probably have pay 10X that for a US based assembler. Parts alone will be 4X-5X or more and the volume price curve is much shallower than LCSC. Labor is the killer though.
If your product price supports such costs, I say great. Mine doesn't. I have had 2 boards that failed, out of hundreds. At my prices, margin covers the loss - I toss them out.
And even with fully automated assembly, there is labor - mailing, answering the phone, loading the parts, ... Your $70/board is pretty close to my expectations.
If your product price supports such costs, I say great. Mine doesn't. I have had 2 boards that failed, out of hundreds. At my prices, margin covers the loss - I toss them out.
And even with fully automated assembly, there is labor - mailing, answering the phone, loading the parts, ... Your $70/board is pretty close to my expectations.
I don't understand what you mean. You said you were getting boards roughly comparable to mine at $100 from JLCPCB and I am getting mine for $70 in the US with added services. What does answering the phones have to do with anything? Oh, forgot to mention, my boards are 6 layer. Unless your parts are more expensive, it seems like everything else is pretty comparable or mine should be more expensive. My board is only 4.5 x 0.85 inches, so it might be smaller than yours, but I haven't found that to be a significant cost issue. The 0.85 inch width excludes me from DK Red. I keep wanting to call it DarK Red.
LCSC's acrylic panel printing service.
[...] My general skepticism about a US assembly service as described is the pricing will be way too high. [...]
If your product price supports such costs, I say great. Mine doesn't. I have had 2 boards that failed, out of hundreds. At my prices, margin covers the loss - I toss them out.
And even with fully automated assembly, there is labor - mailing, answering the phone, loading the parts, ... Your $70/board is pretty close to my expectations.
I don't understand what you mean. You said you were getting boards roughly comparable to mine at $100 from JLCPCB and I am getting mine for $70 in the US with added services. What does answering the phones have to do with anything? Oh, forgot to mention, my boards are 6 layer. Unless your parts are more expensive, it seems like everything else is pretty comparable or mine should be more expensive. My board is only 4.5 x 0.85 inches, so it might be smaller than yours, but I haven't found that to be a significant cost issue. The 0.85 inch width excludes me from DK Red. I keep wanting to call it DarK Red.OK, I'll do the math for you. 10 boards for $100. Mine come out to $10/board Q10, <$6 Q50. Yours are $70/board Q100. More than 10X different.
JLCPCB boards are of mediocre quality. Poor mask alignment, weak mask adhesion, blurry silk print, inconsistent silk print quality batch to batch, some boards come with manual fixes ( cuts where apparently they found shorts during testing). Ok for prototyping but junior quality in general. Will see what DK is offerring...
I want to make sure I understand what you are saying. You are getting 4x4 inch boards with 100 components fabricated and assembled for $10 each at quantity 10 including the cost of the parts? I take it these are very inexpensive parts?
I can't use their service because they only mount parts from their store. I can't design my board with JLCPCB components. But that is an amazing price. You might say unbelievable.
Are these boards fully routed, tab routed or V-scored?
Fully routed. Though they have a number of panelization options.
Relatively cheap parts? sure. But my board uses FRAM, high speed opto, lots of lower speed optos, 74 series logic (7, mostly NXP and TI), relay driver. The parts are much cheaper than from US/EU distis.
Are the PCBs cheap crap? Well, the first test is that >400 customers seem to be pretty much satisfied. Some wildly so. I have had 1 return and 2 failures that I replaced for free. One of the failures was a classic tombstone issue. No others from that batch had the problem.
Being critical, yes, solder mask alignment isn't perfect. But, it was good enough so the reflow worked correctly in the vast majority of cases. Also, they often use a solder mask that doesn't stand up well to reworking. Not the end of the world, especially if you don't actually rework the boards.
The parts library is, indeed, limited. In 2 ways: not every part in the world is listed and a lot that are listed seem to never be in stock. The current chip shortage has had some impact - STM8 chips for example. And they list hundreds of Atmel chips but only a handful are actually stocked. But just looking at what they actually have, it is still pretty big. If you target your design for chips they seem to stock, you should have few problems. In my design, I use a couple of 74LVC2G17 Schmidt triggers. JLCPCB lists 4 (iirc) different ones including NXP, Diodes Inc and TI. One is often out of stock but not all. So, when I make a production run I often have to switch. I have never had to postpone a batch due to chip shortages.
This board is not just a generic sort of design. It was very hard to get onto the tiny board in the first place. Two of the ICs on my board are not listed at JLCPCB at all and others are more expensive than the open market. One of those has no reasonable replacement. It's an analog switch with ~1 ohm resistance and ±12V supplies. Not many sources at all. If you know another chip I'm all ears. Maxim makes one that is more expensive in a slightly different package. I compromised the footprint to accept either, but so far have not needed to use the Maxim part.
The ADI chip is also a problem with availability at the moment. ADI is quoting 36 week lead time. Doesn't matter currently. The board has a CODEC from AKM which is not available due to a factory fire. My customer doesn't want to spin the board because of having to do all the cert testing again. The AKM chip is up to $60 each if they are even real. I think I'm going to get my customer to buy those parts and we will spot test them. But they are a major networking company and the wheels grind slowly.
I'm not spending any more on it until I get the PO.