Inexpensive non-Chinese source for PCB Manufacturing?

[forrestc]

Like others I have sort of settled on JLCPCB for my PCB manufacturing.   Low cost yet perfectly acceptable quality for my needs.

Unfortunately, the US-China Trade war seems to continue to escalate, which means that I'm paying a 25% more for these due to tariffs, and sounds like it will be going up to 30% next month, with threats of increasing further.   

Every time they ratchet up the tariffs I look around for other options.  So far, nothing is even close to the price of JLCPCB.  For example, the lowest-cost non-Chinese circuit board manufacturer on pcbshopper is nearly 3x the price for a sample board I just priced.   

Is anyone aware of a low-cost PCB manufacturer which isn't based in China?

[wraper]

No chance it will be cheaper than JLCPCB + tariffs.

[forrestc]

No chance it will be cheaper than JLCPCB + tariffs.

I've pretty much decided this is likely the case.   One can hope, though.

[ebclr]

Wait for the tariffs to be near 300% then your search will begin to make sense If the price is your point forget anything else

[Warhawk]

What about https://aisler.net ?
Based in Germany. Affordable price.

[forrestc]

What about https://aisler.net ?
Based in Germany. Affordable price.

I dropped a sample gerber set on their website.   2 layer board, typical size around here, ~80x90mm, 30 for $339.60, no way online to get a higher quantity.

Same board at JLCPCB - $20 for all 30.

[forrestc]

If you have someone that can do ONLY 3x the price of JLC, please let me know. My clients will be happy to know that.

pcbshopper has various options which are about 3x the price of JLC shipped, sometimes lower/higher depending on size+quantity+layers+etc.   No idea about the quality or whether they're actually made in the country indicated.

[Reckless]

For long run chip shooting type jobs, we can be 3x jlcpcb.  Depends application to application.  We don't do small run proto type orders.

[SMTech]

Where JLC/PCBway etc really kill on price is in the low volume and  reasonably quick turnaround where you can expect to receive your boards  ~1week. Up your quantities and extend you lead times and other places can get more competitive, you might have to email files and wait for quotes or even (gasp) talk to a human on the phone but there are still plenty of manufacturers out there who could fit the bill if your requirement can be accomadated.

[IconicPCB]

try

http://eipcb.rs/

[rea5245]

try

http://eipcb.rs/

In Serbia, eh? I'm always looking to add PCB manufacturers in new locations to PCBShopper. It's a shame they don't have an online quote form.

What do you know about them? Have you used them? How is their pricing?

- Bob Alexander
  PCBShopper.com

[paddi]

What about https://aisler.net ?
Based in Germany. Affordable price.

I dropped a sample gerber set on their website.   2 layer board, typical size around here, ~80x90mm, 30 for $339.60, no way online to get a higher quantity.

Same board at JLCPCB - $20 for all 30.

Disclaimer: Co-Founder of AISLER here

Right now our online offering is only suited for prototyping quantities, as we focus on this use case. Because of this there is no discount on the quantity at all. We're working on an small series offering which will be way more affordable.
For prototyping quantities (let's say 3 pcs.) we aim to be comparable to JLCPCB if you take DHL shipping and ENIG into account. Your sample PCB would be USD34.81 with JLC and USD39.03 with us.

In our opinion local manufacturing should always be cheaper than manufacturing abroad as there are no tariffs and such. Beside that it's way better for the environment. Because of this we manufacture all U.S. orders in the U.S. and all European orders in Germany. This keeps shipping times really low.
And of course, no more hassle with the customs 

I've anyone got questions I'm happy to answer!

Cheers,
Patrick

[tszaboo]

I actually calculated manufacturing costs for PCBs for different scenarios, and Chinese fabs turned out to be a few percent (not by a lot) cheaper than European ones. When I included the lower yield, reworkability, lower quality and other factors, the chinese always ended up costing more. This is for 1000s quantities, and the price of the PCB was 2-5% of the BOM cost. Ended up buying European PCBs. Every single time.

They try to catch people with the only 2-5 USD for 5 PCB. Excluding shipping cost. I can order something from Aliexpres, same weight for 1 EUR, when I order a PCB it is suddenly 10 EUR by regular mail. And your local government slapping on a large fee for processing VAT+ import tax.
And it works. People think buying chinese PCB for production quantity is a solution. Makes me sad. Especially, when I have to rework a chinese PCB and the solder pad disappears by the slightest touch of the iron.

[Ribster]

@Paddi

I will be supporting your services. Good job!

[fki82]

I just played around a bit with pcbshopper.
It appears, that aisler produces multiples of 3 PCBs. So, if you select 3 or less, you have the best chance to get a competitive price. If you only need a prototype, 3 PCBs is often enough.

[forrestc]

I actually calculated manufacturing costs for PCBs for different scenarios, and Chinese fabs turned out to be a few percent (not by a lot) cheaper than European ones. When I included the lower yield, reworkability, lower quality and other factors, the chinese always ended up costing more. This is for 1000s quantities, and the price of the PCB was 2-5% of the BOM cost. Ended up buying European PCBs. Every single time.

I'm not sure if this is a Europe vs US thing or not.

In the US, our local fabs are usually at least 10x the cost of going to china.   For instance, at QTY 1000, I just got a quote from a local "low cost" supplier for a 2 layer board at $3.48 plus shipping, with a 4 week turn.   JLCPCB is $0.37 delivered with a 5-6 day turn.   The 5 day turn in the US is $5.25.   Shipping time would be about the same.    It gets even worse when you do a comparison at lower quantities and/or for a 4 layer board.  Some of our products we're lucky to ship more than a few dozen a year.

I understand what you're saying about yields.  I too have suffered with crap chinese fabs.   We haven't seen this with jlcpcb though, and we've bought and assembled thousands of boards since we switched a couple/few years back.   

Just for comparison, this board is 83*93mm, and has 173 holes.   2 Layer, 8 mil trace/space, HASL.   Nothing really special.

I am definitely interested in other options - if you have another option which is similar in price (note I didn't say as cheap), then I really would like to evaluate the supplier.

[SWR]

In our opinion local manufacturing should always be cheaper than manufacturing abroad as there are no tariffs and such.

It is probably due to our wierd postal service pricing in Denmark, but it is often cheaper so ship something from China to Denmark than internally in Denmark. We pay €4 or $4,50 for a 20g domestic letter if it has to arrive within 3 days, and the worst of it is that our country is only 400km or 250miles wide/long. 

[paddi]

In our opinion local manufacturing should always be cheaper than manufacturing abroad as there are no tariffs and such.

It is probably due to our wierd postal service pricing in Denmark, but it is often cheaper so ship something from China to Denmark than internally in Denmark. We pay €4 or $4,50 for a 20g domestic letter if it has to arrive within 3 days, and the worst of it is that our country is only 400km or 250miles wide/long. 

When shipping a lot via standard mail you usually get a pretty decent volume discount. We ship to Denmark via Deutsche Post way below 4€ and it usually takes 3 to 4 days. Standard shipping from China usually takes 2 to 3 weeks and is no option because of this.

[mrpackethead]

I actually calculated manufacturing costs for PCBs for different scenarios, and Chinese fabs turned out to be a few percent (not by a lot) cheaper than European ones. When I included the lower yield, reworkability, lower quality and other factors, the chinese always ended up costing more. This is for 1000s quantities, and the price of the PCB was 2-5% of the BOM cost. Ended up buying European PCBs. Every single time.

They try to catch people with the only 2-5 USD for 5 PCB. Excluding shipping cost. I can order something from Aliexpres, same weight for 1 EUR, when I order a PCB it is suddenly 10 EUR by regular mail. And your local government slapping on a large fee for processing VAT+ import tax.
And it works. People think buying chinese PCB for production quantity is a solution. Makes me sad. Especially, when I have to rework a chinese PCB and the solder pad disappears by the slightest touch of the iron.

Then get a better chinese fab.  But dont' think they are all crap, becuase they are not.  Some are awesomely good..

[Koen]

Don't talk about PCBs if you never had local homegrown slow-fed organic PCBs direct from the farm.

[tszaboo]

Then get a better chinese fab.  But dont' think they are all crap, becuase they are not.  Some are awesomely good..

And suddenly all the price difference disappears. I don't know about Australia, but here there are pretty good fabs, that deliver your design in 2 days or almost as cheap as a Chinese fab.  All within the EU.

[ebastler]

What about https://aisler.net ?
Based in Germany. Affordable price.

I dropped a sample gerber set on their website.   2 layer board, typical size around here, ~80x90mm, 30 for $339.60, no way online to get a higher quantity.
Same board at JLCPCB - $20 for all 30.

To be fair, Aisler's online offering is aimed at prototypes. There's no quantity discount at all; the per-PCB cost is the same for 3 or 30 units. So the comparison with JLCPCB looks much more reasonable at quantity 3. Also, Aisler's boards are ENIG-finished by default, which your JLCPCB are not (at the quoted price).

If I figure in fast shipping and ENIG finish, JLCPCB is only marginally cheaper for five PCBs than Aisler for three. (Their respective minimum quantities.) I might give Aisler a try next time round, given that they are local. Unfortunately, even for local customers Aisler are not faster than a Chinese vendor with fast shipping, since they take 6 business days to manufacture the boards.

[TIOUK]

And suddenly all the price difference disappears. I don't know about Australia, but here there are pretty good fabs, that deliver your design in 2 days or almost as cheap as a Chinese fab.  All within the EU.

Who?

[TheHolyHorse]

What about https://aisler.net ?
Based in Germany. Affordable price.

I dropped a sample gerber set on their website.   2 layer board, typical size around here, ~80x90mm, 30 for $339.60, no way online to get a higher quantity.

Same board at JLCPCB - $20 for all 30.

Disclaimer: Co-Founder of AISLER here

Right now our online offering is only suited for prototyping quantities, as we focus on this use case. Because of this there is no discount on the quantity at all. We're working on an small series offering which will be way more affordable.
For prototyping quantities (let's say 3 pcs.) we aim to be comparable to JLCPCB if you take DHL shipping and ENIG into account. Your sample PCB would be USD34.81 with JLC and USD39.03 with us.

In our opinion local manufacturing should always be cheaper than manufacturing abroad as there are no tariffs and such. Beside that it's way better for the environment. Because of this we manufacture all U.S. orders in the U.S. and all European orders in Germany. This keeps shipping times really low.
And of course, no more hassle with the customs 

I've anyone got questions I'm happy to answer!

Cheers,
Patrick

I'm definitely gonna try AISLER next time I order. As you explained above the difference isn't big and I wont have to pay any import stuff when shopping within the EU. Shipping will also be quicker sure I can get pretty fast shipping from JLC as well if I select the DHL option but that alone is like 20$ so at that point it's not really cheaper anymore.

[thm_w]

Indeed. JLC isn't particularly a good one.

I just ordered my first, second and third boards from them a few weeks ago, and they turned out badly.

The Pb-free HASL turned out under covered, and the edge routing are misaligned, so my 0.25mm keepout was cut during singulation.

The soldermask alignment is good, though.

I would say many PCB fabs have hits and misses occasionally, but over my 5 years in US, OSHPark has only failed me once on 2L (soldermask) and once on 4L (routing), and PCBWay has never failed me, other than than stupidly high expediting fee.

Out of the three boards I ordered from JLC, two ended up not perfect. And it's not that I ordered 100 pcs of each and there's a yield issue on a panel.

I got singulated and presumably quality checked boards, only 5~10 pcs each, and two out of three designs have at least one bad board with bad HASL and for one particular design the edge routing is 100% misaligned for all 10 pcs.

It doesn't even take an idiot to see their router has cut into a through hole.

I realize its not really worth the time, but please try the "Quality complaint" link on your order page, maybe they can offer some refund or replacement.