USA Based PCBs with competitive prices to China????.........

[ataradov]

And a major part of it is that existing US manufacturers don't want to deal with lots of small orders, even if it is automated to a high degree. They have juicy government contracts that can't go elsewhere, so the price is whatever they want (within reason, of course). For them there is no need to race to the bottom, they are on a leisurely cruise, not in a race.

The only way I see this addresses is by introducing new players specifically oriented at this kind of stuff. They would still have to compete with China though, so who knows how it would work out economically.

It would be interesting to see OSH Park  financials. I wounder if there is a possible room for them to actually start making the boards on their own and start offering more options.

[ataradov]

It's obvious the chinese are dumping PCB fab services, and we all like the low prices.

Sure, but was "AP Circuits Calgary" setup to take my order just as easy as PcbWay? There is no point complaining that you lost when you have not even competed in that market. And it turns out there is a huge market for small batch orders. And existing vendors still discard it and not even try.

I'll be happy to pay more for the US manufacturing. But there are no companies willing to do the business without calling for quote and other BS like that.

[cosmicray]

2) Is a JLCPcb level of automation something you can put together off the shelf, and if so would it be possible to replicate that process anywhere?  Does this only work economical in China? 

There are two parts to that automation. One is user facing part and then the actual manufacturing.  US manufacturing fails at the first, most likely because they also behind on the second. You don't want to have a slick interface if you can't handle all the orders that come in. And you don't want to build up manufacturing capability if you won't have any orders.

And even if you decide to automate stuff, you would them have to invest in marketing. So, it is a lot of upfront investment.

Correct, investment for the long haul is the key here. Something that has not been mentioned in this thread, is that your JLCPCB signin credentials are also your LCSC signin credentials. They appear to be mutually owned and cooperative up to a point. LCSC claims on one of their about pages that they are running 14K+ orders a day (probably 5 or 6 days a week). The last 3 orders for parts, they notified me from the warehouse floor of an issue (GMT+8) and I replied to them within the hour (GMT-5), because sometimes you glance at the phone at odd hours. The orders have all been correct as far as I can tell.

One day I did a mental exercise (similar to the premise of this thread) about a $3 reel of resistors I had in my cart ... can I match that price at Mouser (by specs, not by brand). The first two (major names) came in at $25 and $18 per reel, but I kept digging. Eventually I found a name I've never heard of at $5/reel. That was rock bottom, and I doubt many people buying for production would go after that brand.

If you are going to compete, you need both the economies of scale, and you need the hundreds of companies that supply all the parts that LCSC has listed (or which maybe 1/3 are in stock), and that JLCPCB will use in fully assembled boards. North America certainly has a variety of semiconductor firms, but how many are there that make little formed pieces of tin to hold a CR-2032 against a PCB ? The other issue in this is what wage scale are your workers being paid. I doubt the Chinese are making equivalent to what people working at any of the USA or Canadian PCB shops are paid. The only place in North America that might have closer wage parity is Mexico. I've never tried to get any boards made there, but the search engine turned up 3 or 4 business names.

I doubt we will ever get a shop (in North America) that can make $2 promotional special PCBs, the numbers just don't pencil in.

[ataradov]

can I match that price at Mouser (by specs, not by brand).

  But this is also an incomplete comparison. Mouser and DigiKey at least pretend to sell more than just the parts. I don't know about today, but some time ago you could call DigiKey and get technical answers to the questions about the parts. And they invite vendors to train those engineers for that. I personally did 3 full-day presentations at DigiKey.

This is an additional service that inflates the price of the product. The thing is, most people don't care about that. And all I want is a service that will sell me the stated part number. And that's what LCSC is. When I buy at LCSC, I have no expectation of tech support. But it is fine, if the wrong $3 reel arrives, I'll just toss it and order a new one.

This is the service that does not exist in the US.

I doubt we will ever get a shop (in North America) that can make $2 promotional special PCBs, the numbers just don't pencil in.

But they can sell them at a slightly higher price and still pull some of the business, which in turn increases your ability to offer cheaper prices.

You don't just start from a successful company on day one. PcbWay and other aggressively marketed. I don't remember seeing any marking at all from US companies.

[floobydust]

It's obvious the chinese are dumping PCB fab services, and we all like the low prices.

Sure, but was "AP Circuits Calgary" setup to take my order just as easy as PcbWay? There is no point complaining that you lost when you have not even competed in that market. And it turns out there is a huge market for small batch orders. And existing vendors still discard it and not even try.

I'll be happy to pay more for the US manufacturing. But there are no companies willing to do the business without calling for quote and other BS like that.

I agree. TBH all North American PCB fab houses are a ripoff charging high setup fees. Thank you china for putting an end to that scam. NA fabs are going extinct unless they ditch the high setup fees and dislike of small, prototype orders.
I'd read the US Gov't is subsidizing ones that do military products.
But it is (was) nice getting boards made and picking them up locally, in a couple days.

[glenenglish]

I agree. TBH all North American PCB fab houses are a ripoff charging high setup fees. Thank you china for putting an end to that scam. NA fabs are going extinct unless they ditch the high setup fees and dislike of small, prototype orders.
I'd read the US Gov't is subsidizing ones that do military products.
But it is (was) nice getting boards made and picking them up locally, in a couple days.

I totally disagree. US manufacturers are not necessarily ripping people off- just you don't like the pricing.
The setup fees are likely a simple reflection of the costs involved. Divide setup costs by 10 and you probably have the mainland china setup labor cost.

[ataradov]

Ok, I went to 4pcb and created an account with a disposable email and dummy data. Then I did instant order (interface for this looks straight from the early 2000s).

I quoted my USB Sniffer board,which is 2.29 x 1.50 inch (58.3 x 38.2 mm) 2 layer board. The quote interface did not specify what units should be used for measurements (turns out it is inches, go figure).

Here is the matrix:

Code: [Select]

Qty Same Day 1-day 2-day 3-day 4-day 5-day E Test(Lot)
5 $108.64 $68.80 $46.44 $36.21 $34.93 $33.66 $110.00
10 $55.97 $35.35 $23.78 $18.49 $17.82 $17.16 $135.00
50 $13.84 $8.59 $5.65 $4.31 $4.14 $3.97 $169.20
150 $8.40 $5.05 $3.17 $2.31 $2.20 $2.09 $169.20

OSH Park was able to make 3 of those boards for $17.25 (Plus free USPS shipping, which is a huge selling point for OSH Park). So, $5.75 per board.

Here the cheapest price is $33.66/5 =  $6.73 per board. This is before shipping, which is far for free here.

WAIT, it is $33.66 per PCB. They can F right off with prices like this.

Obviously, it becomes affordable at 50+ PCBs. But this is not what I want most of the time. And guess what, if I prototyped with PcbWay, they already have the files and I know they work, so it is very easy for me to just place a real order with them and not worry about filling out an ancient HTML form.

So, OSH Park that does not even manufacture those PCBs was able to take my order, subcontract its manufacturing, receive the panel back and stuff it into envelopes for shipping cheaper than an actual manufacturer?

And the actual manufacturer was infuriating and tried to take a whole bunch of personal information before even showing me the price.

And even if they don't want to run that small order store front, what is stopping them from going to OSH Park and partnering with them to expand availability? Or establish a new third-party company that will deal with the small orders via an interface from this century.

Also, here is email you receive from them on registration. WTF is this ransom note? And offering $250 off kind of sets the expectation for the order size from their side.

[rea5245]

And even if they don't want to run that small order store front, what is stopping them from going to OSH Park and partnering with them to expand availability? Or establish a new third-party company that will deal with the small orders via an interface from this century.

As the operator of PCBShopper, I'm aware of an American PCB manufacturer that set up a small order store front. They made me sign an NDA, so I won't say who. For some reason, they didn't want it identified with their company. And after a few years, they shut it down (which is why I feel free to say this much about it). Its prices were better than their corporate site, but still not competitive with the Chinese companies.

- Bob Alexander

[ataradov]

Its prices were better than their corporate site, but still not competitive with the Chinese companies.

This is awesome, cool service, so secret that it requires an NDA to even learn about it. Just straight from the book of how to start a successful business.

This pretty much sums up US companies approach to the issue.

[floobydust]

I agree. TBH all North American PCB fab houses are a ripoff charging high setup fees. Thank you china for putting an end to that scam. NA fabs are going extinct unless they ditch the high setup fees and dislike of small, prototype orders.
I'd read the US Gov't is subsidizing ones that do military products.
But it is (was) nice getting boards made and picking them up locally, in a couple days.

I totally disagree. US manufacturers are not necessarily ripping people off- just you don't like the pricing.
The setup fees are likely a simple reflection of the costs involved. Divide setup costs by 10 and you probably have the mainland china setup labor cost.

What do you think is reasonable for setup fees? How much time and labour is really involved putting Gerber files to the photoplotter, the NC drill file etc. ?
I think they (NA fabs) historically supplement their costs by adding additional charges which I dislike.

[rea5245]

This is awesome, cool service, so secret that it requires an NDA to even learn about it. Just straight from the book of how to start a successful business.

The NDA just covered the fact that the site was connected to the larger company. They were included in PCBShopper's price comparison list, and they bought an ad for a couple of years. I don't know what other advertising they might've done.

- Bob Alexander

[ataradov]

Yeah, I've got that. I can't say I've heard about any new PCB service in the last few years, so I guess their marketing was bad. At the same time I see an ad for PcbWay pretty much weekly in random YT videos. If one of those ads was for a new PCB service, I'll surely check it out.

This is like one of 100s Google products that you learn about from the news about it being shut down.

[bdunham7]

I totally disagree. US manufacturers are not necessarily ripping people off- just you don't like the pricing.
The setup fees are likely a simple reflection of the costs involved. Divide setup costs by 10 and you probably have the mainland china setup labor cost.

The setup fees are a reflection of the gross inefficiency of their systems compared to something like OSHPark, PCBWay or NextPCB.  I just ordered some very small , very simple boards for a repair project and OSHPark was able to import my files and process my order in seconds at a cost of $8.80 for 12 boards--shipped.  I've had to talk to NextPCB one time because I ordered a small, round board with no copper and their system flagged it as incomplete. They took the time to call me and straighten it out just because it's what they do, not because my order was really worth the trouble.   

[Smokey]

labor costs. PCBs are hard labor work. USA  never going to compete with SE asia  without robots doing all the work

Based on that factory tour video, this is what JLCPcb is doing.  There are still some places I was surprised to see humans handling the panels, but there were a ton of robots and conveyer belts. 

It's like McDonalds.  Why not just support a higher minimum wage when you know you will be replacing 90% of your employees with kiosks.

It was during lunar new year, so the normal engineering crew might have been out, but JLCPcb had one hell of a time actually processing a penalized design I sent.  They kept trying to make either the single board or the panel outline by itself without the actual boards on it. It took like a week of one-a-night emails to sort it out.  So there is still room for automation improvement.

[meshtron]

I had some recent boards quotes at OSHPark Macrofab(!).  Their website was a bit junk (couldn't recognize my files even though they were as specified, possibly because I was using a pre-release version of KiCAD . 

Why not send Gerber files instead of hoping the CAD packages you both use will be compatible? Gerber is the industry standard for a reason.

I wasn't "hoping" the CAD package I use was compatible, it was advertised on their site as such!  And I did end up sending Gerber files - which I have no problem with.

Also, interestingly, just got a response email from the one I sent 2.5 weeks ago - so someone from Macrofab is seeing this.

[ccmfab]

I wasn't "hoping" the CAD package I use was compatible, it was advertised on their site as such!  And I did end up sending Gerber files - which I have no problem with.

Also, interestingly, just got a response email from the one I sent 2.5 weeks ago - so someone from Macrofab is seeing this.

Hi Meshtron, you are correct! We do try to keep on top of what's going on out in the world and use posts and threads like this to better understand where we can improve and provide feedback to the team.  I am a founder here at MacroFab (Chris), and I lead our product and support teams.

Not getting a rapid response to your questions was unacceptable, we focus on an exceptional support experience, and you didn't get that experience.  That was a failure on our part, and one for which I am responsible. I reviewed our workflows with our support team and we have corrected the issue that resulted in you not getting a response immediately. I know that this doesn't make up for the fact that it happened, but I hope that you will give our team another chance.

We do advertise supporting KiCad and we work directly with the KiCad team to resolve issues when they come up.  The interim builds often cause issues for our parsers. We have identified the issue in the version you used and have opened a ticket with the KiCad team to assist us in resolving the issue, hopefully we can get their feedback and implement any needed changes quickly.

A couple of things I'd like to answer from the thread:

We don't offer purple soldermask or silkscreen.  We have a wide variety of color options available, but purple is not one of them (our default is red).  Right now, you can access the soldermask colors by clicking the "Specifications" button on the Design tab.  We are releasing an update to that interface in the next few weeks that will make specifications more front-and-center, and easier to use.

We currently source PCBs from the US, Brazil, Colombia, Taiwan, and China. The bulk of our PCBs come from Taiwan.  US is always used for our fast-turn (10-day) service, ITAR orders, and when our production customers request it. China is often used for high-volume orders where price is a driving concern, or low-cost tiers.  For all others, the platform dynamically chooses source based on best possible outcomes given specifications, lead time, and transit concerns.

You're right that we're more expensive than PCBWay and JLCPCB, there are a number of great points brought up in the thread, but I'd like to add a few additional points for consideration:

1. We're a contract manufacturer. PCBs, for us, are a thing we have to buy. Like other materials, we have costs associated with them and we necessarily have to sell them at a higher cost than we pay.
2. JLC and PCBWay are both vertically integrated fabrication and manufacturing companies.  JLC is also a large distributor in China, (LCSC and JLC are the same company) providing even greater levels of vertical integration and the ability to offer some services at a lower margin than their competitors can, as these services and products are all in-house.
3. Electronics materials prices are highly subsidized in China, both to originally create a market dominant position and to maintain it in a go-forward motion. I can't say whether or not JLC/PCBWay benefit from these specifically, but it is a thing which comes into play in securing production runs in China vs other regions.
4. Labor and material costs are significant driving factors in US PCB production, this is true - environmental controls are also a major cost consideration, as are capital costs on new facility spinups.  Construction is expensive, and even though a small amount of subsidies have been created recently for construction of new PCB fabrication plants in the US, the bulk of that capacity has/will go to defense industry where the profits are higher and the demand is guaranteed.

I'm happy to answer any questions you may have, or take any additional feedback that we can use to improve our product and service offerings!

Thanks,
Chris

[rea5245]

Chris, would Macrofab like to be included in PCBShopper's price comparison list? There's no charge to appear on the list and no charge for users to be forwarded to your web site. All I'd need is for you to implement a simple API on your server to allow PCBShopper to query for prices.

If you're interested, go to PCBShopper.com and send me a message via the Contact form.

- Bob Alexander
  PCBShopper.com

[meshtron]

Chris - appreciate your post.  For me, in fact, Macrofab just following up via email (and even more so posting here) does indeed make up for the fact I had a bumpy start.  No company is perfect, great companies recognize issues (even when they're small) and fix them - glad to see that's exactly how Macrofab works!

The KiCAD compatibility is on me, no knock for you guys and my assertion about your website was unfair, I was (as I mentioned) merging my experience with Macrofab and another vendor.

With respect to pricing, all valid points and - to me - there are and will be products where we're willing and able to pay the premium to get them made somewhere other than China.

Anyway, thanks for having your team follow up, and thanks for posting here.  I still have the need that originally caused me to reach out to Macrofab and will continue to pursue finding a way to get that to work.

[ccmfab]

Great! If you run into any issues along the way, feel free to reach out to me directly (my last name at macrofab.com) and I'll make sure we do everything in our power to make you successful.

@bob - I'll take a look and follow up with you.

Thanks,
Chris

[floobydust]

Something not being mentioned here is the quality of base laminate used.

I had a product where the CM quietly changed and went from a North American PCB vendor to a South Korean vendor. It was some Manufacturing Manager idiot screwup and Engineering was not consulted about it. For a few products.

Well surprise surprise, cheap laminate uses lots of resin (instead of fiberglass) so Dk was higher than the stripline design lol. What a mess.
Also, the finished copper thickness is at the minimum IPC-A-600 Class 2 spec, I think that's "1oz copper 35µm/1.4 mils thick" is cheapo 20µm and "2oz copper 70µm/2.8 mils thick" is 40µm for -40%! Although -20% I've seen as a spec too. What a surprise the high current traces are running hot.
The peel strength was shit, large through-hole parts fell off and rework was not really possible without pads lifting off.

My point is pay some attention to the make/brand of laminate used, as it is a common cost-saver. People only looking at the bottom line PCB cost will miss this. Also know regulatory approvals on it if mains is involved - UL/CSA approvals, CTI rating etc.

Second is, make sure what independently-audited quality system is in place for the PCB fab. I've had bad PCB builds from NA PCB fabs and it's been due to a crappy or non-existent quality system,  even counterfeit laminate getting used.

[glenenglish]

 floobydust, Was this a 2 layer, or a multilayer?
As you know, on multilayer, type of prepreg and core is always specifiied so the amoutn of resin is driven somewhat by the density of the fibreglass mat used
-glen

[toybuilder]

Customer service is expensive.  If you have a CAM operator review and e-mail you about a problem with your board, and they spend 10 minutes of their $30/hr time with you, that's $5 already gone just to look at your board.   Got pre-sales or order handling questions?  Add another $5 or $10 answering customer questions...

That impact of labor costs goes down with improved automation, and Chinese shops generally have better quoting/ordering automation.  US companies are structurally at a disadvantage because the costs are higher.  There's no incentive to lower their prices as long as they get enough business from domestic clients willing to pay higher prices either because they have to (contract/regulations) or because they prefer domestic service.

[Smokey]

Great! If you run into any issues along the way, feel free to reach out to me directly (my last name at macrofab.com) and I'll make sure we do everything in our power to make you successful.

@bob - I'll take a look and follow up with you.

Thanks,
Chris

https://www.linkedin.com/in/cachurch/

Hey Chris.
I took a look at Macrofab.  One of my partners would absolutely love the concept of what it looks like you are doing.  He's all about bringing separate, sometimes confusing and convoluted, processes together under one software interface and streamlining that so someone who isn't necessarily an expert can navigate that space. 

I have a question though.
I've been designing and manufacturing electronics products for some time now.  I have, in my opinion, smoothly working processes in place to handle purchasing boards, components, and assembly from separate companies.  I do my own purchasing, kitting, and inventory for parts and do mostly runs of around 1000 pieces at local CM assembly shops. 
My question is:  How do you think someone like me might benefit from something like Macrofab?  Do you have examples of products transitioning from successful inhouse builds to Macrofab and saving the company money, or are your customers primarily people that don't have confidence navigating all the parts of the process on their own?

[ccmfab]

Hi Smokey,

It sounds like you have a well-orchestrated process that is meeting your needs, and likely netting you some excellent savings versus traditional turnkey manufacturing. If you aren't experiencing any issues, then there may be no clear benefits to using someone like us.

Our most successful customers are those that have a diverse catalog of products with different manufacturing requirements/volumes and are looking to reduce their management overhead of working with a stable of manufacturers and to create materials savings across products without having to fully manage their own supply chains.  We do have companies that have moved entire in-house manufacturing processes to us, netting them significant savings, but these were larger companies, with larger-scale products transitioning out of owned factories where most, if not all, elements were built in-house.  (In many ways, yes, this is the traditional contract manufacturing process.)

One way that we've been able to help a number of smaller companies who wished to manage more of their own supply chain, while taking advantage of turnkey where it didn't provide a financial benefit or one around material availability issues, is to utilize us as the central clearing house for their materials to our network of factories. 

We do help customers reduce their labor and cost overhead related to shipping, storing, and auditing owned/consigned materials. Our platform supports customers shipping owned inventory to our warehouses, and then consuming those materials on-demand either mixed with turnkey materials or not, and reducing the effort required to store, maintain, kit, and ship those materials.  Then, they can make decisions on the fly whether to use owned materials or turnkey materials for a given build.  For example - during times when a component is readily available, using turnkey through our platform to maintain a buffer stock of owned components, then when pricing or availability changes, switching to consuming owned materials without additional effort required.  (It's a drop-down in our platform, and we support dynamic sourcing profiles that can be saved for individual products.)  We then handle all of the kitting, getting materials the factory, and then reporting on consumption at the end.

That may or may not be something of use to you, but it's one of the capabilities that some of our customers have found useful to reduce their workload when doing materials management themselves.

Directly saving money on the COGS/contract price per product build is often not achieved by turning over manufacturing to our platform if you're already fully managing the supply chain in-house, but net actual costs often decrease due to lower untracked labor and management overhead, not to mention the opportunity cost associated with managing materials ones self.

[S. Petrukhin]

At the risk of introducing politics, I think the American PCB manufacturing situation highlights how the problem goes far beyond anything tariffs could fix. The price difference between China and US manufacturers is so great that 10% or even 60% tariffs would not help. You would need tariffs of a few hundred percent, and that would just crash electronics development in the US.

It seems that this is typical not only for the United States, but also for all other countries.
You don't have employees who are willing to work meekly without vacations and other benefits, for example.

Therefore, it is expensive because it is not mass production, but it is not mass production because it is expensive - the circle closes.
Investments are needed to break the circle and offer an initial low price, incurring a loss, but attract mass production in the future.
Investors probably don't see a chance to compete with China.

But more often than not, manufacturers live on expensive defense industry orders with a PCB price equal to the price of a cast-iron bridge.