Where are small PCB assembly shops?

[radiostuff]

Why don’t I see more really small assembly companies? I assume this type of business is conducive to being run with relatively low overhead. I would have assumed a $200,000 production line and tiny staff could make decent margins.

[SMTech]

They often don't like to admit they are small......

[radiostuff]

Which cities/regions have the biggest cluster of assembly houses? Dallas and Chicago?

[Mangozac]

You will find many such shops don't even advertise. They will have a set of customers they contract to so if they're not trying to expand they don't bother making their presence known.

[coppice]

It can be hard to find good places to provide services like board assembly, metalwork fabrication, and so on. Then, you look up at a sign one day, and find you are right next door to one. Its really hard to make good connections.

[Jackster]

Not sure about the states, but there are quite a few small PCB assembly companies in the UK.

Some have a decent web presence, and some are in the back of an office block, with no signage or web presence at all.
It is one of those industries where you can have a handful of customers and be busy enough all the time to not need more work or spend time finding it and the public would only know about that company through word of mouth.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Smaller shops are rather vulnerable to going out of business if they lose one customer - seen this a few times with places I've used over the years. That and closing when the owner retires.
Can be really hard to find good small shops that care about 1-off runs. So glad I got my pick & Place a few years ago.

[SMTech]

One-offs are expensive to do. As a smaller assembly house, we do one-offs, but we're really hoping they turn into some kind of repeat business. The more work we do with a single client the better we understand them, their component library etc, that helps with later work as we can cost, setup & purchase more easily. Without wanting to stereotype too much much one-man band designers tend to send horrible data and too few have any knowledge of how manufacturing works.

It is easy to fall into the trap of having one large client, we try hard not to, plus we are one of our largest clients, bonus!

Almost all new business is word of mouth, onboarding new customers is also expensive, it takes a lot of time to cost up a product on the off chance it turns into an order and its basically impossible to automate - you could try with standard component pricing, but your price would suck.

[tszaboo]

They are everywhere. I have one 500m from work, it's on something like a 100 sqm, one pick and place, one oven, three soldering station, office upstairs. I think 3-4 people work there tops, just two were when I visited.
Same with an injection molding company. Two guys with a machine, plastic storage at the back, office upstairs.
Both have website, but without SEO, paying for google ads and large online presence it's difficult to find them, I know of them by word of mouth.

[coppice]

Smaller shops are rather vulnerable to going out of business if they lose one customer - seen this a few times with places I've used over the years.

The flip side of that is the small shops that seem to be doing well tend to achieve that from one or two big customers, rather than a large number of small ones. A key problem of being a service company like this is you tend to get a lot of overflow work your big customers can't handle. When there is a downturn their facilities are still well loaded, and yours are completely idle.

[jc101]

A number of years ago, I contacted around a load of UK assembly houses I found details of.  I had too much demand to continue doing stuff myself, plus stuff was getting too small to be easy to handle by hand.  I have no space for any P&P type solution.

Only a few replied.  One asked for details but said under 1000 boards they weren't interested.  Another one, I replied to their questions but never heard from them again.  One called me, asked some questions, and said I could visit them to discuss what I wanted and see how they operated.  I paid them a visit and had a tour of the facility.  I asked them their minimum quantity and the chap looked up and chuckled, "one is perfectly fine with us".  I've been using them ever since.

Could I shop around and find something cheaper these days, probably.  Do I want the hassle, no. 

The single biggest problem I had was companies simply not replying, be that e-mail, or contact form on their website.  Even calling and leaving a message.

[mikeselectricstuff]

The single biggest problem I had was companies simply not replying, be that e-mail, or contact form on their website.  Even calling and leaving a message.

I've had worse - they quoted, we were all ready to go down there ( 3hr trip) & they decided at the last minute they didn't want the job.

I recently sent RFQs for a job to 3 small to medium UK places I've used before -
45 PCBs (250x300mm) , single-sided 1000 parts on each, 2 BOM lines, 1 week turnround.
Unbelievable difference in quotes :

"P" £87 each, £200 stencil, free setup ( £68 for 2-3week turnround)
"K" £30 each. £150 stencil, £150 setup
"F" £13 each, £175 stencil, £100 setup

For various reasons we also got a batch of five done by JLC, assembly cost was $35 setup+stencil, $30 each assembly.
(I couldn't get a JLC quote for the full qty due to insufficient parts stock)

 

[jc101]

Luckily never had that happen. That would drive me nuts!

I have a one-off tooling fee of £210, which covers stencil and all the setting up etc.

My last quote was higher than that, though with more parts 1200+, more BOM lines (30), then throw in hand soldering 16 x 20-way pin headers (they are reverse mounted out the bottom of the panel).  Plus, I only needed 6 panels made up.  It drops quite fast as the quantity increases.

I guess I should shop around, but it's a real hassle.  Having a relationship with a supplier is worth a lot to me, we understand each other.  They also do some full product assembly for me too.

[Feynman]

Many small assembly shops just have a more or less fixed customer base they know very well. And those companies acquire new customers mainly by word-of-mouth. They usually do well in their niche and have no interest in getting bigger or well known. Happens all the time that a company goes out of business, because they accepted an unusual large contract they couldn't handle properly.

[Psi]

So glad I got my pick & Place a few years ago.

What machine do you use to apply paste.
One of the reasons I'm a bit reluctant to go down the in-house pnp PCBA road is the paste step.

I used to do a lot of hand paste stencil then hand place and toaster oven reflow, and the paste step was always the one that gave me problems.
I'd apply the paste in exactly the same way and sometimes it would be perfect and sometimes it wouldn't, with no obvious reason no matter what variables i tried to control.
 

[mikeselectricstuff]

So glad I got my pick & Place a few years ago.

What machine do you use to apply paste.
One of the reasons I'm a bit reluctant to go down the in-house pnp PCBA road is the paste step.

I used to do a lot of hand paste stencil then hand place and toaster oven reflow, and the paste step was always the one that gave me problems.
I'd apply the paste in exactly the same way and sometimes it would be perfect and sometimes it wouldn't, with no obvious reason no matter what variables i tried to control.

I use the Eurocircuits stencil printer, uses frameless stencils and works well but very over-built hence way more expensive than it needs to be. Even then, the board support isn't great so I usually use a chunk of wood underneath for support instead of the magnetic posts they supply.
The pin alignment works fine once you get the right hole size in your "stencil tool" component.
It is a bit of a messy process, but the prints come out very well.
https://be.eurocircuits.com/shop/offtheshelf/product.aspx?ad=13777&ano=ec-stencil-mate&an=ec-stencil-mate&s=ec-prototype-equipment

I use a toaster oven for reflow, no automation, just power adjustment, timer and visual check for when to stop.
I also have an old modified commercial pizza oven for larger boards.

[Psi]

Do you control the temperature off your paste?
I always found the first few prints come out sharper, perhaps due to the paste still being colder and hence thicker.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Do you control the temperature off your paste?
I always found the first few prints come out sharper, perhaps due to the paste still being colder and hence thicker.

No but I don't keep it in the fridge

[james_s]

There's one about a mile from my house, it's a mostly empty building now, just a few people working in the front office and most of the rest of the building is used for storage. They outsourced all of the actual volume production to China years ago and bring in contractors to assemble small batches of stuff. I did some work for them at one point when I was between real jobs and it quickly became apparent that the stuff "they" built in the US was just guys like me carting home a box of parts and assembling a batch of widgets on the kitchen table.

[tszaboo]

The single biggest problem I had was companies simply not replying, be that e-mail, or contact form on their website.  Even calling and leaving a message.

I've had worse - they quoted, we were all ready to go down there ( 3hr trip) & they decided at the last minute they didn't want the job.

I recently sent RFQs for a job to 3 small to medium UK places I've used before -
45 PCBs (250x300mm) , single-sided 1000 parts on each, 2 BOM lines, 1 week turnround.
Unbelievable difference in quotes :

"P" £87 each, £200 stencil, free setup ( £68 for 2-3week turnround)
"K" £30 each. £150 stencil, £150 setup
"F" £13 each, £175 stencil, £100 setup

For various reasons we also got a batch of five done by JLC, assembly cost was $35 setup+stencil, $30 each assembly.
(I couldn't get a JLC quote for the full qty due to insufficient parts stock)

After a few years of business, I came to realize it's the best to feedback to a supplier if their price is not in line with the expectations. It gives them an incentive to take a second look. Or clarify something. Or come up with an explanation or excuse. Or a counter offer.
It doesn't have to be hostile, just a simple: "Hey, I'm taking the business somewhere else, because they offer the same service cheaper"
Also keeps them on their toes next time to ask a qoute.

[mcconkeyb]

I'd say, turn the question around. Where are all the small PCB customers?
The answer to my question seems to be, they are all in China. So that is where all the small assembler shops are located.
Electronics assembly is a high risk, very low profit business, so not a business that fits into the "American" landscape.   

[CyberCityCircuits]

Hey there. Someone sent me a link to this thread and suggested I introduce myself. Please excuse the spam, but I think I can help.

My name is David and I am with Cyber City Circuits (www.CyberCityCircuits.com)

We are a small PCB assembly shop in Augusta, Ga. We have a line with 3 pick and place machines, along with CNC machines, lasers, saws, etc. We also work on prototyping all kinds of things from wood, plastic, and some metals. The idea we're working with is to 'get as many machines as we can so that we can make anything we want' and that's worked fairly well for us so far.

In addition to this, since I this post would be my forum introduction post, I have a podcast I started. It's about Datasheets. Datasheet Digest goes over the good, the bad, and the ugly of datasheets. The episode on the DS1307 seems to be the best performing episode, if anyone is interested. (https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/MH3q4ITecAb)

We have done a lot of specialty prototyping work as well. We designed a 40A Remote Controlled Flame Thrower Controller for Blacksmith on Battle Bots. (https://twitter.com/MakeAugusta/status/1482743638270619659?s=20)

[pan]

I guess I am part of the group of small pcb assembly shops. And to partly answer the question: where are all the small pcb customers? I have some of them. I think small pcb customers can be divided into several categories.

My customers are niche companies by choice. Low volume, usually high to very high bom cost. They want a long term partner. They don't get the same service and attention from the "big" assembly companies. It is in your interest that their company is doing well, and you get to know them well. 

I think as a very small company we can be quite competitive upto a point where we don't have more capacity, resources etc. So if I get a call from a company which does not fit the profile I recommend them to call one of the other, bigger, pcba companies.

PCB Assembly is just a part of the business, but because of it I also get more business. I for sure am not interested in growing big. It is just fine as it is

[SMTech]

I guess I am part of the group of small pcb assembly shops. And to partly answer the question: where are all the small pcb customers? I have some of them. I think small pcb customers can be divided into several categories.

My customers are niche companies by choice. Low volume, usually high to very high bom cost. They want a long term partner. They don't get the same service and attention from the "big" assembly companies. It is in your interest that their company is doing well, and you get to know them well. 

I think as a very small company we can be quite competitive upto a point where we don't have more capacity, resources etc. So if I get a call from a company which does not fit the profile I recommend them to call one of the other, bigger, pcba companies.

PCB Assembly is just a part of the business, but because of it I also get more business. I for sure am not interested in growing big. It is just fine as it is

All ours are niche too, not necessarily small companies in terms of turnover or parent group/owner but small enough that their orders and lead time requirements are a terrible fit for larger assembly companies, who charge a lot of money for that kind of work.

Of course "small" is relative, we have customer who buys boards not often more than 10 at a time, they use large numbers of very low ppm resistors, ADCs, DACs and other analogue parts that are all expensive and its enough that those batches of 10 cost more than those for other small customers taking 100 or 250 assemblies. To some here 250 is a big number, but its nothing to even modest contract assemblers even in the UK which is how we end up with it.

[alpelectronics]

Hello!

We are a startup company focusing on mostly designs and prototype manufacturing in Sweden. We usually work with European costumers, UK and USA.

We have one PnP and one Reflow Oven. We can support you, if you need and PCBAs.

Here is our website alpelectronix.com

Regards,
Caner,
Alp Electronix