5 ms·

Nice, instead of supporting the PCB business 5 miles away, send it to China. The copper not on your PCB is probably floating down some Chinese river, hence "Di

by madengr 11y ago

Nice, instead of supporting the PCB business 5 miles away, send it to China. The copper not on your PCB is probably floating down some Chinese river, hence "Dirty PCB".

LeifCarrotson 11y ago
The PCB business 5 miles away has US labor and associated costs. Compare the Chinese board to Advanced Circuits in the US - http://www.4pcb.com/ http://www.4pcb.com/ - you can't get anything without spending over $100.
- afandian 11y ago
  Maybe $100 is what it should cost (assuming some kind of ethical baseline for labour standards and environmental damage).
  - diskcat 11y ago
    If people in China are willing to work for a lower labour standards I don't see why I shouldn't buy from them. They are already making huge sacrifices working in terrible conditions because they weren't lucky enough to be born in the US or western europe et al. Chinese workers are very smart and hard working, so their position in life is not based on their ability but simply bad luck (relative to people born in the US etc.) The least I could do is buy their labour so that they may improve their lives. If I bought from a US companies most of the money would go to a rich 1% new yacht and new iphones for his daughters. I would rather feed a poor chinese worker family and send a youngster to school.
    - madengr 11y ago
      That US PCB manufacturer is also sending his kid to school, paying state and federal taxes, SS, healthcare for employees, and probably allot for hazardous waste service. What makes you think the Chinese PCB manufacturer is not in the 1%; just assumption the US manufacturer is.
      - linker3000 11y ago
        So what we're all really saying is that our current concept of 'money' and how it is generated and moved about is fucking up the world and we really need to work out a better way of managing society and balancing our needs against those of the environment. If only.
      - diskcat 11y ago
        >That US PCB manufacturer is also sending his kid to school, that's great. but chinese schools are way cheaper than US schools so if somebody asked me to give up $100 to educate 100 chinese kids or half a US kids for x amount of time I would have to say the chinese on utilitarian principle since I can hardly justify that a US person is worth 100x a chinese person. >paying state and federal taxes a lot of which is going to welfare i.e. hands out for people not doing anything productive, which again is a very bad way to spend money. >SS, healthcare for employees, same arguments ditto >and probably allot for hazardous waste service. This is great. However, china is kinda too poor to have good hazardous waste removal. Thus money spent on china makes it richer and more likely to have hazardous waste, thus more likely that less people will be exposed to hazardous waste. >What makes you think the Chinese PCB manufacturer is not in the 1%; just assumption the US manufacturer is. because US is a wealthier country therefore all else being equal the probability of the US manufacturer being rich is higher than the same prob. for the chinese Nothing personal to the americans of course. It's not their fault either than a bowl of noodles in US is 10x the price of the same thing in china so an american has to make way more money than a chinese to survive but i like to spend the least amount of money possible.
    - pmoriarty 11y ago
      What makes you think the money you spend on Chinese goods isn't mostly going to the rich 1% in China? China has their own billionaires who mostly make their money off the backs of the Chinese poor, just like it happens in the US.
      - diskcat 11y ago
        Given the choice of giving $1 to a chinese 1% or $10 to an american 1% I still choose $1.
    - schiffern 11y ago
      >If people in China are willing What makes you think the workers have any other choice? They're not "willing" if it's wage slavery. What makes you think the people injured by pollution are willing? When exactly did they give their consent in this transaction? (the knee-jerk response to both is "government regulations", but those are so thoroughly captured/corrupted that no real consent is transmitted) >If I bought from a US companies most of the money would go to a rich 1% new yacht and new iphones This seems equally likely in China.
      - diskcat 11y ago
        >What makes you think the workers have any other choice? They're not "willing" if it's wage slavery. that's like saying we are all physics slaves because the universe imposes the laws of physics on us... slavery means a specific thing. when a person is owned as property and has no right and must obey his master on pain of death. don't stretch the word >What makes you think the people injured by pollution are willing? When exactly did they give their consent in this transaction? Im still waiting on the my nuclear reparation money from the USA for all the extra exposure from all those atmospheric nuclear tests nobody in the world has a legitimate pollution compensation scheme >This seems equally likely in China. well since im paying less for stuff from china im definitely paying less for a 1% yacht
      - kefka 11y ago
        (I'm not the parent or GP) My answer is: I can't afford US goods costs. I can afford Chinese costs. I'm not a company whose decisions are to move away from the US for an extra $1 billion profit. My choices are : Get it from China, or Don't get it.
- VLM 11y ago
  4pcb is $33 each min 4 total $132 for 60 sq inches per board times 4 = 240 sq inches or 1548 sq cm for $132 dirtypcbs is $14 for qty 10 of 25 sq cm boards or 250 sq cm total. So 1500 sq cm of boards from dirtypcbs would cost about $14 times 6 or $84. Note that ethically, outsourcing to China is the modern version of handing syphillis blankets to indians. "Well, they're warm blankets, and they did ask for it, and anything is morally acceptable if the victim is tricked into accepting it, if you're really screwed up ethically". It only costs $50 more not to participate in something as ethically distasteful as Chinese manufacturing and you get the product in a day not a week without trashing the environment and while treating human beings like humans, even if they are not white. Also, if you live on the west coast, you and your kids are breathing the airborne pollution from those Chinese plants for the rest of us.
  - LeifCarrotson 11y ago
    60 square inches per board is enormous, but they don't care because the material is cheap and the labor is about the same regardless of the board size. If you use their regular pricing that takes the area into account, it's still incredibly expensive.
  - 05 11y ago
    > It only costs $50 more not to participate in something as ethically distasteful as Chinese manufacturing So, you don't own any recent electronic devices either, I presume, like smartphones, computers, home appliances? And who do you think manufactures the components for your not-Chinese-made electronics?
- skaevola 11y ago
  Advanced Circuits is not the cheapest American pcb manufacturer. OSH Park is much cheaper.
diskcat 11y ago
>Nice, instead of supporting the PCB business 5 miles away, send it to China. I don't see why he should support somebody who charges 5x the competitor. Im not gonna pay $20 for a jar of peanut butter because the factory owner lives 5 miles from me.
- daniel-cussen 11y ago
  Ok, you aren't, but I might. And others too: witness the popularity of otherwise ineconomical farmer's markets, for instance. It supports local industry, which "keeps money in the family" to a large extent (and protects from predatory pricing down the road), and connects with the local industrial community more. You never know when they might know the person that can help you out with whatever glitch. Except when they're on the other side of the world: then you know. You know it won't happen. Locality matters. Love thy neighbor, because they may reciprocate and their neighbor, surprise, is you.
  - swsieber 11y ago
    I would argue that part of the farmer's market is the experience of the setting and the fact that the food is (usually) fresh - much more than anywhere else. Edit: My point is that I go to farmer's market for the experience, not to support the local farmers. It just so happens that the locals are the best are providing that experience. I do have to admit though that wanting to support the local farmers may have bootstrapped the farmer's market - or it may have survived through the rise of grocery stores. And even with all that, going to farmer's market is splurging for me.
    - daniel-cussen 11y ago
      Would the experience be the same if the people weren't there?
      - swsieber 11y ago
        Well, no.
stephen_g 11y ago
That's an overly hostile comment - and unrealistic - I'm guessing you're probably not in the electronics industry? In many places there's only one reason a small company (let alone an individual) would buy a short run of PCBs locally - you desperately require it in two to four days and are willing to pay six times the price to get it. It's not that people aren't willing to support local PCB manufacturers, it's just that the manufacturers know there's very money in cheap, small volume work outside China and focus on the profitable niches (like really fast turnaround), which usually makes them unaffordable for hobbyists.
- madengr 11y ago
  Hostile? Hardly. I am in the industry. I have been doing RF circuit design for 20 years, and order several PCBs per year, although these are expensive PCBs of RF laminates. For inexpensive though, some places will queue up 2/4 layers G10 laminates for 2 week delivery (i.e. eprotos.com). Then again, I have a PCB router at home, and a vacuum UV exposure box, so I don't order many hobby PCBs.
jdietrich 11y ago
Copper is a valuable commodity. No Chinese board house will be foolish enough to waste it. With modern processes, it's simply a case of neutralising the etchant and filtering out the precipitated copper. "Dirty PCBs" are so named because they're not great quality. The solder mask and silkscreen aren't perfectly aligned and the minimum trace width is eight mil.
- schiffern 11y ago
  >Copper is a valuable commodity. No Chinese board house will be foolish enough to waste it. With modern processes, it's simply a case of neutralising the etchant and filtering out the precipitated copper. Except that motivation will only results in removing just as much copper as it's economical to extract. They'd still discharge the remaining copper once it reaches concentrations too low to bother extracting (but plenty high enough to cause damage to biological systems). This also ignores all the other stuff in the etching and rinse baths, which isn't exactly benign.

by madengr 11y ago

Nice, instead of supporting the PCB business 5 miles away, send it to China. The copper not on your PCB is probably floating down some Chinese river, hence "Dirty PCB".

LeifCarrotson 11y ago

The PCB business 5 miles away has US labor and associated costs. Compare the Chinese board to Advanced Circuits in the US - http://www.4pcb.com/ http://www.4pcb.com/ - you can't get anything without spending over $100.

afandian 11y ago
Maybe $100 is what it should cost (assuming some kind of ethical baseline for labour standards and environmental damage).
- diskcat 11y ago
  If people in China are willing to work for a lower labour standards I don't see why I shouldn't buy from them. They are already making huge sacrifices working in terrible conditions because they weren't lucky enough to be born in the US or western europe et al. Chinese workers are very smart and hard working, so their position in life is not based on their ability but simply bad luck (relative to people born in the US etc.) The least I could do is buy their labour so that they may improve their lives. If I bought from a US companies most of the money would go to a rich 1% new yacht and new iphones for his daughters. I would rather feed a poor chinese worker family and send a youngster to school.
  - madengr 11y ago
    That US PCB manufacturer is also sending his kid to school, paying state and federal taxes, SS, healthcare for employees, and probably allot for hazardous waste service. What makes you think the Chinese PCB manufacturer is not in the 1%; just assumption the US manufacturer is.
    - linker3000 11y ago
      So what we're all really saying is that our current concept of 'money' and how it is generated and moved about is fucking up the world and we really need to work out a better way of managing society and balancing our needs against those of the environment. If only.
    - diskcat 11y ago
      >That US PCB manufacturer is also sending his kid to school, that's great. but chinese schools are way cheaper than US schools so if somebody asked me to give up $100 to educate 100 chinese kids or half a US kids for x amount of time I would have to say the chinese on utilitarian principle since I can hardly justify that a US person is worth 100x a chinese person. >paying state and federal taxes a lot of which is going to welfare i.e. hands out for people not doing anything productive, which again is a very bad way to spend money. >SS, healthcare for employees, same arguments ditto >and probably allot for hazardous waste service. This is great. However, china is kinda too poor to have good hazardous waste removal. Thus money spent on china makes it richer and more likely to have hazardous waste, thus more likely that less people will be exposed to hazardous waste. >What makes you think the Chinese PCB manufacturer is not in the 1%; just assumption the US manufacturer is. because US is a wealthier country therefore all else being equal the probability of the US manufacturer being rich is higher than the same prob. for the chinese Nothing personal to the americans of course. It's not their fault either than a bowl of noodles in US is 10x the price of the same thing in china so an american has to make way more money than a chinese to survive but i like to spend the least amount of money possible.
  - pmoriarty 11y ago
    What makes you think the money you spend on Chinese goods isn't mostly going to the rich 1% in China? China has their own billionaires who mostly make their money off the backs of the Chinese poor, just like it happens in the US.
    - diskcat 11y ago
      Given the choice of giving $1 to a chinese 1% or $10 to an american 1% I still choose $1.
  - schiffern 11y ago
    >If people in China are willing What makes you think the workers have any other choice? They're not "willing" if it's wage slavery. What makes you think the people injured by pollution are willing? When exactly did they give their consent in this transaction? (the knee-jerk response to both is "government regulations", but those are so thoroughly captured/corrupted that no real consent is transmitted) >If I bought from a US companies most of the money would go to a rich 1% new yacht and new iphones This seems equally likely in China.
    - diskcat 11y ago
      >What makes you think the workers have any other choice? They're not "willing" if it's wage slavery. that's like saying we are all physics slaves because the universe imposes the laws of physics on us... slavery means a specific thing. when a person is owned as property and has no right and must obey his master on pain of death. don't stretch the word >What makes you think the people injured by pollution are willing? When exactly did they give their consent in this transaction? Im still waiting on the my nuclear reparation money from the USA for all the extra exposure from all those atmospheric nuclear tests nobody in the world has a legitimate pollution compensation scheme >This seems equally likely in China. well since im paying less for stuff from china im definitely paying less for a 1% yacht
    - kefka 11y ago
      (I'm not the parent or GP) My answer is: I can't afford US goods costs. I can afford Chinese costs. I'm not a company whose decisions are to move away from the US for an extra $1 billion profit. My choices are : Get it from China, or Don't get it.
VLM 11y ago
4pcb is $33 each min 4 total $132 for 60 sq inches per board times 4 = 240 sq inches or 1548 sq cm for $132 dirtypcbs is $14 for qty 10 of 25 sq cm boards or 250 sq cm total. So 1500 sq cm of boards from dirtypcbs would cost about $14 times 6 or $84. Note that ethically, outsourcing to China is the modern version of handing syphillis blankets to indians. "Well, they're warm blankets, and they did ask for it, and anything is morally acceptable if the victim is tricked into accepting it, if you're really screwed up ethically". It only costs $50 more not to participate in something as ethically distasteful as Chinese manufacturing and you get the product in a day not a week without trashing the environment and while treating human beings like humans, even if they are not white. Also, if you live on the west coast, you and your kids are breathing the airborne pollution from those Chinese plants for the rest of us.
- LeifCarrotson 11y ago
  60 square inches per board is enormous, but they don't care because the material is cheap and the labor is about the same regardless of the board size. If you use their regular pricing that takes the area into account, it's still incredibly expensive.
- 05 11y ago
  > It only costs $50 more not to participate in something as ethically distasteful as Chinese manufacturing So, you don't own any recent electronic devices either, I presume, like smartphones, computers, home appliances? And who do you think manufactures the components for your not-Chinese-made electronics?
skaevola 11y ago
Advanced Circuits is not the cheapest American pcb manufacturer. OSH Park is much cheaper.

diskcat 11y ago

>Nice, instead of supporting the PCB business 5 miles away, send it to China. I don't see why he should support somebody who charges 5x the competitor. Im not gonna pay $20 for a jar of peanut butter because the factory owner lives 5 miles from me.

daniel-cussen 11y ago
Ok, you aren't, but I might. And others too: witness the popularity of otherwise ineconomical farmer's markets, for instance. It supports local industry, which "keeps money in the family" to a large extent (and protects from predatory pricing down the road), and connects with the local industrial community more. You never know when they might know the person that can help you out with whatever glitch. Except when they're on the other side of the world: then you know. You know it won't happen. Locality matters. Love thy neighbor, because they may reciprocate and their neighbor, surprise, is you.
- swsieber 11y ago
  I would argue that part of the farmer's market is the experience of the setting and the fact that the food is (usually) fresh - much more than anywhere else. Edit: My point is that I go to farmer's market for the experience, not to support the local farmers. It just so happens that the locals are the best are providing that experience. I do have to admit though that wanting to support the local farmers may have bootstrapped the farmer's market - or it may have survived through the rise of grocery stores. And even with all that, going to farmer's market is splurging for me.
  - daniel-cussen 11y ago
    Would the experience be the same if the people weren't there?
    - swsieber 11y ago
      Well, no.

stephen_g 11y ago

That's an overly hostile comment - and unrealistic - I'm guessing you're probably not in the electronics industry? In many places there's only one reason a small company (let alone an individual) would buy a short run of PCBs locally - you desperately require it in two to four days and are willing to pay six times the price to get it. It's not that people aren't willing to support local PCB manufacturers, it's just that the manufacturers know there's very money in cheap, small volume work outside China and focus on the profitable niches (like really fast turnaround), which usually makes them unaffordable for hobbyists.

madengr 11y ago
Hostile? Hardly. I am in the industry. I have been doing RF circuit design for 20 years, and order several PCBs per year, although these are expensive PCBs of RF laminates. For inexpensive though, some places will queue up 2/4 layers G10 laminates for 2 week delivery (i.e. eprotos.com). Then again, I have a PCB router at home, and a vacuum UV exposure box, so I don't order many hobby PCBs.

jdietrich 11y ago

Copper is a valuable commodity. No Chinese board house will be foolish enough to waste it. With modern processes, it's simply a case of neutralising the etchant and filtering out the precipitated copper. "Dirty PCBs" are so named because they're not great quality. The solder mask and silkscreen aren't perfectly aligned and the minimum trace width is eight mil.

schiffern 11y ago
>Copper is a valuable commodity. No Chinese board house will be foolish enough to waste it. With modern processes, it's simply a case of neutralising the etchant and filtering out the precipitated copper. Except that motivation will only results in removing just as much copper as it's economical to extract. They'd still discharge the remaining copper once it reaches concentrations too low to bother extracting (but plenty high enough to cause damage to biological systems). This also ignores all the other stuff in the etching and rinse baths, which isn't exactly benign.