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The fact that you can send drawings to be fabricated and get hard goods in the mail days later has been true for years. You could have been running a global ele

The fact that you can send drawings to be fabricated and get hard goods in the mail days later has been true for years. You could have been running a global electronics business from home for fifteen years now. So what do these guys add over players like pcbexpress, or the innumerable Chinese shops?

ajford 10y ago
The small batch multi-layer boards haven't been as affordable. Also, many of the board houses won't work with small batches for anything above 4 layers. Now this isn't an issue when you're running a full business (assuming said business is large enough to have the capital to invest in a large enough order of boards). This is great if you're running a small prototyping lab or doing some one-off or freelance work, since it'll be much easier to get these multi-layer boards in small enough batches.
- honkhonkpants 10y ago
  The prices do seem lower. A 100mm^2 6-layer board is half the price at seeed compared to pcb express.
elijahparker 10y ago
I think a key benefit here is the fast and cheap PCBA service over just making the boards (yes, lots of places make boards).
TaylorAlexander 10y ago
That's true. To be honest they're not different in principle. They used to have amazing customer service, where I had a very good relationship with the guy on their end (we emailed each other pictures of our cats). But that person no longer works in that role and I no longer have the time to email often, so lately my customer service experience has been pretty basic. I'm sure there are many services you can use that would let you do this. The only other time I've had PCBAs made in China was through GoldPhoenix and I was very unhappy with the quality of soldering. All I can say is Seeed has worked for me.
TaylorAlexander 10y ago
Follow up. Another major thing with Seeed is that they have no minimum order quantity for assembly. They'll do 10 or 10,000 PCBAs for you. Lots of other places I quoted had large minimum order quantities. My main products might have met those requirements, but some of my accessories didn't. With Seeed I can do everything in one place.

ajford 10y ago

The small batch multi-layer boards haven't been as affordable. Also, many of the board houses won't work with small batches for anything above 4 layers. Now this isn't an issue when you're running a full business (assuming said business is large enough to have the capital to invest in a large enough order of boards). This is great if you're running a small prototyping lab or doing some one-off or freelance work, since it'll be much easier to get these multi-layer boards in small enough batches.

honkhonkpants 10y ago
The prices do seem lower. A 100mm^2 6-layer board is half the price at seeed compared to pcb express.

elijahparker 10y ago

I think a key benefit here is the fast and cheap PCBA service over just making the boards (yes, lots of places make boards).

TaylorAlexander 10y ago

That's true. To be honest they're not different in principle. They used to have amazing customer service, where I had a very good relationship with the guy on their end (we emailed each other pictures of our cats). But that person no longer works in that role and I no longer have the time to email often, so lately my customer service experience has been pretty basic. I'm sure there are many services you can use that would let you do this. The only other time I've had PCBAs made in China was through GoldPhoenix and I was very unhappy with the quality of soldering. All I can say is Seeed has worked for me.

TaylorAlexander 10y ago

Follow up. Another major thing with Seeed is that they have no minimum order quantity for assembly. They'll do 10 or 10,000 PCBAs for you. Lots of other places I quoted had large minimum order quantities. My main products might have met those requirements, but some of my accessories didn't. With Seeed I can do everything in one place.