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This seems to be a US based company, and none of the US based fab houses compete on price. Many don't even want your business if you're in the "Idea to PCB in O
by ohazi 6y ago
This seems to be a US based company, and none of the US based fab houses compete on price. Many don't even want your business if you're in the "Idea to PCB in One Week" prototyping phase.
The vast majority still want you to email them a zip file with your gerbers and wait for them to manually respond a day later with a quote that explicitly ignores half of the specs/requirements/quantities that you asked for in your original email.
Meanwhile, many of the Chinese houses have automated online workflows for both PCB fab and SMT assembly, and competent human sales / technical support that responds within the hour, and often do a much better job than their (arrogant, dismissive, careless, lazy) US counterparts, despite the language barrier.
A few US based companies that do well on overall experience (but not price) are OSH Park, CircuitHub, and MacroFab.
- joefourier 6y agoMy experience is very similar in Europe - most places want you to send gerber files manually, and you are rewarded with higher costs and slower turn-around than getting PCBs shipped from China. Recently I actually managed to get a set of boards with SMT assembly shipped from China faster than bare boards from Germany, somehow. How do those places stay in business? Military contracts? Highly specialised boards (e.g. 8+ layers, exotic substrates)? Companies paranoid about IP protection?
- madengr 6y agoYes. From a Chinese company do you get: Cross section for analysis. Certificate of conformance for all materials used. Testing of controlled impedance coupons. Proper waste stream. I’d never trust a Chinese PCB manufacturer. I have good dealings with several USA PCB manufacturers. Of course you do pay more, but it’s worth it. Funny that you see these YouTube tours of Chinese PCB manufactures. They never show where their waste stream goes. When I order from USA manufacture the plating and etching fluids are not being dumped in the river.