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Most US-based PCB manufacturers can do low-volume PCBs rather cheaply for you, but not quite at China prices. AdvancedPCB in the US has their "$33 each" which g
by pclmulqdq 2y ago
Most US-based PCB manufacturers can do low-volume PCBs rather cheaply for you, but not quite at China prices. AdvancedPCB in the US has their "$33 each" which gets you a very quick turnaround on a pretty-good-tech 2-layer board for $100 total (minimum 3 boards). They do 4-layer PCBs for $66/board and they apparently also do RF materials for $100/board. Sierra Circuits, for example, also has similar prices. This is a market that exists.
This is not the price you get from China, but this is still a pretty damn good deal. When I was in college, $33 each was great (this was before JLC and PCBWay), and I would say the same for most hobby projects.
- Aurornis 2y agoOSH Park has been doing 4 layer boards for at $10 per square inch for a set of 3 for years. Shipping included. 2 layer for $5/sq in. Much cheaper for anything but the largest boards. It was actually only recently that China low volume manufacturing beat out OSH Park for very small boards once you factored in shipping.
- pclmulqdq 2y agoAt one point recently, I used OSH Park to make a PCB that was exactly 1 square inch, and I felt like I was stealing money from someone with how cheap it was. For the record, college was more than 3 years ago for me, and $33/board (last I checked) does not beat any of the other prototyping services except at very large sizes - they go up to 60 sq in for that price.
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- Animats 2y agoThat's not bad. Sierra and Protologix are much more expensive.
- jdietrich 2y ago"Not quite at China prices" is something of an understatement. JLCPCB offer five 100mm*100mm 4-layer boards for $7. Not $7 each, $7 total for five boards. Shipping to Europe is $1.50.
- p_j_w 2y agoFor a company doing R&D, this difference is so small it hardly matters. It's less than an hour of an engineer's time.
- saturn8601 2y agoIf the whole Twitter -> X transition and DOGE has taught us anything, those costs don't magically disappear, they add up over time and get passed down as inflation. Are you really measuring an engineer's time properly? There is an implicit assumption that an engineers time is at 100% utilization which is never true. This mentality you described allows people to get sloppy with costs. At some point you need to do a form of Zero Based Budgeting.