willcarkner

5 ms·

31.
by willcarkner 2mo ago
They all have this service, but they don't often stick to these lead times in my experience. We help hold them accountable and in the long term we are opening a facility to bring the cost down further.
32.
by willcarkner 2mo ago
Interesting stuff, definitely a lot of new demand due to the FCC rules. Curious to see how they hold up though.
33.
by willcarkner 2mo ago
We source PCBs from both China and USA. Some of our customers want incredibly fast turn where Chinese shipping times don't cut it. > How do you intend to address this supply chain risk? Haven't yet figured it out. Options are o
34.
by willcarkner 2mo ago
Haven't yet worked with them, but that is one of our goals. We produce documentation to trace all components up the supply chain. In cases where the part is truly only available in CN, we clearly state this.
35.
by willcarkner 2mo ago
That would be super cool. Difficulty comes with multi-layer PCBs, hard to find a solution for laminating.
36.
by willcarkner 2mo ago
Non-defense teams find value in getting fab done overseas and then turning to us for assembly and procurement. Bare boards are super expensive here.
37.
by willcarkner 2mo ago
Minimum board count: 5 Releasing detailed capability docs on our website today or tomorrow.
38.
by willcarkner 2mo ago
PCBA lines are largely automated as of today, issues start when you do high-mix work. Most time ends up being spent switching between jobs and programming machines, meaning that tool usage time is low.
39.
by willcarkner 2mo ago
Possibly, but our users find value in not having to kit, store, or ship parts to CMs.
40.
by willcarkner 2mo ago
Site is not cutting it anymore, going to dedicate some better effort to bring it up to standard.
41.
by willcarkner 2mo ago
This is our first step to work more closely with the designer throughout the process. Currently there's a wall between the designer and the manufacturer, which hurts lead times massively, we're aiming to bring that down.
42.
by willcarkner 2mo ago
This is exactly our initial market. We realized you can't beat China for a long time, so what do you do in that time? Service demand where you have a structural advantage.
43.
by willcarkner 2mo ago
You're right, putting more attention to that now.
44.
by willcarkner 2mo ago
Defense adjacent work is another place where we're seeing some strong pull. > scalable business beyond being yet another Oshkosh Yes, OSH Park is awesome. They could add PCBA, but we see the long-term value in owning the full stack
45.
by willcarkner 2mo ago
Thanks for the feedback. We can ship to Canada, haven't done it yet, but open to it!
46.
by willcarkner 2mo ago
Sorry for the confusion, our time was spent doing manual work because we didn't have much automation at all. For the industry, assembly is not the biggest immediate bottleneck, with it being quite commodotized. However, we plan to open
47.
by willcarkner 2mo ago
Yes, pricing is much higher than China over here, mainly due to the non-existent support for high-mix low-volume work. NRE adds a lot, and so the prices are high right now. This is why we need to own the stack, optimize for high-mix, and dr
48.
by willcarkner 2mo ago
Makes sense. Is it that most of the time is spent switching jobs or that there's just not enough jobs going through it? You're right that automotive and defense make up most of the demand. We also see demand from teams who can&#x2
49.
by willcarkner 2mo ago
Not as familiar with the EU market, but have heard good things about Eurocircuits
50.
by willcarkner 2mo ago
Agreed. For this to work the entire supply chain has to support it. There are starts like mouser and digikey, but the raw materials and production capabilities are even more important. We believe starting with defense will give us capabilit
51.
Launch HN: ProvenMetal (YC S26) delivers circuit boards in days instead of weeks(provenmetal.com)
237 points by willcarkner 2mo ago|156 comments
52.
by willcarkner 6mo ago
Johnny Doyle and I are building https://syncra.ie to help companies right-size their property portfolios