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seddona 4 days ago [-]
Hi Andrew founder of CircuitHub here. Happy to answer any questions. Hardware design has been in the news a lot lately as it's going through the same AI revolution as coding. We're happy to make it easy to turn those designs into physical products.
kevin42 2 days ago [-]
I'd highly recommend you revisit your protection of customer's IP. Considering that you require source files (not just the industry standard gerbers), your legal terms are very unfavorable to customers. This makes me uncomfortable because it makes my IP much easier to leak. As written, I cannot justify the risks given your agreement.
Nothing in the legal terms explicitly prevents your employees from using my designs for other purposes. If you leak my IP and I find out 13 months later, your terms prevent me from seeking damages because you only cover 12 months from manufacturing.
I like that you have an NDA that I can opt in to, but you should be offering the NDA by default when I upload the files. I should not have to go looking for it in your documentation.
Edit: I realize that there is also limited protection and a lot of risk using a Chinese manufacturer. But requiring source files makes it much, much, easier to look at my design, recognize what it's for, and reproduce it, or at least copy the innovative parts of my design.
seddona 2 days ago [-]
You can upload Gerbers/ODB++ if you like. We also sign custom NDA's. We count many of the worlds largest corporations as customers so this is pretty standard.
kevin42 2 days ago [-]
Here's what the documentation says:
---
In order to receive a quote on CircuitHub, you will need to upload the original design files from your EDA tool, or an export that carries the same data. This allows us to provide instant quotes and automate the manufacturing process to lower lead times and cost. Currently, our platform works with Altium, KiCad and Fusion 360 files, and with ODB++ and IPC-2581 exports from any design tool, including Cadence Allegro and OrCAD.
We do not accept Gerber files on their own because they do not contain all of the design and assembly data required by our automated process. We do use your Gerber files when you upload them together with an ODB++ or IPC-2581 export, or with Fusion 360's EAGLE exports, which describe the parts.
---
Other vendors don't require this. They just need the gerbers, BOM, and CPL files. That's way different than source files or ODB++/IPC-2581 exports, which is basically the same thing as source.
bobmcnamara 2 days ago [-]
IPC-2581 is the future.
Good riddance to the compatibly hellhole of 30 different flavors of Gerber/Gerberx/NCdrill
EDIT: haven't even mentioned everyone's different goofball CSV BOMs
delfinom 1 days ago [-]
There is a singular gerber standard, the deviation is generally just caused by CAM tools.
bobmcnamara 12 hours ago [-]
The Gerber standard just doesn't describe a PCB, just the shape of the layers. I would've sworn there was old dead Gerber, GerberX(the one you want), and then some newer ones that are unreliably implemented across programs.
You almost always need an NC drill.
You have to add a separate GerbJob to describe what the board is made of.
luz666 1 days ago [-]
other vendors even support native librepcb files and have it fully included in their automated build process. i understand that librepcb is not big enough (strangely) and thus not supported. however not accepting gerber? seems like a strange choice
quanto 2 days ago [-]
Would you address other concerns voiced above? They are pretty serious points or allegations. Also, a PCB sourcing should not require a custom NDA when the selling point is convenience, legal protection, and speed vis-a-vis overseas sourcing.
kevin42 2 days ago [-]
Then there's either a usability issue or a bug. I uploaded gerbers but it wouldn't let me continue unless I uploaded schematics and board files.
And why should I have to sign an NDA? You aren't giving me any confidential data, I am giving it to you.
For additional legal protection of your intellectual property please sign our NDA.
---
To make it worse, you can't even read what their NDA says without signing up with your email address on a third party site.
mytailorisrich 1 days ago [-]
This is odd because as supplier if any NDAs were involved surely they should be the ones signing your NDA?
I agree that it raises a red flag when you see something like "For additional legal protection of your intellectual property" for a service which terms should be absolute confidentiality out fo the box.
solyin 2 days ago [-]
Yes. If you're that risk adverse that giving your email address in 2026 to a site is too much of a burden, you're going to be a problem customer and they don't want your business. They're in business to make money and it's a business transaction and if you can't cross that low threshold, you're more trouble than you're worth as a customer.
Isn't capitalism neat‽
rendaw 1 days ago [-]
GP didn't say they didn't want to enter their email because it's a risk. My reading was that it was another hoop they had to jump through to do their diligence, reflecting on what the company thinks of their customers the same way the NDA requirement itself, and the IP clauses do. I'm not sure how the connection to money or capitalism comes in here.
anonymous908213 2 days ago [-]
Funny how you frame this like it's a problem for the customer. The business needs customers to survive, the customer does not need the business to survive. The customer is in the business of giving money to people who aren't going to abuse their data. If you can't cross that low threshold, you're more trouble than you're worth as a business, and you're not getting paid. Isn't capitalism neat?
bluGill 1 days ago [-]
Customer and supplier is a two-way street. Each needs the other. Ideally, both want multiple of the others to add competition, but in the end, you need both. Good customers want to ensure their suppliers survive so that they can use them again. Likewise, good suppliers want to ensure their customers survive so they get used again.
Many, many people, including a lot of industry, thinks that this is a zero-sum game and so they need to win. They end up hurting themselves in the long run.
skullone 2 days ago [-]
I don't think you are a target customer. All the contract fab, manufacturing etc run on NDAs.
senordevnyc 2 days ago [-]
I'm confused, aren't they already shipping millions of boards to customers, and scaling up rapidly beyond that?
Sounds like their actual customers don't agree with you at all...
seddona 20 hours ago [-]
Correct.
tty456 2 days ago [-]
I second the use of NDA/privacy gaurantee as default. It shouldn't be opt-in with friction. Of course if I want to use a custom/overriding NDA then i'm happy to contact you to review.
dyauspitr 2 days ago [-]
It’s several steps up from Chinese manufacturers already however where they will almost certainly use your design for something else if it suits them and you have no protections.
kevin42 2 days ago [-]
I agree up to a point. It's like the difference in giving someone binary or source code. Yes, someone can reverse engineer gerbers into a schematic, but that's a lot different than handing over the schematic, which includes more information about the design than the gerbers do. It's much easier to look at a schematic and say "oh, that's a circuit I want to use" than it is to look at gerber files and think that.
I have some level of confidence that JLC is going to protect my IP. They are big and if someone's IP leaked it could be devastating to their business. Their legal agreements are a lot more detailed and favorable than what's currently on circuithub.
dyauspitr 2 days ago [-]
Pretty much any new product gets a Chinese copy within a year. How are you so confident JLC is not the source of atleast some of these. Also there is no other alternative so they have that security.
kevin42 2 days ago [-]
That's fair. But gerber files are just a step up from reverse engineering a physical PCB. For a fairly simple, 2 layer PCB, the actual hardware will be easier to reverse engineer than gerbers alone.
So even if nobody ever sees my schematic or gerber files, they could still clone a lot of products if they just have someone spend some time with a multimeter on a device they buy.
dyauspitr 2 days ago [-]
Yeah, or at this point just get an LLM to verify it and explain the circuit.
delfinom 1 days ago [-]
Chinese engineering labor is dirt cheap. They don't need your design files to make a clone.
And contrary to popular white-washed belief, there is very little to anything special in most copied designs.
kevin42 2 days ago [-]
I wish you well, domestic electronic production is something we need very badly.
I won't complain about the price, I understand it's going to be more expensive than China. But it's a tough one for me. I have a budget that I have to work with, and while I have some flexibility 3X prices (your site priced $9k compared to JLC's $2k, even after tariffs and shipping) make the project nonviable for me. I hope you can continue to improve pricing over time as you scale.
Also your parts selection interface needs a lot of work. I have a very simple board and I had to go through clunky search and select for parts, even when the digikey part number was in the description.
seddona 2 days ago [-]
Thanks for the feedback on part selection interface, we are just wrapping up some big improvements here. On the pricing side, if you fit within the Proto Board spec we are very comparable with JLC on much shorter lead time. If you go outside that then for now we are quite a bit higher price. But bear with us, more capacity and thus lower prices all round coming soon.
Teknomadix 4 days ago [-]
The site quotes prices for ≥4 layer board production are on the order of 10x JLCPCB. I can pay for DHL overnight from JLC and still come in from uploading my design to holding it in my hand ~7 business days or less.
A domestic PCB manufacturing pipeline, has been a pipe dream for me an many other Hardware startup EEs for a long time. Until costs are more competitive, CN still gets the business. Hope you can bring costs for small batch prototype PCB manufacturing down further in the future, then you will have our business!
seddona 4 days ago [-]
Thanks for the feedback. For 5 units of 2 or 4 layer turnkey assembled boards, so long as you fit in the Grid Proto spec it's a little bit more expensive (not 10x, more like 1.3x) and much faster - we have benchmarked this quite a bit. 7 days to the US with any consistency is not possible, we have a lot of data points on that, median is about 10 days. To other countries it might be faster?
beala 2 days ago [-]
I'm very confused by the 1.3x number.
I just had a board (PCB only, no PCB Assembly) made at JLCPCB for $62.91. That's 10 bare boards and a stencil, including shipping and tarrifs. This is a fairly simple 4 layer board, 50mm x 50mm.
I uploaded the same project to your site and I'm getting a quote for $620.26. That's after marking everything as DNP, so it's also just a bare board. No stencil I guess.
To be fair, the JLC board took two-ish weeks to get here. But even with the fastest JLC option (2-3 days) and fast shipping (2-4 days), I don't see how $620.26 is competitive. Am I misunderstanding?
Update: And holy moly. I just noticed the $620 quote is for "any origin", and if I want "USA only" it's $1,697.00!
ggurface 2 days ago [-]
This aligns with the difference I saw when comparing the two as well.
ajw287 2 days ago [-]
If you are doing pool pcb manufacture - think about getting your design rules as a template in KiCAD (you could talk to KiCAD services corporation about how to do that) or Altium. This would help people designing to avoid getting to a finished pcb then discovering that you have a rule about no route through pads or whatever.
ac29 2 days ago [-]
> For 5 units of 2 or 4 layer turnkey assembled boards, so long as you fit in the Grid Proto spec it's a little bit more expensive (not 10x, more like 1.3x)
Does that include the cost of parts? One of the issues I had with sourcing prototype PCBA's in the US is parts are much more expensive (not 10x, but also not 1.3x).
seddona 2 days ago [-]
Yep that includes parts.
Ccecil 4 days ago [-]
Looks interesting. As a US manufacturer/designer I will be keeping an eye on this closely.
Currently, all assembly is done in house (in the US) but bare PCBs typically are still made in CN.
We used to produce everything overseas and just do the QA/test in the US but during the chip shortage I ended up setting up the production line to attempt to eliminate any possible shortages/tariffs.
It is a difficult struggle manufacturing commercial products in the US (doubly so with an openhardware project) since the final cost is the major blocker but I decided it was worth it for many reasons. Big issue though is knowing that even if I pay someone 2x the going rate for an employee it still will not be a living wage. Not sure the fix there. I see you are planning to lean heavily on automation/AI for this, will be watching to see how it all progresses.
There are still some major blockers in the US. Commercial/Industrial real estate being a big one. Costs are not going down...even if employee count is minimized.
I wish nothing but the best for the project.
Aurornis 2 days ago [-]
> Big issue though is knowing that even if I pay someone 2x the going rate for an employee it still will not be a living wage.
Being mindful of wages is great, but eventually you have to accept that creating a job at a less than ideal wage is better than not creating any job at all. If the pay is not enough then you’ll get the signal through being unable to hire because workers are taking better paying jobs.
An unintuitive feature of the job market is that creating more low paying jobs actually puts upward pressure on wages. Ideally the low end of the job market should be saturated with job opportunities, which creates a situation where employers have to compete with each other to raise wages to find and retain employees, which means pay goes up for everyone.
So don’t let worries about not being able to pay as much as you’d like get in the way of paying anyone at all. The alternative (less jobs, more outsourcing) is worse in every way.
WarmWash 2 days ago [-]
The problem is almost entirely that housing is too expensive.
"Living wage" is an awful term because it intrinsically holds employers responsible for real estate costs, which are strongly correlated with higher pay (read: as employees get paid more, housing costs rise to match it).
$20 an hour is not awful pay when you can rent for $600/mo. So the actual fix is to just build more housing, and it will bring back the viability of all these disappearing jobs.
RobotToaster 2 days ago [-]
Employers used to just build housing for their employees. While in some cases it lead to questionably practices, it almost seems the lesser evil today.
sgerenser 2 days ago [-]
I’ve read about this actually happening now in ski towns since otherwise their employees couldn’t afford to live within a 1 hour drive.
vkou 2 days ago [-]
Employers are free to use their political capital to push against bad behaviour by landlords and NIMBYs, but they traditionally rally behind politics that favors both of those groups.
> Being mindful of wages is great, but eventually you have to accept that creating a job at a less than ideal wage is better than not creating any job at all.
For the employee, maybe. For the employer, it depends on how much time/money you have to put into training and what turnover is. Paying non-living wages leads to high(er) turnover because people will leave for anything better.
Aurornis 2 days ago [-]
Right. That’s exactly what pushes wages up. Employers have to find the wage that retains employees while still being profitable.
Money is not unlimited though so “just pay everyone a living wage” isn’t a real solution. If you can’t afford to pay ideal “living wage” (which is an undefined target that keeps moving depending on who you ask) then your options are to either not create the job at all, or outsource the work.
So therefore, creating a job at any wage is better for your economy than not creating the job at all.
dddd12341234 2 days ago [-]
[dead]
Ccecil 2 days ago [-]
I will reply to this post to clarify (although I will be responding to several).
"Living wage" in my area is $40/hr. That is just to live, not thrive or gain.
Rent prices have gone insane [1], which in turn have drove up COGS. Since COGS have gone up the real estate investors have raised their prices on rents/housing to make up for the increase. The feedback loop has gone on too long...I am concerned the only option is collapse and for a lot of investors to lose money. This will feedback into the system even more...it will not benefit either the renter or the investor.
As they say..."the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent".
I run a very small company that is largely bootstrapped. I fix all my own machines, do my own setup, move my own equipment. Personally, I work on every step from design through packaging (janitor>CEO). There is not enough money to pay a living wage for others...so I end up doing everything myself. 70hr weeks are not uncommon. (I also cook my own meals, fix my own car and bake my own bread...otherwise I would not make it)
If you have not been a renter for the last 10 years you may not have noticed. Building more is not helping since the only things being built are done so they can set them to the new "normal" price. It is to the point where they consider an "affordable home" as $400k (in my area they literally named this development as "Miracle on Britton"). Meanwhile the average renter makes <$40k/year.
I have not been outsourcing more due to this. Just working harder myself...but even so I barely get by. 5 years ago I gave up the hope of ever buying in this area [2], currently I am just working to stay here long enough to take care of family. If I did not have that I would be long gone.
Doing what I can to bring back manufacturing to the area, but I am a small fish working mostly in Opensource Hardware. If the project starts making money again very likely it will be cloned to the point where there will be no way to make profit (already happened once).
So then why open source it? People are cheap, and if I can get a knock off version of your thing for a tenth of the price, why would I support you? The prisoner's dilemma encourages me to defect. I've got my own bills to pay, mouths to feed. Me being shortsighted and an asshole doesn't help you pay your bills and feed your mouths. I pay the Adafruit premium when I can because they've done so much good, but I can't help but also know that I could save money and go elsewhere.
seddona 2 days ago [-]
One nice aspect of automation is that we are able to pay people well due to the leverage. I'm proud of the fact we've been able to create a lot of good well paying high tech jobs in an area that really didn't have many.
ericmay 2 days ago [-]
> Big issue though is knowing that even if I pay someone 2x the going rate for an employee it still will not be a living wage. Not sure the fix there.
The fix is you will just have to buy American and pay higher prices for higher "living wages". There's no way around it besides taxes or tariffs on foreign goods to equalize the wage/price difference (which does have some down sides).
I buy American and western-made products as much as possible, and I pay higher prices (assuming high quality) for those higher wages. If you want low cost, you can't by definition support "living wages".
There's no "oh if only the CEO makes less" way around it either. Labor is simply more expensive in the west and will remain so and you can vote with your wallet, as I do, or you can pay people less than living wages.
joefourier 2 days ago [-]
How many people are willing to pay more for America/Western-made products? How many are able to correctly know which companies are honest, and which are finding loopholes (e.g. bringing in underpaid temporary workers from abroad, finding the bare minimum for a product to be qualified as "Made in X", writing "Designed in America").
And how many people will be willing to pay a premium when the locally made products are worse quality than foreign products? It's happening right now with Chinese consumer goods (e.g. robotic vacuum cleaners), EVs, etc. Eventually there's a high possibility you won't be able to buy anything in the product category you want.
dyauspitr 2 days ago [-]
My personal limit is 2x the Chinese prices but in reality the prices end up being 4-5x more.
ericmay 2 days ago [-]
> How many people are willing to pay more for America/Western-made products?
No clue, but there are millions. Just depends on the product.
Here are two examples. One made in France, the other in America:
One of those pans is made in France (western) the other is made here in the US. The quality of the US pans are a bit better which is part of why they command the higher prices. But you can also buy a pan from Wal-Mart for 1/10 or 1/5th the cost. But that's up to you. You can support higher wages or you don't have to if you don't want to.
> And how many people will be willing to pay a premium when the locally made products are worse quality than foreign products?
Why are you assuming the American and locally made products are worse than foreign products? Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren't.
> Eventually there's a high possibility you won't be able to buy anything in the product category you want.
Well for a lot of these we can just do without, but those are the kinds of things you have to figure out if you want "living wages". Wages are higher in the west so we will automate things to keep some prices low/lower and we'll just pay higher costs to support the living wages. Or we won't and then we won't have living wages. You can do things like try to raise the minimum wage or w/e but then you're just making American/western products less competitive with the cheaper foreign products. Then you'll have to implement tariffs and agree with Trump there in order to offset the wage differences.
ElProlactin 1 days ago [-]
I can't speak to the two products you gave as examples, but Made in America (or the West) is not always as clear-cut as people think it is.
Origin is complicated and what gets printed on a label rarely tells the full story. You can have products that are assembled somewhere using components that are made somewhere else, products that contain raw materials from somewhere else, etc.
The assumption that "Made in America" results in higher wages for American workers is not always well-founded.
There's also the issue of fraud. Not every label is legitimate. Lying about one or two components in particular products can result in significantly higher margins, so there are a lot of incentives for dishonesty at multiple levels of many supply chains, and even the most well-meaning manufacturers can fall victim to it.
ericmay 1 days ago [-]
> The assumption that "Made in America" results in higher wages for American workers is not always well-founded.
Sure, but a product made entirely overseas results in 0 wages (for the manufacturing of the product) for American workers. Any company, to varying degrees of just how raw/local the product is made, which builds, assembles, manufacturers, grows, whatever a product here in the US has to hire and pay Americans an American wage. Naturally that may not be a "livable" wage (which is a loaded term but w/e) but it's still a wage that goes to Americans more than it goes to non-Americans.
We should avoid scumbag companies, American or otherwise, and we should do research into just how much a product is made in the US, but as a general rule there's no way around (until automation or something) paying more for American products and that's what you'll have to do to support American workers and American jobs.
Worker Unions have been telling us this for decades.
In the case of supply chain issues, yea, shit happens. But the supply chain issues also occur in the downstream foreign market you're buying the product from. So you can buy an American product and if it has parts that come from, say, China and you see a supply chain concern you'd have to be more concerned about the Chinese-made/assembled product because you have even less supply chain oversight.
ElProlactin 1 days ago [-]
This is a complicated subject, but I'll make a comment about:
> Sure, but a product made entirely overseas results in 0 wages (for the manufacturing of the product) for American workers.
American brands like Apple capture the vast majority of the value of their products even when the manufacturing is done elsewhere. Final assembly, which is the type of work that is done in countries like China, Vietnam and India, makes up less than 5% of the retail price of most electronics products.
I've lived in the developing world for many years and currently live in a developing country in Asia that's experiencing one of the biggest manufacturing booms in the world. You can probably guess the country.
The problem with wanting to do all the manufacturing at home is that not all manufacturing wages are the type of wages you'd want in a developed, high-income economy. Low-skilled, labor-intensive assembly work is not a foundation for continued prosperity in a developed, high-income economy. And Westerners (Americans) don't want all the bad stuff that typically comes with it, including the pollution.
ericmay 1 days ago [-]
> American brands like Apple capture the vast majority of the value of their products even when the manufacturing is done elsewhere. Final assembly, which is the type of work that is done in countries like China, Vietnam and India, makes up less than 5% of the retail price of most electronics products.
True, but in that case the important part is still buying from an American company, even if the product is wholly assembled elsewhere. I didn't mean to imply you can and will only buy American made products from start to finish. Even in the case of Apple you're supporting very high American wages and the products cost more. Some manufacturing/assembly has been moved to the US.
> The problem with wanting to do all the manufacturing at home is that not all manufacturing wages are the type of wages you'd want in a developed, high-income economy. Low-skilled, labor-intensive assembly work is not a foundation for continued prosperity in a developed, high-income economy. And Westerners (Americans) don't want all the bad stuff that typically comes with it, including the pollution.
I agree with you, though I think items like clothing can be made much more costly but higher quality and with local manufacturing (like in Europe for some companies) but if we go back to the original point it was about supporting "living wages".
My point was just that where American (or western depending on your own beliefs) companies exist and make a given products (a skillet/frying pan was just an example where I knew there were a few American manufacturers), and let's assume it's not fraud or rebranding or something, you should pay more for those products if you want to support "living wages". Otherwise you can buy "the thing from China [1]" but you can't do that and also support "living wages" because from an assembly/manufacturing worker perspective there is no wage to be had because they aren't doing the job. To your point also of course you can argue that the company that's HQ'd in the US, doing the design work, with manufacturing in China also receives a lot of the profits or can capture the majority of the value of the product, but those folks are already paid corporate wages which are higher than a "living wage".
I'd also mention I suppose that not everyone can just work in an office and have people in other countries work in assembly lines.
[1] China makes incredible stuff, I don't mean to imply everything made there is cheap or something along those lines, though of course many products that Americans are exposed to are of that nature, there's nothing necessarily wrong or immoral about it.
ElProlactin 23 hours ago [-]
> Some manufacturing/assembly has been moved to the US.
The amount of assembly work done in the US is absolutely miniscule. This type of work is never coming back to the US in any meaningful volume unless it can be done by robots.
> ...you should pay more for those products if you want to support "living wages".
The problem is that the average American earner cannot afford to pay what it would cost to produce consumer goods end-to-end in the US in a manner that would allow people engaged in low-skill labor to earn an American "living wage".
Americans cannot have it both ways: you cannot consume more material goods than any other group in the world and produce those goods domestically using workers earning an American living wage.
Most Americans truly don't understand the scale of their consumption. Countries in Western Europe are developed, high-income nations and many Americans couldn't fathom living a Western European lifestyle because even most Western Europeans don't consume like Americans.
ericmay 22 hours ago [-]
> This type of work is never coming back to the US in any meaningful volume unless it can be done by robots.
Well yea that's what will happen most likely. Obviously not all will come back and in what form it does will probably be different. But we don't have to focus only on Apple assembling computers since that's not the only company or industry at hand.
> The problem is that the average American earner cannot afford to pay what it would cost to produce consumer goods end-to-end in the US in a manner that would allow people engaged in low-skill labor to earn an American "living wage".
Well I think we can, we'd just have to buy fewer things but probably higher quality/more handmade/local, and then we'd have more people making more money. Personally I'm in favor of it just because I think it's a better way of life for many people (owning your own business, doing work yourself, &c.) But to your broad point, I don't disagree with you. I'm just saying this idea of a "living wage" is a farce unless Americans are willing to do what I believe you and I are both generally suggesting here. :)
ElProlactin 15 hours ago [-]
> we'd just have to buy fewer things but probably higher quality/more handmade/local
That's the antithesis of American consumer culture. Like I said, for a huge swath of Americans, even those who are lower middle class, a European lifestyle (which is still a developed, high-income lifestyle) would be seen as a step down.
So yes, you're right. The idea of a "living wage" is a farce because the American system is not really concerned with this even if politicians have to pretend to be. In reality, the US has maximized the economic ceiling at all costs. As long as people think they have a chance at becoming unfathomably wealthy, even huge numbers of the poor will vote for policies that perpetuate their own poverty.
crote 2 days ago [-]
If the wage difference is what is stopping you, then you aren't really trying to compete. There will always be a shithole country with dirt-cheap wages where companies can get stuff made with virtually-unlimited manual labor. Unless you are going to turn the US into a country with third-world living standards, you won't be able to compete with that, so don't even bother trying. Still want to compete on price rather than quality, speed, or services? Automate everything and make wages irrelevant.
China already figured this out, mind you. Their wages have been exploding as the country has developed, and due to their horrible one-child policy they are facing a giant population cliff. They have been pushing very hard to switch their factories from cheap labor to automation, and those dirt-cheap Chinese EVs our Western politicians are working so hard to block in order to keep the horribly outdated Western car manufacturers alive are the direct result of that.
dyauspitr 2 days ago [-]
The way around it is not having to pay people wages at all which I hope American manufacturers are trying to do as much as possible. They already have totally dark factories in China and if we want to bring manufacturing back we will have to do it as well.
yhjc2692 3 days ago [-]
It’s incredible that you set up an in-house PCBA pipeline. I’m curious about what that looks like, and what you are building/manufacturing, if you don’t mind sharing!
Ccecil 3 days ago [-]
I run some used Manncorp/Autotronik equipment. Pnp, oven, bunch of hand tools and such for rework (Metcal irons). If I didn't have this I would likely build a line using an openpnp based machine.
Making boards for the Smoothieware/Smoothieboard project. [1]
Biggest issue as a US manufacturer myself. Support/sales/service.
Chinese shops are very pro customer service, and the large ones I work with are amazing. American shops are god awful in comparison. Designs take weeks to get manufacturing feedback on, if they care to respond to you at all because you aren't in some imaginary box of customers that they want. In many cases if you aren't coming with them immediately with a purchase order of a million units, they just ignore you.
But yea the blockers in the US are immense for more US business growth. If anything in the next 10 years we will see more collapse of US manufacturing as baby boomers sell off their businesses. Nobody under the age of 50 can afford to start a new manufacturing business without VC funding. The cost of real estate is bonkers alone (unless you try and build out in bumfuck nowhere, in which case you now have labor shortages), and the numerous layers of certifications that buyers want you to hold for corporate checkbox ticketing is the cherry on top.
UncleOxidant 2 days ago [-]
I recently went through the exercise of asking one of the Chinese manufacturers how much it would cost to build me a board (a bit pirate adapter board for ESP3 that does all the voltage conversions to the GPIO pins so you don't burn something out). Board layout & BOM already exist on github. They do 5 boards minimum. Ok, so I figure I can sell the other 4 boards, probably not a big deal. Total's about $400. Then we get to the point where I'm about the pull the trigger and it goes to a page on tariffs and it looks like at least 45% + they want my SSN to give to CBP to collect the tariff. That's a hard "Nope" on sending my SSN to China. So I'm going to give this a look.
anigbrowl 17 hours ago [-]
X to doubt
I did a parts order a couple weeks back and the only new question I have been asked since the tariff regime changed was whether I wanted to slightly slower and more expensive USPS delivery with the tariff amount precalculated/prepaid, or a potentially faster delivery by DHL which would require me to provide extra paperwork and customs payment to DHL (in the US) before delivery could occur.
leptons 2 days ago [-]
What company is asking for your SSN?
Ccecil 2 days ago [-]
This is all very common practice. Has been for at least a decade. Some companies require this info for them to purchase from you as well.
This is one of the benefits of being a company. You use the tax ID instead of your social security number.
kevin42 2 days ago [-]
I've never had to provide an EIN or SSN when using DDP shipping, which is what you should be using unless you have a huge order.
Ccecil 2 days ago [-]
I typically use DHL which has my EIN in my account. This has been true since at least 2016. They do not deliver unless you give the info and pay the fees.
Most of my international customers who order bulk require my EIN (and theirs) to be on every invoice.
Nothing new here...
I suspect if there is any change it is due to the de minimus being removed. There was major fraud happening in this area...it is a shame it is gone though since I was hoping to be able to order small things without major costs.
UncleOxidant 2 days ago [-]
> I suspect if there is any change it is due to the de minimus being removed.
Yep, I'm sure that's what's causing this. Prior to that you didn't need to worry if it was under like $700, IIRC.
UncleOxidant 2 days ago [-]
PCBWay, but I suspect all of the Chinese manufacturers have to do this now.
barnas2 1 days ago [-]
I ordered from JLPCB like 2 weeks ago and didn't need to give my SSN.
leptons 18 hours ago [-]
I've been ordering from JLCPCB, in the $500 range per order so not too big, and have never had to give a SSN, nor would I. Just no way.
dmitrygr 2 days ago [-]
I've ordered hundreds of things from JLC over the last decade. Both bare boards and assembled boards based on my own designs that I uploaded, BOMs i provided, and sometimes even special parts I had shipped to them. All ordered boards arrived to me just fine over their cheap shipping (name varied often, last i recall was "direct standard line") and over DHL, and precisely zero times was I asked for my SSN.
topspin 2 days ago [-]
That's been my experience. I've never been asked for a SSN, and I wouldn't give one if I had been. Who types their SSN into foreign websites?
doughecka 3 days ago [-]
We've had a few batches of mostly assembled (minus through hole parts) prototype boards made with y'all recently, pretty stoked how quick it is. Plus no tarrifs vs the last PCBway order.
Curious, why are surface mount USB-C connectors not able to be done as part of the surface mount components (treated as a through hole I think)? Too fiddly?
seddona 2 days ago [-]
Glad you had a good experience! Right now hybrid parts with SMT and through hole kick you out of the Grid Proto offer (can still order but more expensive) but we are working on fully automating them and they should be included soon.
rancar2 2 days ago [-]
Andrew, congrats on the launch! Great to see another scaled manufacturer and assembly line here in Massachusetts. I helped scale another startup with personalized for 3D prints for orthodontic braces (https://lf.co/blog/deloitte-fast500-2024), so feel to reach out to exchange tips since the generic mass manufacturing world is not well suited for this new world of “one size fits one” at a global scale.
Also, one question to pick your team’s brain: What’s your team’s AI PCB workflow and design tips to work with your production line? Any specific tips for ESP32-related integrations?
seddona 2 days ago [-]
Thanks, that sounds like an interesting project! We are starting to see a few AI designed boards flow in and we're working on some guidelines, should be coming soon!
rancar2 1 days ago [-]
I’m happy to connect you to others in that specific space that. I’m easy to find by adding a dot com after my username.
willis936 2 days ago [-]
Adding to the litany of feedback: your BOM parser and manager is a source of pain. For a few BOM items it's fine, but for 50+ with 500+ placements there it's a heavy human lift with a lot of human error that is ripe for automation. Also, DNP interpretation are large hazard for silent failures. The spreadsheet is gospel.
seddona 2 days ago [-]
Yeah it’s not great right now, big improvements coming, thanks for the feedback!
mbed92 1 days ago [-]
Hi Andrew. It's funny that you mention coding, because recently I heared a lot of harsh words about the future in this industry. I finally decided to look for stories that would paint a more positive picture. That's how I came across CircuitHub. I like that you're planning the expansion in the USA/Europe and are actually leveraging latest advancements in AI and robotics. I'd like to share with you my article on substack about that: https://nohyperobotics.substack.com/p/time-is-money. I hope I'm right in seeing your company as a positive example of changes that many people find overwhelming. Best regards!
WarmWash 2 days ago [-]
Business 101, page 1, line 1:
"Never put any friction between your customer and giving you money"
Dude, absolutely get rid of the requirement to make an account to get a quote. Understandable(ish) to need one to check-out, but hell "Check-out as guest" was probably one of the most profitable innovations in e-commerce ever.
A longer list of accounts is not worth more than a longer list of orders.
pcdoodle1 2 days ago [-]
I was interested and hit the friction twice, after making an account, It wouldn't accept eagle files or just the raw gerbers. I know it's older but even sparkfun and adafruit designs are in this format.
kevin42 2 days ago [-]
I hesitated to even get a quote when it said I have to upload my schematic and pcb source. Their legal terms offer very little protection or reassurances that they will protect my IP. Giving them source files is was more risky than gerbers to me.
It's industry standard to accept gerbers and BOMs. Now that I've reviewed their legal agreements, using them is a hard no right now.
mmmlinux 2 days ago [-]
I got stuck at make an account and didn't progress farther. am i hearing right they don't accept industry standard gerber files?
mft_ 2 days ago [-]
100%. Let people play and —most importantly— invest time and effort in the platform without friction.
netrap 2 days ago [-]
For PCB quotes yes, but this kind of thing can be gamed by competitors. I think this is why there isn't great price info for many brick and mortar and online shops now..
SlimyHog 2 days ago [-]
> but this kind of thing can be gamed by competitors
What's preventing a competitor from creating an account?
elxr 2 days ago [-]
Which is more important? Blocking competitors from gaming your price quotes, or making the buying experience instantly better for every single customer and potential customer?
j16sdiz 2 days ago [-]
Most of these work have real person to look and validate the cost.
Doing that without account would be too little friction and overwhelm the team.
katbyte 2 days ago [-]
Most of the ones (for cnc and sheet metal at least) I’ve used do an estimate while you poke around and select options and then you send it for a final validation and quote.
mft_ 1 days ago [-]
If you're deliberately creating additional inconvenience to potential customers to handle your own resource/scaling issues... that's a 'you problem', and you need to figure out a better way to run things, or customers will just run to competitors who've already done so.
ilaksh 2 days ago [-]
Right and they already said they have a massive backlog and are trying to increase by 500%.
seddona 2 days ago [-]
Yeah mostly we just haven't got around to it as the burning fire is always increasing capacity vs demand. Defo agree we should not require login though!
myself248 2 days ago [-]
For years, I've said that if there's a "call for quote" where I expect an "add to cart", I'm gone, instantly. I will buy somewhere else.
Now there's a login before I can even figure out if it's a quote or a cart.
Byeeee.
igleria 2 days ago [-]
Since you have been building for years you must be aware of how tariffs affect the viability. how would a reduction to zero affect the project?
seddona 2 days ago [-]
Not viability but tariffs do swing in our favour, it’s a tailwind for sure.
venusenvy47 2 days ago [-]
Hi. I'm a little confused about how many companies are under your umbrella. Is CircuitLabs the parent company for The Grid and all these other companies on this page? https://www.circuithub.com/case-studies
2 days ago [-]
petterroea 23 hours ago [-]
Can we get a proper factory tour video and not just a short PR film with some up-and-close shots?
gedy 2 days ago [-]
I'd love to see you successful, so wanted to comment:
The app feels very vibe-coded, and gives impression it's not well tested and polished for a new user/project.
I appreciate PCBs aren't the usual the consumer-level type of user, but I felt confused by a lot compared to JLCPCB. Hope that helps.
ViktorEE 2 days ago [-]
Hey,
Are you interested in partnerships? I'm running pcbjam.com (web port of KiCad with collab, sharing, git, AI etc.) and I'm looking for a partner to do what EasyEDA is to JLC. Where can I find you?
lochwald 2 days ago [-]
Exciting! Will quote an upcoming spin with y'all. I've worked with Lightspeed in Haverhill, MA for SMT assembly in the past and loved picking up boards in person. I grew up in "flyover country" and having access to local board houses never cease to amaze me :)
seddona 17 hours ago [-]
Nice!
willis936 2 days ago [-]
Are you considering any in-house fab capabilities? Are you considering accepting consigned fabbed boards?
YrRight2PushBac 2 days ago [-]
Have you given any thought to hypothetically '3D printing' functional electronics, or is that still in sci-fi territory?
octoberfranklin 2 days ago [-]
GERBER is the standard. Why won't you accept it?
clickok 2 days ago [-]
What's the refinement process been like over the last five years? Many small problems or a few larger ones?
dukeyukey 2 days ago [-]
Are you manufacturing in the UK as well? Saw on your site you are hiring mechanical engineers here.
topspin 2 days ago [-]
Thanks for taking feedback here.
My feedback: until the moment I click the "order" button, do not require me to log in. If "Checkout As Guest" can possibly be sufficient, at least for the "Grid Proto" tier, then do that.
You have a digital payment instrument for the order regardless of login. That should be sufficient for whatever legal obligations exist, real or imagined, so have the courage to make that policy despite the pushback.
dyauspitr 2 days ago [-]
How automated is your process. If it is the vast majority of it then why can’t you price match China. Are there other factors besides labor that causes the higher prices?
ThrowawayTestr 2 days ago [-]
How much of a concern are environmental regulations?
ncrtower 2 days ago [-]
I just wanted a quote. But signup was painful it needs a major review. Then I uploaded a zip of my gerbers and it came up with some error that I could not figure out and halted any further movement. I'd love to do my PCBs domestic but the site makes it way too hard.
jrexilius 2 days ago [-]
I've been using Macrofab for a couple years now and their experience is MUCH smoother. Prices are a bit higher, but for me, that is not an issue.
redanddead 2 days ago [-]
How high?
fhn 2 days ago [-]
1 million per piece. this is only for customers where price is not an issue.
TrainedMonkey 2 days ago [-]
Not familiar with the issue, but that has to be $1m minimum order, correct? And you would get a production run in 1-10k. How many revs does that include?
My understanding is that Shenzhen dominance so far is from 3 pillars - low minimum order size, low per-part price, and fast response. They can do that because they have lot of highly trained labor that work mad hours. So to compete you would need to leverage a lot of automation... which would be a lot less flexible and very rocky at the start. Would love to get a correction from someone more familiar with the situation.
pianoben 2 days ago [-]
Surely you mean $1m per project and not per board, and projects are at a large scale?
aeve890 2 days ago [-]
> 1 million per piece
Zimbabwean dollars I hope because 1 million usd PER BOARD?
Mistletoe 2 days ago [-]
Pray it doesn’t need RAM.
redanddead 2 days ago [-]
The Zimbabwean mint has never been busier
MisterTea 2 days ago [-]
There aren't enough trees on earth.
bauruine 1 days ago [-]
Finally a use case for Knuth's up-arrow notation in daily life.
scronkfinkle 2 days ago [-]
Earlier this month I ordered some PCBs. Due to the tariffs OSH park was actually a viable competitor for small batch runs. I've also found them to be higher quality than PCB way
the__alchemist 2 days ago [-]
OSHPark is a nonstarter for many workflows because they don't do assembly. I can't do anything with a plain PCB!
wildzzz 2 days ago [-]
And for me, I'd rather do my own assembly than pay $1400 for five boards from Circuithub that I can get from JLCPCB for $20 or OSHPark for $50.
foldr 1 days ago [-]
That's a bit of a false dichotomy, as you could pay ~$200 to get them assembled by one of the Chinese PCBA services.
IshKebab 2 days ago [-]
For simple-to-medium boards you can assemble it yourself... No help if you're making a motherboard or whatever though.
the__alchemist 2 days ago [-]
Downside to this: it takes a long time, I have to source the parts myself, and I can't separate design or programming errors from soldering errors. (There will be many of those) I have not figured out a system to So: Having JLC do the assembly is a no-brainer for the projects I've done.
foldr 1 days ago [-]
Agree with this. I used to do my own assembly almost as a point of pride, but the Chinese shops will do it so cheap now that you are really just torturing yourself to no purpose. (It’s fun the first few times, but gets old pretty quick.)
so-gala-massey 2 days ago [-]
Their pcbs are too thin and the finish is annoying (I have to file off the tabs. Come on.)
tkzed49 2 days ago [-]
Also uploaded an old gerber export straight from KiCAD and no dice. The project files themselves seemed to work.
seddona 2 days ago [-]
eish sorry about the bad experience here. If you could drop a note to support@circuithub.com we'll get you fixed up.
seizethecheese 2 days ago [-]
I've done a lot of PCBA sourcing from Shenzhen so I have domain knowledge here.
The main latency for this is typically sourcing. The partners I've worked with will get PCBA done within a day or two once they have parts.
The claims here about a breakthrough in setup time also don't really fit with my experience. What is this, putting a new stencil in, adding different components to a hopper? I've toured PCBA factories and it's not like their lines are typically down for set-up. I think this takes like 30min?
Also, it doesn't look like they substantiate their 2x speed claims? They "benchmarked" this, but with what suppliers? Their claims would make sense if they found random suppliers, not exactly specialized in rapid prototype style PCBA, so they're not comparing like to like.
Don't get me wrong, I really want this to happen too, but the desire for this to happen seems to be making the community gullible. I'd love the founders or someone with circuithub to link to real benchmark evidence and explain why their changeover procedure can produce several days of difference.
seddona 2 days ago [-]
Understandable concerns. We don't call out competitors specifically but you can probably guess who we are benchmarking against. I did the one we describe in the blog post myself with our toughest competitor in Shenzhen, it's real I assure you.
I've run hundreds of low volume orders on conventional lines, it's death by a thousand cuts, tough to describe exactly why until you do it.
randyrand 1 days ago [-]
> We don't call out competitors specifically
You should. You’re the underdog.
murderfs 2 days ago [-]
Yeah, my first reaction to your competitor analysis pricing is disbelief. I think it'd be a lot more convincing if you published your source files so that people could replicate your quotes.
contingencies 2 days ago [-]
In Guangdong standard turnarounds 2020-2022 were 1-2 days (unpopulated) and 3-4 days (fully populated) outside of holiday periods or special cases (>4 layers; exotic substrates; oddball components; custom through-hole soldering). Faster was available for extra money. I'm sure it's accelerated since then. About 9 calendar days international delivery from China is often achieved these days as noted by others and myself.
seddona 1 days ago [-]
Yes we have benchmarked this extensively it's 8 to 14 days, median about 10 with long tail being weeks due to customs issues. The unpredictability is a huge problem for critical projects.
willis936 2 days ago [-]
The biggest latency I feel is in getting through PMO and DFM. Shenzhen doesn't have this issue and neither does circuithub.
WarmWash 2 days ago [-]
I do a fair bit of electronics manufacturing and excited to see this pop up.
However I have my reservations because China is incredibly cheap, incredibly fast, and incredibly skilled. Our domestic made boards tend to be lower quality with more mistakes than Chinese made ones (while also costing up to 50x more).
I'll run some designs through this later, and I really hope it is broadly viable (not just unique niches that fit their tooling)
seddona 2 days ago [-]
China is super impressive for sure. I agree the existing domestic options are not great and we founded CircuitHub to fix that :-)
red_candle_wax 2 days ago [-]
Is all this stuff entirely machines nowadays, or do people do it by hand still?
I remember documentaries from the 90s/00s showing Chinese factories with people hand soldering stuff onto PCBs, but most components used in electronics seems way too small for that.
ejiblabahaba 2 days ago [-]
Depends what you're doing. Most smaller surface-mount components and these days even a lot of standardized through-hole components can be assembled via pick and place machines and reflow ovens, which are largely automated. Larger components may require some extra steps like a small blob of glue to fix them in place - this comes up a lot for edge connectors, switches, or other larger mechanical components where the weight distribution doesn't allow them to rest flat on the board during reflow. Larger through-hole devices might need assistance with initial insertion or may be paired to other mechanical interfaces like a heatsink which requires some manual interaction. In some cases (particularly for boards with through-hole components all on one side) the soldering step can be automated by wave soldering. There's still some constraints on what can be automated, but it's all a lot less manual than the 90s/00s.
Some components, particularly transformers, might also be constructed by hand for custom/complex structures. That's component assembly rather than board assembly, but it's a consistent source of manual labor involvement in the supply chain.
Design for manufacturability is one of the important goals being considered in any PCB design. High-volume or low-cost boards will optimize for automated assembly and find ways to substitute or eliminate components with higher assembly costs. Extremely high-volume boards like in smartphones can justify custom tooling if it helps automate assembly.
throwup238 2 days ago [-]
The assembly is almost all automated with pick and places machines and the board fabrication is mostly chemistry. The problem is changing tooling between each run: PNPs need their feeders changed to the right parts for each board and there’s limited space for them so they all have to be changed for every design that runs through. Same with the tooling for the board etching. This stuff is precision equipment and has to be properly aligned so it’s not just a simple matter of plugging and unplugging some parts.
schobi 2 days ago [-]
Even deeper - go have a look at the huge catalog of basic parts of jlcpcb. There is no procurement process and delay needed, those seem to be already on the shop floor or maybe even on a feeder of a pick and place machine!
The integration of lcsc is incredible.. let's see how they beat this in practice
mrandish 2 days ago [-]
Not being familiar with this, I'm curious where the humans are still required in the process of doing a dozen or hundred of each board. I assume the parts still arrive from distributors on rolls inside boxes or on pallets and a human has to scan, open, unpack and load them in some feeder?
crote 2 days ago [-]
Pretty much, yes. Is it why JLCPCB has a bunch of "standard parts" which are always already present on the assembly machine, and charges a $3/part loading fee for the stuff which isn't.
lightedman 2 days ago [-]
"Not being familiar with this, I'm curious where the humans are still required in the process of doing a dozen or hundred of each board."
Some components have large amounts of mass and need to be manually placed because the PNP doesn't have the vertical space for pickup and movement to the pad or do not have feeders which can successfully hold onto the part.
And some times it's just faster to have the human place the part because they're faster than the machine due to physical limitations (like needing to move slowly so as to not drop the component or throw it at the end of travel.) Many board shops will have the PNP places the ICs/Caps/Resistors/diodes and then the placement of connectors (especially zierich) or inductors gets done manually. That is how it worked where I worked. This also provided an opportunity mid-process to do quality checks instead of just letting things go from the PNP straight into the oven.
foldr 1 days ago [-]
A lot of it is moving small objects precisely from point A to point B while integrating expert domain knowledge and general awareness of what’s going on. This stuff can be automated in principle, but with diminishing returns after a point.
seddona 2 days ago [-]
We have hundreds of thousands of parts in stock ready to go on The Grid. It's actually way more integrated than JLC.
kragen 2 days ago [-]
I'm assuming you mean SKUs. Is there a list? JLC says they have 751,878 SKUs in stock, with 1586 "basic and promotional extended" parts they always have mounted on a PnP https://jlcpcb.com/parts/basic_parts, and there's a queryable mirror of their database on GitHub.
To take a particular example, they claim to have 11065 SKUs of microcontrollers in stock https://jlcpcb.com/parts/2nd/Embedded%20Processors%20&%20Con... of which 6 are "promotional extended": STM8S105K6T6C (1213 in stock), STM32F103C8T6 (231496 in stock),
STM32L151C8T6 (287 in stock),
ATMEGA328P-AU (40476 in stock), STM32F030C8T6 (73009 in stock), and STM8S003F3P6TR (152762 in stock). 100 units of this last one will cost you US$30.47.
Where do I find the corresponding information on your web site?
orlp 2 days ago [-]
It's not (just) about cheap labor. The sheer density of resources and knowledge in Shenzhen is just insane.
Manufacturing at small to medium scales is so heavily determined by small blockers/latencies. Missing some component, or need a modified PCB? In the US or Europe you'd be happy to find a replacement within a week, or more likely have to wait a month for it to come from China. In Shenzhen you can probably walk 2km and pick it up yourself in under an hour.
WarmWash 2 days ago [-]
There is actually still quite a bit of hand work done. For standard surface mount designs it's mostly all automated, but there is still a good amount of through hole out there.
Through hole can be automated, but it doesn't really make sense until you have pretty good volume. So that leaves it still mostly to hand.
Then there are also all the unique customizations, like non-standard mounting specs or running jumper wires.
cowlevel 2 days ago [-]
A lot of PCBs will have one or two manual steps but they really try to minimise it. I think anything through-hole is still manual? They can be wave-soldered, but aligning them to the holes is a problem. Surface-mount components (no holes) can be placed and soldered by a fully automated process that self-aligns them to the solder pads.
crote 2 days ago [-]
Through-hole can be done fully automated, for a decent chunk of the parts. The problem is that the automation is quite a bit more involved to set up, and might even need adjustments to the board design to work smoothly. No problem for mass manufacturing, but for small prototype runs it is usually cheaper and faster to do it manually.
lp92 2 days ago [-]
Aseembly is mostly done by machines now, even for low volume its generally done by a pick and place machine setup. But depending on your product, things like thick power terminals may still be hand soldered as not every manufacturer/equipment can handle these.
bonzini 2 days ago [-]
The review (design for assembly) is done by hand.
octoberfranklin 2 days ago [-]
... which it really shouldn't be.
I mean VLSI (chip design) DFM is automated and that's a much harder problem.
I think the availability of cheap humans in China kinda nerfed the drive to automate this (for comparison you can't hand-DFM a chip even if every human on earth worked on it), but it still needs to happen.
crote 2 days ago [-]
In China, it mostly isn't already.
JLCPCB is so cheap because everything is standardized and automated. Their tooling analyzes your input, gives a big fat warning if it spots something it knows it can't manufacture, and renders their processing output for final approval by you. Chinese labor might be cheaper than Western labor, but it is not even remotely cheap enough to babysit every hobbyist's one-off board.
They also assume you know what you are doing. You order a board with a part rotated 180 degrees? Well, it physically fits, so they will make it like that. The final board not working as you intended is a you-problem. You put a via inside a pad and it wicks away all the solder? Not their problem. You forgot to re-render the area fills and short ground to power? Not their problem.
octoberfranklin 2 days ago [-]
No dude, I have had to deal with emails in broken English (and illegible DFM-tool screenshots with no color legend for the layers!!!) about roughly half of my el-cheapo 2-layer board runs with JLCPCB. This was 6-12 months ago. Humans are still too cheap unfortunately.
foldr 1 days ago [-]
I’ve found that PCBWay will do these kinds of checks, and I’ve had no problem communicating with them in English for basic stuff (contrast sibling comment about JLCPCB). Anyway, English <-> Chinese machine translation is getting so good that I can’t see this being much of a blocker for long.
phkahler 2 days ago [-]
Pretty strict board requirements. They give an example motor controller, but then require your board to be 1oz copper. Motor controllers in particular often use 2oz for high current. No buried vias is an interesting requirement too. I'm not sure how often our guys use them but dense designs probably need them.
Still, looks super cool and I don't think the price difference is very high for a company doing prototypes.
ycui7 2 days ago [-]
like 99% of all prototype fit 1oz copper and within 4 layers. no via-in-pad.
rkangel 1 days ago [-]
99% of prototype boards I've done involve a fine pitch BGA for which via-in-pad is fairly required. This is for prototypes of the product hardware, and doesn't include boards for test hardware etc which is more flexible.
Vexs 2 days ago [-]
> buried vias
Buried vias are /super/ expensive from any board house- and very uncommon in most prototyping designs as a result.
Obviously a bit different if you're doing boards with super dense BGA layout chips, but even then you can usually avoid it.
kragen 2 days ago [-]
I guess you can leave the solder mask off the high-current traces and then slather solder all over them?
seddona 2 days ago [-]
Yeah working on expanding the options here :-)
rconti 2 days ago [-]
I didn't like the way the example 4 layer motor controller table displayed the data. The bottom row, which says "No customs" under the image then has "5 days sooner" under their box for "The Grid", but then under Shenzen it says "$165 more", then in a tiny font "than the Shenzen shop".
I don't think it was meant to be misleading because the small font style was used throughout, and the bottom row wasn't really designed as part of the table, but it sure looks like it at first glance.
titanomachy 2 days ago [-]
Well, yeah. That table has the classic randomly-selected and randomly-placed text of an AI output.
the__alchemist 2 days ago [-]
How do I select parts? That has been a historic limitation; Shenzen (What this article compares to) has vertically integrated systems. What library do I select from?
I'm not expecting it to be cheaper than China, but in the same general range, and being able to at small quantity/fast turnaround is important. Overall: I'm skeptical of the cost and time claims in the article. I am thinking "What assumptions" are here. Do they mean some part of the process is faster than that same part from China, etc. So I'm curious about what the real-world order-to-arrival time is; what the final CC charge is, and then compare that with China. They advertise faster turnaround: Is that really true than 10 days order to arrival we are used to?
realo 2 days ago [-]
Faster than Shenzen, fine ... but quite a bit more expensive, even taking into account the USA tariffs, which we do not have in the rest of the world.
Seems to me that Shenzen still wins at least for the non-USA world.
1970-01-01 2 days ago [-]
Costs come down at scale. Vote with your wallet, tell your friends, and we just might have our faster+better+cheaper problem solved.
dolkycape 2 days ago [-]
I don't see why non-US companies should "vote with their wallet" by over-spending so that they can have a US supply chain instead of a Chinese supply chain. They're both foreign, outside their control and vulnerable to political stunts.
bluGill 2 days ago [-]
> vulnerable to political stunts.
They are different political stunts though. If your supply chain is vulnerable to politics then you want options so that any one stunt cannot hurt you.
Also, while there are political stunts, my current reading is the US stunts are more temporary and the next president won't continue them. While China's are likely longer term - there is a reasonably possibly China will attack Taiwan and Europe will join with the US and defending. Only time will tell, but that is my read on the situation.
While it seems likely... that article actually discusses them probing American waters and air space (edit: actually international air space closest to America), and not Canadian...
ixtli 2 days ago [-]
“The next president won’t continue this” is what I’ve been hearing since the 90s.
dukeyukey 2 days ago [-]
Trump was elected twice. This time, his vice-president is absolutely someone who would continue the same policies, albeit in a more sober way.
I am not sure you understand the damage this administration has done.
ixtli 2 days ago [-]
Or, frankly, the way in which the rotation between the Democrats and the republicans works and is critical to the overall direction the US is heading and has been heading since the 80s.
mrandish 2 days ago [-]
Indeed, the current White House occupant is much louder and more annoyingly abrasive with some bizarre one-off impulses vs the usual occupants, but it's now clear that over the last ~30 years, career politicians, corporate vested interests, lobbyists and the administrative state have increasingly subverted the two-party duopoly into pure political theater.
It's a little sad that Trump is such a divisive train-wreck spectacle that many haven't noticed that Clinton, Obama and Biden were achieving many of the same outcomes as Bush/Trump, just more smoothly and with more appealing rationalizations.
The best thing about Trump is that he's such an obvious self-interested kleptocrat and he doesn't even care to hide it (in fact, he seems to enjoy flaunting it). But is it really that much better to be sold out by a more likeable persona who seems like part of our tribe and has the skills to mask the long con more deftly? I guess maybe at least then we won't notice as much or feel as bad about the same outcome?
sagarm 19 hours ago [-]
All that rambling to say what, exactly? What vague "outcomes" have "both sides" been trying to achieve?
leptons 2 days ago [-]
"both sides" are not even close to being the same.
mschuster91 2 days ago [-]
I think their point is that non-US regions should set up their own non-China supply chain.
And here in Europe we're busy divesting from both. The priority for now is getting rid of the US simply because of the erratic President but if you read between the lines, a lot of the plans also aim for getting rid of the dependence on China.
seddona 2 days ago [-]
Yeah Europe needs this capability too, we have offices in Europe so you can probably guess where this is going :-)
utopiah 21 hours ago [-]
Hi, when will you take orders from EU to EU and what's the smallest batch size? Single prototype board or more?
lenerdenator 2 days ago [-]
This is HN. Asking people here to consider any long-term geopolitical ramifications associated with their economic activity is futile.
InsidiousWombat 2 days ago [-]
Well the people chose the clown that doesn't either so live with it
lenerdenator 2 days ago [-]
Plenty of those people around here.
NovemberPapa 2 days ago [-]
I ordered 2 power supplies from China for work, and they power supplies were $60/each, and the tariffs were $45/ea. I am all for manufacturing in the US, but holy hell, give industry time to develop the skills and infrastructure
tbrownaw 2 days ago [-]
For now.
I'd imagine that just because they've decided it's good enough to go public with it, doesn't mean it's done getting better. Or that someone else can't do it better, now that it's been shown to work.
brudgers 2 days ago [-]
The first Circuit Hub link posted to HN was in 2013.
dv_dt 2 days ago [-]
I could be misremembering, but wasn't it mostly a software offering at that point?
brudgers 2 days ago [-]
From TFA
It's not a prototype. The Grid has been running for customers for five years. It already builds tens of millions of dollars of electronics a year. Across CircuitHub we've shipped more than 2.2 million boards, placed more than 150 million parts and served more than 26,000 engineers.
sgt 2 days ago [-]
But for prototyping, paying extra for quick turnaround is often very sensible
bluGill 2 days ago [-]
I'm surprised they don't offer next day turn around (whenever fedex's last pickup plus however long to build). Even same day if you live close to their factory.
Meanwhile as a hobbyist I'd be glad for the discount "we will get around to it sometime in the next two weeks discount"
crote 2 days ago [-]
Because the US doesn't have the supply lines for that. You simply can't compete with a Shenzhen where there are a dozen PCB factories and a warehouse for virtually every part you can imagine within a 30-minute drive.
In Shenzhen you can have Some Guy in a truck doing a parts pickup round around town a couple of times a day. In the US you're waiting for overnight Fedex from Digikey. And sure, there's a lot you can stock in advance, but virtually every board will have this one weird part you don't stock yet.
sgt 1 days ago [-]
Can't you just design better PCB's without weird parts that are likely to be out of stock? Adds to resilience.
brudgers 2 days ago [-]
Right.
Plus if you can get someone on the phone there can be value in that.
And if a sales engineer comes out and sees your operation you might get more than a free lunch…
ajw287 2 days ago [-]
OK, Its a cool video, and wish there was more joined up thinking about keeping sovereign control of designs/manufacture - but the concept isn't new. I know the UK better, but 24 hour pcbs are a thing, we have https://www.pcbtrain.co.uk (which might outsource to china anyway) but I usually prefer https://www.eurocircuits.com/ which builds in Poland. There are plenty more CEMs
Sadly neither really compete on price with jlcpcb and despite a hemisphere of delivery advantage jlcpcb can be quicker! I once got in a discussion with a Project Manager about whether the design was worth keeping some level of traceability for ~$50... he just wanted it cheaper.
alexggordon 1 days ago [-]
Just a comparison from a hobbyist. I live in Massachusetts, so hey, I would love to support a local company. I recently printed 5 boards through JLBPCB. Circuithub[0] came to $654.66 for the boards I uploaded, while JLCPCB[1] came to $228.45, with $52.48 in tariffs.
I placed the order on JLCPCB on October 18th, and they were delivered October 17th. To match that delivery timeline I would have to choose the higher service level which brings that total to $877.83 on Circuithub.
As a note, these are not complex boards--they're LED drivers with some custom features implemented via a ATtiny3216-S, which costs about $1 a piece in non-bulk orders. To buy the SBOM from DigiKey for prototyping it was about $100--obviously with more tariffs and shipping. Point being, this is not a complex board or something with complex parts.
They delivered before you ordered? That’s amazing!
I’m guessing that’s supposed to be 8th and 17th, or 18th and 27th?
alexggordon 20 hours ago [-]
Haha, yes
> October 18th, and they were delivered October 27th
giantg2 2 days ago [-]
"...supply chain you can count on"
Except the components are mostly coming from China anyways, so the same disruptions are potentially in play.
Still, cool to see domestic options.
freeone3000 2 days ago [-]
It’s kinda funny - half the parts on my boards are TI, but the Sherman fab only does rad-hardened components. It’s cheaper to ship me components from halfway around the world than it is to run a 120mm process node in north america.
crote 2 days ago [-]
Yeah, because the demand for parts in the US is a rounding error! Build that fab in the US and 95% of its output will need to be shipped to China, because that's where all the mass manufacturing happens.
leptons 2 days ago [-]
TSMC is already building a huge fab in Arizona.
Ericson2314 1 days ago [-]
But we're talking 100,000s of different parts that can be soddered on a board. That's not one factory.
If we were serious about domestic Manufacturing we'd both be doing massive automation and open borders with Latin America. You need the massive inflow of temporarily cheaper labor.
Automation picks up up as immigrants run out.
greyface- 2 days ago [-]
Just uploaded KiCad files for a board I designed for fabrication at JLCPCB. I have `LCSC` part number properties on everything. CircuitHub didn't recognize any of them. Would be nice if they had mappings of footprint-equivalent parts from JLCPCB's "basic" library, so I didn't have to spend hours re-sourcing (and possibly re-footprinting) everything.
Love that it's fully self-serve and not "please call sales", and will give this another shot with new board designs when I still have total flexibility in part selection. But for existing projects I'm probably just going to re-order from Shenzhen.
seddona 1 days ago [-]
Yeah we don't quote designs setup for JLC very well at the moment. We'll get there.
Animats 1 days ago [-]
So how is the part feeder setup automated? That's the big problem for short runs. Board making, solder paste, pick and place, reflow, and inspection were all automated already. The usual short run setup bottleneck is that someone has to put the tapes of parts into the feeders, then load the feeders onto the pick and place machine.
The video doesn't show how that happens. The robotic systems seem to be moving boards around, not parts. Yet that's the big manual part.
seddona 17 hours ago [-]
The Grid is basically a big parts logistics system, no feeders to load.
Animats 12 hours ago [-]
At some point, the pick and place machines, which can handle a limited number of different components at one time, have to be loaded with something. How does that work?
bob1029 1 days ago [-]
This sounds an awful lot like how semiconductor manufacturing works. I see direct mappings to FOUPs, AMHS robots and reticle pods.
FOUP = thing that holds the PCB.
AMHS = thing that moves the PCB.
Reticle Pod = The thing that holds the component(s) that can add value to the PCB.
You can create a much more capable factory if you trade a fixed, serial line for a scheduling and logistics problem. Assuming your logistics and robots are capable enough, this can provide enormous uplift in high-mix, low-volume manufacturing.
For example, running a test lot (up to 25 wafers) through a modern semiconductor plant is almost a trivial affair. It is like a leaf floating down a river if the scheduling systems are well engineered. I suspect CircuitHub is attempting to leverage similar dynamics.
chrissnell 2 days ago [-]
I hope you move your fab to somewhere in the middle of the country. Part of the appeal of your concept to me is speed, but now I'm looking at cross-country FedEx, which is so expensive that it makes your service unpalatable. A plant in, say, Kansas, is a couple of days of UPS Ground from a huge portion of the country.
mrandish 2 days ago [-]
> A plant in, say, Kansas.
While logistics and delivery (both inbound parts and outbound product) are a key factor, time and cost don't map linearly to distance. Rather than being exactly central, the optimal solve is often somewhat geographically central but leverages proximity to transport corridors, ports and other factors such as weather variability.
KCI isn't a central air hub and winter weather can disrupt flow. Being further south near an East-West hub like DFW can be better (or Houston if an Atlantic port is valuable). Or if bidirectional delivery is everything, base near a Super-Hub like Memphis (Fedex) or UPS WorldPort (Louisville, KY) and go all-in on reaching lower rate tiers with one preferred domestic delivery partner.
For high-automation physical plants, scale can tend to chunk into increments beyond which 'one double-size plant' isn't meaningfully cheaper than two 'single-size' plants. Then an optimal build-out end game can be East and West plants that are each one air-hop from all major metros on that coast and a one-day truck/rail hop from 50% of customers on that coast. If it's a rapid-turn tech product, Reno can work well - half-day road trip from bay area for outbound and a Pacific port for inbound (Stockton). I don't know the quick-turn PCB assembly biz but maybe basing across the street from Digi-Key's biggest distribution center is a 'checkmate' move that beats all other advantages?
Logistics strategy is fun!
nonethewiser 2 days ago [-]
>A plant in, say, Kansas, is a couple of days of UPS Ground from a huge portion of the country.
80% of the US population lives east of the 100th meridian, which bisects Kansas.
It's probably not best to optimize for the lowest maximum ship time in the lower 48, but something more weighted for population. Lowest average transit time. I would have guessed something like Nashville, TN. Claude is telling me Nashville is up there but Dayton, OH is the best. 14% <= 1 day, 46% reached in <= 2 days and 74% reached in <= 3 days. 2.83 average.
Compared to Kansas City, KS at 5%, 25%, 61%. 3.11 average.
This fab is in South Deerfield, MA which is 15%, 26%, 52%, 3.32 avg.
I guess population is also technically not the best measure. It would be better to measure the potential customers. Which is interesting because those are going to be skewed towards the coasts to some degree.
Maybe your Kansas suggestion is more correct than I thought. I'd still wager its more like the midwest than the plains though.
bluGill 2 days ago [-]
The big advantage Kansas has is a living wage is lower. That probably isn't the biggest bottleneck in this case though.
seddona 2 days ago [-]
I hear you. We need more locations. I'm hoping we can do a bit better than ground actually as drone delivery comes online.
klaff 23 hours ago [-]
Digikey ships from Minnesota and Mouser ships from Texas. If you drove between them you'd go through eastern Kansas.
skew-aberration 2 days ago [-]
Awesome. Wish I could work on a project like this. I wonder how it scales compared to a long linear assembly line with lots of preloaded pick and place machines. I've been expecting the next stage of electronics automation to look more like an amazon warehouse. Parts distribution and assembly happening under the one roof, fully automated.
fhn 2 days ago [-]
I'm willing to bet most of that delay is shipping and most will wait a few days to save $100.
otekengineering 3 days ago [-]
How long until you've built the Grid into a shipping container and are selling those?
Can't wait to see how quickly I can get boards next time I need a batch! The adage 'hardware is hard' is getting less true every day
tgtweak 2 days ago [-]
Our PCBa manufacturers in Dongguan and Shenzhen are like 2 days end to end for prototypes on small sized boards (40mmx20mm 30 component single layer) and at scale after prototyping is done they're incredibly cost effective.
Do you see these costs coming down further with mature automation or process improvements?
LarsDu88 2 days ago [-]
Logically having a robot is great, but doesn't Shenzen still have a massive supply chain for the actual stuff that goes on the boards?
seddona 2 days ago [-]
Broadly speaking, there's a western supply chain and a china supply chain, lots of like for like MCU's and such in each. The western parts supply chains are actually pretty robust and built over many years so you don't hear much about them.
2 days ago [-]
mlhpdx 2 days ago [-]
Congratulations on this automation, which I know from first-hand experience is very difficult to pull off.
Is the robot really working with individual boards and not panels? How do you deal with balancing copper area, and varying etch times?
People often focus on the assembly side as “hard” but quick-turn manufacturing of the PCB is vicious.
cjrp 2 days ago [-]
Interesting, kind of reminds me of SendCutSend
seddona 2 days ago [-]
Love those guys. Happy customer also.
2 days ago [-]
nubinetwork 2 days ago [-]
> So you pay about $165 more than the Shenzhen shop and get your boards five days sooner, with no customs and a supply chain you can count on.
A supply chain that also comes from Shenzhen... last time I checked, North America doesn't make chips or other components either.
mchannon 2 days ago [-]
North America doesn't make chips or components?
That's never been true (at least since the first chips or components). A lot of my Shenzhen orders have to wait on international airfreight on US-made chips because the ones I spec'd (basically the only ones that would do the job) are US-manufactured and warehoused.
Recommend you look at a world map of Intel fabs. Or Micron Fabs.
netrap 2 days ago [-]
Lets be realistic.. components meaning 0805 capacitors and resistors, small digital ICs. I can almost guarantee those aren't made in the US... and are WAY cheaper on a site like LCSC.
guywithahat 2 days ago [-]
While I agree in principle that most chips aren't made in the US, tons of 0805 capacitors and resistors are made in the US. Vishay does a lot of that here, as well as a few other manufacturers. Mouser lists country of origin and you can search that way.
ianm218 2 days ago [-]
Lots of use cases are more speed than cost sensitive. I.e. yes if you are paying a bunch of engineers in Boston who graduated from MIT to work on robotics $165 is a rounding error if you aren’t producing at scale.
Basically anything aerospace and defense related will care more about speed and compliance than cost.
2 days ago [-]
derekja 1 days ago [-]
Your website is not mobile-friendly. The pricing page, for instance, is not properly viewable.
ENadyr 3 days ago [-]
This is great! Are you able to do IFA for UL certification? That would be a killer for us!
rkangel 1 days ago [-]
Are you also building the bare PCBs? The video and words only talk about board assembly.
CamFizzler 2 days ago [-]
TIL "parity" is now measured on a logarithmic scale.
2 days ago [-]
lightedman 2 days ago [-]
You don't accept industry standard formats and require source... that rules you right out of the aerospace company I work for. That's billions of dollars gone from your potential pool.
You spent 5 years developing this fab and somehow ignored regular industry standards the entire time? That does not instill confidence in your services, at least from my standpoint.
Needing to sign up for a quote? Who are you selling this data to?
seddona 2 days ago [-]
We work with many of the worlds largest companies, speak to our account management team for custom contracts and such. We also support Gerbers, ODB++ and IPC-2581 if you like, the flow is just a little less slick.
barelysapient 3 days ago [-]
Amazing. Is something like this available now, or in the future, for hobbyists? Happy to pay retail prices.
PowerElectronix 2 days ago [-]
Great news, wish you all the best. I just wish the PCB sizes could stretch a bit to 330mm by 330mm.
Voblit 2 days ago [-]
Glad to see some homegrown companies competing with the chinese, especially with PCBs.
robviren 2 days ago [-]
The link back to your home page is a dead link. At least on mobile.
rids proto fully booked. so they have no o capacity. we cannot even get a quote to know the pricing of grids proto.
seddona 2 days ago [-]
Sorry about that, we went viral in various places this week and demand has been through the roof. We are working round the clock to get more capacity online.
tgtweak 2 days ago [-]
We need this for fab runs
antoni4040 1 days ago [-]
I thought the Grid was a digital frontier. I tried to picture clusters of information as they moved through the computer etc.
guywithahat 2 days ago [-]
This is great, especially as easypcbusa is being absorbed into a much more expensive conglomerate. Looking forward to seeing if they do just-pcb pricing as well
hypfer 1 days ago [-]
I hate to say it, but this kinda looks like that whole tariff horror show might have had a point.
Though, of course, if this has been in operation for five years already, that cannot have been the spark for this. But it might be what it needs to become fully viable.
Whether the guy responsible for said horror show actually thought this far of course remains questionable.
metalman 3 days ago [-]
kudos! for solving a hardwares, hardware problem, but especialy for the open, matter of fact demenour devoid of rhetoric.
aaaand the web site renders perfectly on my less than standard browser, fast too.
Nothing in the legal terms explicitly prevents your employees from using my designs for other purposes. If you leak my IP and I find out 13 months later, your terms prevent me from seeking damages because you only cover 12 months from manufacturing.
I like that you have an NDA that I can opt in to, but you should be offering the NDA by default when I upload the files. I should not have to go looking for it in your documentation.
Edit: I realize that there is also limited protection and a lot of risk using a Chinese manufacturer. But requiring source files makes it much, much, easier to look at my design, recognize what it's for, and reproduce it, or at least copy the innovative parts of my design.
---
In order to receive a quote on CircuitHub, you will need to upload the original design files from your EDA tool, or an export that carries the same data. This allows us to provide instant quotes and automate the manufacturing process to lower lead times and cost. Currently, our platform works with Altium, KiCad and Fusion 360 files, and with ODB++ and IPC-2581 exports from any design tool, including Cadence Allegro and OrCAD.
We do not accept Gerber files on their own because they do not contain all of the design and assembly data required by our automated process. We do use your Gerber files when you upload them together with an ODB++ or IPC-2581 export, or with Fusion 360's EAGLE exports, which describe the parts.
---
Other vendors don't require this. They just need the gerbers, BOM, and CPL files. That's way different than source files or ODB++/IPC-2581 exports, which is basically the same thing as source.
Good riddance to the compatibly hellhole of 30 different flavors of Gerber/Gerberx/NCdrill
EDIT: haven't even mentioned everyone's different goofball CSV BOMs
You almost always need an NC drill.
You have to add a separate GerbJob to describe what the board is made of.
And why should I have to sign an NDA? You aren't giving me any confidential data, I am giving it to you.
> And why should I have to sign an NDA?
I think you misunderstood?
---
For additional legal protection of your intellectual property please sign our NDA.
---
To make it worse, you can't even read what their NDA says without signing up with your email address on a third party site.
I agree that it raises a red flag when you see something like "For additional legal protection of your intellectual property" for a service which terms should be absolute confidentiality out fo the box.
Isn't capitalism neat‽
Many, many people, including a lot of industry, thinks that this is a zero-sum game and so they need to win. They end up hurting themselves in the long run.
Sounds like their actual customers don't agree with you at all...
I have some level of confidence that JLC is going to protect my IP. They are big and if someone's IP leaked it could be devastating to their business. Their legal agreements are a lot more detailed and favorable than what's currently on circuithub.
So even if nobody ever sees my schematic or gerber files, they could still clone a lot of products if they just have someone spend some time with a multimeter on a device they buy.
And contrary to popular white-washed belief, there is very little to anything special in most copied designs.
I won't complain about the price, I understand it's going to be more expensive than China. But it's a tough one for me. I have a budget that I have to work with, and while I have some flexibility 3X prices (your site priced $9k compared to JLC's $2k, even after tariffs and shipping) make the project nonviable for me. I hope you can continue to improve pricing over time as you scale.
Also your parts selection interface needs a lot of work. I have a very simple board and I had to go through clunky search and select for parts, even when the digikey part number was in the description.
A domestic PCB manufacturing pipeline, has been a pipe dream for me an many other Hardware startup EEs for a long time. Until costs are more competitive, CN still gets the business. Hope you can bring costs for small batch prototype PCB manufacturing down further in the future, then you will have our business!
I just had a board (PCB only, no PCB Assembly) made at JLCPCB for $62.91. That's 10 bare boards and a stencil, including shipping and tarrifs. This is a fairly simple 4 layer board, 50mm x 50mm.
I uploaded the same project to your site and I'm getting a quote for $620.26. That's after marking everything as DNP, so it's also just a bare board. No stencil I guess.
To be fair, the JLC board took two-ish weeks to get here. But even with the fastest JLC option (2-3 days) and fast shipping (2-4 days), I don't see how $620.26 is competitive. Am I misunderstanding?
Update: And holy moly. I just noticed the $620 quote is for "any origin", and if I want "USA only" it's $1,697.00!
Does that include the cost of parts? One of the issues I had with sourcing prototype PCBA's in the US is parts are much more expensive (not 10x, but also not 1.3x).
Currently, all assembly is done in house (in the US) but bare PCBs typically are still made in CN. We used to produce everything overseas and just do the QA/test in the US but during the chip shortage I ended up setting up the production line to attempt to eliminate any possible shortages/tariffs.
It is a difficult struggle manufacturing commercial products in the US (doubly so with an openhardware project) since the final cost is the major blocker but I decided it was worth it for many reasons. Big issue though is knowing that even if I pay someone 2x the going rate for an employee it still will not be a living wage. Not sure the fix there. I see you are planning to lean heavily on automation/AI for this, will be watching to see how it all progresses.
There are still some major blockers in the US. Commercial/Industrial real estate being a big one. Costs are not going down...even if employee count is minimized.
I wish nothing but the best for the project.
Being mindful of wages is great, but eventually you have to accept that creating a job at a less than ideal wage is better than not creating any job at all. If the pay is not enough then you’ll get the signal through being unable to hire because workers are taking better paying jobs.
An unintuitive feature of the job market is that creating more low paying jobs actually puts upward pressure on wages. Ideally the low end of the job market should be saturated with job opportunities, which creates a situation where employers have to compete with each other to raise wages to find and retain employees, which means pay goes up for everyone.
So don’t let worries about not being able to pay as much as you’d like get in the way of paying anyone at all. The alternative (less jobs, more outsourcing) is worse in every way.
"Living wage" is an awful term because it intrinsically holds employers responsible for real estate costs, which are strongly correlated with higher pay (read: as employees get paid more, housing costs rise to match it).
$20 an hour is not awful pay when you can rent for $600/mo. So the actual fix is to just build more housing, and it will bring back the viability of all these disappearing jobs.
They sure have a lot of that capital.
For the employee, maybe. For the employer, it depends on how much time/money you have to put into training and what turnover is. Paying non-living wages leads to high(er) turnover because people will leave for anything better.
Money is not unlimited though so “just pay everyone a living wage” isn’t a real solution. If you can’t afford to pay ideal “living wage” (which is an undefined target that keeps moving depending on who you ask) then your options are to either not create the job at all, or outsource the work.
So therefore, creating a job at any wage is better for your economy than not creating the job at all.
"Living wage" in my area is $40/hr. That is just to live, not thrive or gain.
Rent prices have gone insane [1], which in turn have drove up COGS. Since COGS have gone up the real estate investors have raised their prices on rents/housing to make up for the increase. The feedback loop has gone on too long...I am concerned the only option is collapse and for a lot of investors to lose money. This will feedback into the system even more...it will not benefit either the renter or the investor. As they say..."the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent".
I run a very small company that is largely bootstrapped. I fix all my own machines, do my own setup, move my own equipment. Personally, I work on every step from design through packaging (janitor>CEO). There is not enough money to pay a living wage for others...so I end up doing everything myself. 70hr weeks are not uncommon. (I also cook my own meals, fix my own car and bake my own bread...otherwise I would not make it)
If you have not been a renter for the last 10 years you may not have noticed. Building more is not helping since the only things being built are done so they can set them to the new "normal" price. It is to the point where they consider an "affordable home" as $400k (in my area they literally named this development as "Miracle on Britton"). Meanwhile the average renter makes <$40k/year.
I have not been outsourcing more due to this. Just working harder myself...but even so I barely get by. 5 years ago I gave up the hope of ever buying in this area [2], currently I am just working to stay here long enough to take care of family. If I did not have that I would be long gone.
Doing what I can to bring back manufacturing to the area, but I am a small fish working mostly in Opensource Hardware. If the project starts making money again very likely it will be cloned to the point where there will be no way to make profit (already happened once).
[1] https://www.zillow.com/rental-manager/market-trends/coeur-d-... [2] https://www.zillow.com/home-values/136166/coeur-dalene-id/
The fix is you will just have to buy American and pay higher prices for higher "living wages". There's no way around it besides taxes or tariffs on foreign goods to equalize the wage/price difference (which does have some down sides).
I buy American and western-made products as much as possible, and I pay higher prices (assuming high quality) for those higher wages. If you want low cost, you can't by definition support "living wages".
There's no "oh if only the CEO makes less" way around it either. Labor is simply more expensive in the west and will remain so and you can vote with your wallet, as I do, or you can pay people less than living wages.
And how many people will be willing to pay a premium when the locally made products are worse quality than foreign products? It's happening right now with Chinese consumer goods (e.g. robotic vacuum cleaners), EVs, etc. Eventually there's a high possibility you won't be able to buy anything in the product category you want.
No clue, but there are millions. Just depends on the product.
Here are two examples. One made in France, the other in America:
[1] https://www.debuyer-usa.com
[2] https://smithey.com
One of those pans is made in France (western) the other is made here in the US. The quality of the US pans are a bit better which is part of why they command the higher prices. But you can also buy a pan from Wal-Mart for 1/10 or 1/5th the cost. But that's up to you. You can support higher wages or you don't have to if you don't want to.
> And how many people will be willing to pay a premium when the locally made products are worse quality than foreign products?
Why are you assuming the American and locally made products are worse than foreign products? Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren't.
> Eventually there's a high possibility you won't be able to buy anything in the product category you want.
Well for a lot of these we can just do without, but those are the kinds of things you have to figure out if you want "living wages". Wages are higher in the west so we will automate things to keep some prices low/lower and we'll just pay higher costs to support the living wages. Or we won't and then we won't have living wages. You can do things like try to raise the minimum wage or w/e but then you're just making American/western products less competitive with the cheaper foreign products. Then you'll have to implement tariffs and agree with Trump there in order to offset the wage differences.
Origin is complicated and what gets printed on a label rarely tells the full story. You can have products that are assembled somewhere using components that are made somewhere else, products that contain raw materials from somewhere else, etc.
The assumption that "Made in America" results in higher wages for American workers is not always well-founded.
There's also the issue of fraud. Not every label is legitimate. Lying about one or two components in particular products can result in significantly higher margins, so there are a lot of incentives for dishonesty at multiple levels of many supply chains, and even the most well-meaning manufacturers can fall victim to it.
Sure, but a product made entirely overseas results in 0 wages (for the manufacturing of the product) for American workers. Any company, to varying degrees of just how raw/local the product is made, which builds, assembles, manufacturers, grows, whatever a product here in the US has to hire and pay Americans an American wage. Naturally that may not be a "livable" wage (which is a loaded term but w/e) but it's still a wage that goes to Americans more than it goes to non-Americans.
We should avoid scumbag companies, American or otherwise, and we should do research into just how much a product is made in the US, but as a general rule there's no way around (until automation or something) paying more for American products and that's what you'll have to do to support American workers and American jobs.
Worker Unions have been telling us this for decades.
In the case of supply chain issues, yea, shit happens. But the supply chain issues also occur in the downstream foreign market you're buying the product from. So you can buy an American product and if it has parts that come from, say, China and you see a supply chain concern you'd have to be more concerned about the Chinese-made/assembled product because you have even less supply chain oversight.
> Sure, but a product made entirely overseas results in 0 wages (for the manufacturing of the product) for American workers.
American brands like Apple capture the vast majority of the value of their products even when the manufacturing is done elsewhere. Final assembly, which is the type of work that is done in countries like China, Vietnam and India, makes up less than 5% of the retail price of most electronics products.
I've lived in the developing world for many years and currently live in a developing country in Asia that's experiencing one of the biggest manufacturing booms in the world. You can probably guess the country.
The problem with wanting to do all the manufacturing at home is that not all manufacturing wages are the type of wages you'd want in a developed, high-income economy. Low-skilled, labor-intensive assembly work is not a foundation for continued prosperity in a developed, high-income economy. And Westerners (Americans) don't want all the bad stuff that typically comes with it, including the pollution.
True, but in that case the important part is still buying from an American company, even if the product is wholly assembled elsewhere. I didn't mean to imply you can and will only buy American made products from start to finish. Even in the case of Apple you're supporting very high American wages and the products cost more. Some manufacturing/assembly has been moved to the US.
> The problem with wanting to do all the manufacturing at home is that not all manufacturing wages are the type of wages you'd want in a developed, high-income economy. Low-skilled, labor-intensive assembly work is not a foundation for continued prosperity in a developed, high-income economy. And Westerners (Americans) don't want all the bad stuff that typically comes with it, including the pollution.
I agree with you, though I think items like clothing can be made much more costly but higher quality and with local manufacturing (like in Europe for some companies) but if we go back to the original point it was about supporting "living wages".
My point was just that where American (or western depending on your own beliefs) companies exist and make a given products (a skillet/frying pan was just an example where I knew there were a few American manufacturers), and let's assume it's not fraud or rebranding or something, you should pay more for those products if you want to support "living wages". Otherwise you can buy "the thing from China [1]" but you can't do that and also support "living wages" because from an assembly/manufacturing worker perspective there is no wage to be had because they aren't doing the job. To your point also of course you can argue that the company that's HQ'd in the US, doing the design work, with manufacturing in China also receives a lot of the profits or can capture the majority of the value of the product, but those folks are already paid corporate wages which are higher than a "living wage".
I'd also mention I suppose that not everyone can just work in an office and have people in other countries work in assembly lines.
[1] China makes incredible stuff, I don't mean to imply everything made there is cheap or something along those lines, though of course many products that Americans are exposed to are of that nature, there's nothing necessarily wrong or immoral about it.
The amount of assembly work done in the US is absolutely miniscule. This type of work is never coming back to the US in any meaningful volume unless it can be done by robots.
> ...you should pay more for those products if you want to support "living wages".
The problem is that the average American earner cannot afford to pay what it would cost to produce consumer goods end-to-end in the US in a manner that would allow people engaged in low-skill labor to earn an American "living wage".
Americans cannot have it both ways: you cannot consume more material goods than any other group in the world and produce those goods domestically using workers earning an American living wage.
Most Americans truly don't understand the scale of their consumption. Countries in Western Europe are developed, high-income nations and many Americans couldn't fathom living a Western European lifestyle because even most Western Europeans don't consume like Americans.
Well yea that's what will happen most likely. Obviously not all will come back and in what form it does will probably be different. But we don't have to focus only on Apple assembling computers since that's not the only company or industry at hand.
> The problem is that the average American earner cannot afford to pay what it would cost to produce consumer goods end-to-end in the US in a manner that would allow people engaged in low-skill labor to earn an American "living wage".
Well I think we can, we'd just have to buy fewer things but probably higher quality/more handmade/local, and then we'd have more people making more money. Personally I'm in favor of it just because I think it's a better way of life for many people (owning your own business, doing work yourself, &c.) But to your broad point, I don't disagree with you. I'm just saying this idea of a "living wage" is a farce unless Americans are willing to do what I believe you and I are both generally suggesting here. :)
That's the antithesis of American consumer culture. Like I said, for a huge swath of Americans, even those who are lower middle class, a European lifestyle (which is still a developed, high-income lifestyle) would be seen as a step down.
So yes, you're right. The idea of a "living wage" is a farce because the American system is not really concerned with this even if politicians have to pretend to be. In reality, the US has maximized the economic ceiling at all costs. As long as people think they have a chance at becoming unfathomably wealthy, even huge numbers of the poor will vote for policies that perpetuate their own poverty.
China already figured this out, mind you. Their wages have been exploding as the country has developed, and due to their horrible one-child policy they are facing a giant population cliff. They have been pushing very hard to switch their factories from cheap labor to automation, and those dirt-cheap Chinese EVs our Western politicians are working so hard to block in order to keep the horribly outdated Western car manufacturers alive are the direct result of that.
Making boards for the Smoothieware/Smoothieboard project. [1]
Mostly small SMT stuff on there. 0402, BGA, etc.
[1]https://github.com/Smoothieware/Smoothieboard2
Chinese shops are very pro customer service, and the large ones I work with are amazing. American shops are god awful in comparison. Designs take weeks to get manufacturing feedback on, if they care to respond to you at all because you aren't in some imaginary box of customers that they want. In many cases if you aren't coming with them immediately with a purchase order of a million units, they just ignore you.
But yea the blockers in the US are immense for more US business growth. If anything in the next 10 years we will see more collapse of US manufacturing as baby boomers sell off their businesses. Nobody under the age of 50 can afford to start a new manufacturing business without VC funding. The cost of real estate is bonkers alone (unless you try and build out in bumfuck nowhere, in which case you now have labor shortages), and the numerous layers of certifications that buyers want you to hold for corporate checkbox ticketing is the cherry on top.
I did a parts order a couple weeks back and the only new question I have been asked since the tariff regime changed was whether I wanted to slightly slower and more expensive USPS delivery with the tariff amount precalculated/prepaid, or a potentially faster delivery by DHL which would require me to provide extra paperwork and customs payment to DHL (in the US) before delivery could occur.
This is one of the benefits of being a company. You use the tax ID instead of your social security number.
Most of my international customers who order bulk require my EIN (and theirs) to be on every invoice.
Nothing new here... I suspect if there is any change it is due to the de minimus being removed. There was major fraud happening in this area...it is a shame it is gone though since I was hoping to be able to order small things without major costs.
Yep, I'm sure that's what's causing this. Prior to that you didn't need to worry if it was under like $700, IIRC.
Curious, why are surface mount USB-C connectors not able to be done as part of the surface mount components (treated as a through hole I think)? Too fiddly?
Also, one question to pick your team’s brain: What’s your team’s AI PCB workflow and design tips to work with your production line? Any specific tips for ESP32-related integrations?
"Never put any friction between your customer and giving you money"
Dude, absolutely get rid of the requirement to make an account to get a quote. Understandable(ish) to need one to check-out, but hell "Check-out as guest" was probably one of the most profitable innovations in e-commerce ever.
A longer list of accounts is not worth more than a longer list of orders.
It's industry standard to accept gerbers and BOMs. Now that I've reviewed their legal agreements, using them is a hard no right now.
What's preventing a competitor from creating an account?
Now there's a login before I can even figure out if it's a quote or a cart.
Byeeee.
The app feels very vibe-coded, and gives impression it's not well tested and polished for a new user/project.
I appreciate PCBs aren't the usual the consumer-level type of user, but I felt confused by a lot compared to JLCPCB. Hope that helps.
Are you interested in partnerships? I'm running pcbjam.com (web port of KiCad with collab, sharing, git, AI etc.) and I'm looking for a partner to do what EasyEDA is to JLC. Where can I find you?
My feedback: until the moment I click the "order" button, do not require me to log in. If "Checkout As Guest" can possibly be sufficient, at least for the "Grid Proto" tier, then do that.
You have a digital payment instrument for the order regardless of login. That should be sufficient for whatever legal obligations exist, real or imagined, so have the courage to make that policy despite the pushback.
My understanding is that Shenzhen dominance so far is from 3 pillars - low minimum order size, low per-part price, and fast response. They can do that because they have lot of highly trained labor that work mad hours. So to compete you would need to leverage a lot of automation... which would be a lot less flexible and very rocky at the start. Would love to get a correction from someone more familiar with the situation.
Zimbabwean dollars I hope because 1 million usd PER BOARD?
The main latency for this is typically sourcing. The partners I've worked with will get PCBA done within a day or two once they have parts.
The claims here about a breakthrough in setup time also don't really fit with my experience. What is this, putting a new stencil in, adding different components to a hopper? I've toured PCBA factories and it's not like their lines are typically down for set-up. I think this takes like 30min?
Also, it doesn't look like they substantiate their 2x speed claims? They "benchmarked" this, but with what suppliers? Their claims would make sense if they found random suppliers, not exactly specialized in rapid prototype style PCBA, so they're not comparing like to like.
Don't get me wrong, I really want this to happen too, but the desire for this to happen seems to be making the community gullible. I'd love the founders or someone with circuithub to link to real benchmark evidence and explain why their changeover procedure can produce several days of difference.
I've run hundreds of low volume orders on conventional lines, it's death by a thousand cuts, tough to describe exactly why until you do it.
You should. You’re the underdog.
However I have my reservations because China is incredibly cheap, incredibly fast, and incredibly skilled. Our domestic made boards tend to be lower quality with more mistakes than Chinese made ones (while also costing up to 50x more).
I'll run some designs through this later, and I really hope it is broadly viable (not just unique niches that fit their tooling)
I remember documentaries from the 90s/00s showing Chinese factories with people hand soldering stuff onto PCBs, but most components used in electronics seems way too small for that.
Some components, particularly transformers, might also be constructed by hand for custom/complex structures. That's component assembly rather than board assembly, but it's a consistent source of manual labor involvement in the supply chain.
Design for manufacturability is one of the important goals being considered in any PCB design. High-volume or low-cost boards will optimize for automated assembly and find ways to substitute or eliminate components with higher assembly costs. Extremely high-volume boards like in smartphones can justify custom tooling if it helps automate assembly.
The integration of lcsc is incredible.. let's see how they beat this in practice
Some components have large amounts of mass and need to be manually placed because the PNP doesn't have the vertical space for pickup and movement to the pad or do not have feeders which can successfully hold onto the part.
And some times it's just faster to have the human place the part because they're faster than the machine due to physical limitations (like needing to move slowly so as to not drop the component or throw it at the end of travel.) Many board shops will have the PNP places the ICs/Caps/Resistors/diodes and then the placement of connectors (especially zierich) or inductors gets done manually. That is how it worked where I worked. This also provided an opportunity mid-process to do quality checks instead of just letting things go from the PNP straight into the oven.
To take a particular example, they claim to have 11065 SKUs of microcontrollers in stock https://jlcpcb.com/parts/2nd/Embedded%20Processors%20&%20Con... of which 6 are "promotional extended": STM8S105K6T6C (1213 in stock), STM32F103C8T6 (231496 in stock), STM32L151C8T6 (287 in stock), ATMEGA328P-AU (40476 in stock), STM32F030C8T6 (73009 in stock), and STM8S003F3P6TR (152762 in stock). 100 units of this last one will cost you US$30.47.
Where do I find the corresponding information on your web site?
Manufacturing at small to medium scales is so heavily determined by small blockers/latencies. Missing some component, or need a modified PCB? In the US or Europe you'd be happy to find a replacement within a week, or more likely have to wait a month for it to come from China. In Shenzhen you can probably walk 2km and pick it up yourself in under an hour.
Through hole can be automated, but it doesn't really make sense until you have pretty good volume. So that leaves it still mostly to hand.
Then there are also all the unique customizations, like non-standard mounting specs or running jumper wires.
I mean VLSI (chip design) DFM is automated and that's a much harder problem.
I think the availability of cheap humans in China kinda nerfed the drive to automate this (for comparison you can't hand-DFM a chip even if every human on earth worked on it), but it still needs to happen.
JLCPCB is so cheap because everything is standardized and automated. Their tooling analyzes your input, gives a big fat warning if it spots something it knows it can't manufacture, and renders their processing output for final approval by you. Chinese labor might be cheaper than Western labor, but it is not even remotely cheap enough to babysit every hobbyist's one-off board.
They also assume you know what you are doing. You order a board with a part rotated 180 degrees? Well, it physically fits, so they will make it like that. The final board not working as you intended is a you-problem. You put a via inside a pad and it wicks away all the solder? Not their problem. You forgot to re-render the area fills and short ground to power? Not their problem.
Still, looks super cool and I don't think the price difference is very high for a company doing prototypes.
Buried vias are /super/ expensive from any board house- and very uncommon in most prototyping designs as a result.
Obviously a bit different if you're doing boards with super dense BGA layout chips, but even then you can usually avoid it.
I don't think it was meant to be misleading because the small font style was used throughout, and the bottom row wasn't really designed as part of the table, but it sure looks like it at first glance.
I'm not expecting it to be cheaper than China, but in the same general range, and being able to at small quantity/fast turnaround is important. Overall: I'm skeptical of the cost and time claims in the article. I am thinking "What assumptions" are here. Do they mean some part of the process is faster than that same part from China, etc. So I'm curious about what the real-world order-to-arrival time is; what the final CC charge is, and then compare that with China. They advertise faster turnaround: Is that really true than 10 days order to arrival we are used to?
Seems to me that Shenzen still wins at least for the non-USA world.
They are different political stunts though. If your supply chain is vulnerable to politics then you want options so that any one stunt cannot hurt you.
Also, while there are political stunts, my current reading is the US stunts are more temporary and the next president won't continue them. While China's are likely longer term - there is a reasonably possibly China will attack Taiwan and Europe will join with the US and defending. Only time will tell, but that is my read on the situation.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/vancouver/article/canadian-military-e...
I am not sure you understand the damage this administration has done.
It's a little sad that Trump is such a divisive train-wreck spectacle that many haven't noticed that Clinton, Obama and Biden were achieving many of the same outcomes as Bush/Trump, just more smoothly and with more appealing rationalizations.
The best thing about Trump is that he's such an obvious self-interested kleptocrat and he doesn't even care to hide it (in fact, he seems to enjoy flaunting it). But is it really that much better to be sold out by a more likeable persona who seems like part of our tribe and has the skills to mask the long con more deftly? I guess maybe at least then we won't notice as much or feel as bad about the same outcome?
And here in Europe we're busy divesting from both. The priority for now is getting rid of the US simply because of the erratic President but if you read between the lines, a lot of the plans also aim for getting rid of the dependence on China.
I'd imagine that just because they've decided it's good enough to go public with it, doesn't mean it's done getting better. Or that someone else can't do it better, now that it's been shown to work.
It's not a prototype. The Grid has been running for customers for five years. It already builds tens of millions of dollars of electronics a year. Across CircuitHub we've shipped more than 2.2 million boards, placed more than 150 million parts and served more than 26,000 engineers.
Meanwhile as a hobbyist I'd be glad for the discount "we will get around to it sometime in the next two weeks discount"
In Shenzhen you can have Some Guy in a truck doing a parts pickup round around town a couple of times a day. In the US you're waiting for overnight Fedex from Digikey. And sure, there's a lot you can stock in advance, but virtually every board will have this one weird part you don't stock yet.
Plus if you can get someone on the phone there can be value in that.
And if a sales engineer comes out and sees your operation you might get more than a free lunch…
Sadly neither really compete on price with jlcpcb and despite a hemisphere of delivery advantage jlcpcb can be quicker! I once got in a discussion with a Project Manager about whether the design was worth keeping some level of traceability for ~$50... he just wanted it cheaper.
I placed the order on JLCPCB on October 18th, and they were delivered October 17th. To match that delivery timeline I would have to choose the higher service level which brings that total to $877.83 on Circuithub.
As a note, these are not complex boards--they're LED drivers with some custom features implemented via a ATtiny3216-S, which costs about $1 a piece in non-bulk orders. To buy the SBOM from DigiKey for prototyping it was about $100--obviously with more tariffs and shipping. Point being, this is not a complex board or something with complex parts.
[0] https://imgur.com/a/EHhMPU7
[1] https://imgur.com/a/s9aVJtU
I’m guessing that’s supposed to be 8th and 17th, or 18th and 27th?
> October 18th, and they were delivered October 27th
Except the components are mostly coming from China anyways, so the same disruptions are potentially in play.
Still, cool to see domestic options.
If we were serious about domestic Manufacturing we'd both be doing massive automation and open borders with Latin America. You need the massive inflow of temporarily cheaper labor.
Automation picks up up as immigrants run out.
Love that it's fully self-serve and not "please call sales", and will give this another shot with new board designs when I still have total flexibility in part selection. But for existing projects I'm probably just going to re-order from Shenzhen.
The video doesn't show how that happens. The robotic systems seem to be moving boards around, not parts. Yet that's the big manual part.
FOUP = thing that holds the PCB.
AMHS = thing that moves the PCB.
Reticle Pod = The thing that holds the component(s) that can add value to the PCB.
You can create a much more capable factory if you trade a fixed, serial line for a scheduling and logistics problem. Assuming your logistics and robots are capable enough, this can provide enormous uplift in high-mix, low-volume manufacturing.
For example, running a test lot (up to 25 wafers) through a modern semiconductor plant is almost a trivial affair. It is like a leaf floating down a river if the scheduling systems are well engineered. I suspect CircuitHub is attempting to leverage similar dynamics.
While logistics and delivery (both inbound parts and outbound product) are a key factor, time and cost don't map linearly to distance. Rather than being exactly central, the optimal solve is often somewhat geographically central but leverages proximity to transport corridors, ports and other factors such as weather variability.
KCI isn't a central air hub and winter weather can disrupt flow. Being further south near an East-West hub like DFW can be better (or Houston if an Atlantic port is valuable). Or if bidirectional delivery is everything, base near a Super-Hub like Memphis (Fedex) or UPS WorldPort (Louisville, KY) and go all-in on reaching lower rate tiers with one preferred domestic delivery partner.
For high-automation physical plants, scale can tend to chunk into increments beyond which 'one double-size plant' isn't meaningfully cheaper than two 'single-size' plants. Then an optimal build-out end game can be East and West plants that are each one air-hop from all major metros on that coast and a one-day truck/rail hop from 50% of customers on that coast. If it's a rapid-turn tech product, Reno can work well - half-day road trip from bay area for outbound and a Pacific port for inbound (Stockton). I don't know the quick-turn PCB assembly biz but maybe basing across the street from Digi-Key's biggest distribution center is a 'checkmate' move that beats all other advantages?
Logistics strategy is fun!
80% of the US population lives east of the 100th meridian, which bisects Kansas.
It's probably not best to optimize for the lowest maximum ship time in the lower 48, but something more weighted for population. Lowest average transit time. I would have guessed something like Nashville, TN. Claude is telling me Nashville is up there but Dayton, OH is the best. 14% <= 1 day, 46% reached in <= 2 days and 74% reached in <= 3 days. 2.83 average.
Compared to Kansas City, KS at 5%, 25%, 61%. 3.11 average.
This fab is in South Deerfield, MA which is 15%, 26%, 52%, 3.32 avg.
I guess population is also technically not the best measure. It would be better to measure the potential customers. Which is interesting because those are going to be skewed towards the coasts to some degree.
Maybe your Kansas suggestion is more correct than I thought. I'd still wager its more like the midwest than the plains though.
Can't wait to see how quickly I can get boards next time I need a batch! The adage 'hardware is hard' is getting less true every day
Do you see these costs coming down further with mature automation or process improvements?
Is the robot really working with individual boards and not panels? How do you deal with balancing copper area, and varying etch times?
People often focus on the assembly side as “hard” but quick-turn manufacturing of the PCB is vicious.
A supply chain that also comes from Shenzhen... last time I checked, North America doesn't make chips or other components either.
That's never been true (at least since the first chips or components). A lot of my Shenzhen orders have to wait on international airfreight on US-made chips because the ones I spec'd (basically the only ones that would do the job) are US-manufactured and warehoused.
Recommend you look at a world map of Intel fabs. Or Micron Fabs.
Basically anything aerospace and defense related will care more about speed and compliance than cost.
You spent 5 years developing this fab and somehow ignored regular industry standards the entire time? That does not instill confidence in your services, at least from my standpoint.
Needing to sign up for a quote? Who are you selling this data to?
Though, of course, if this has been in operation for five years already, that cannot have been the spark for this. But it might be what it needs to become fully viable.
Whether the guy responsible for said horror show actually thought this far of course remains questionable.