PCB manufacturer that manufactures in Canada? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Red Squirrel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2019, 04:10:47 am
content: I want to look at getting some PCBs made for a project in the new year, possibly for something I sell. I may even experiment with just selling various breakout boards on Amazon, just to get my feet wet in the process before I move to something bigger.While this may not be financially the best solution as China is always going to be cheaper, I do want to try to promote my products as being Canadian made or at very least as close as I can get. I realize all the parts I buy are probably going to still be made in China but if I can at least get the PCB made here and then assemble everything myself here, it's something. Any suggestions for manufacturers that do make the boards here?I foundhttps://www.7pcb.com/but they don't really mention if boards are made here or not, and I emailed them to ask but never got a response. Anyone have experience with them and can confirm? I'm open to other manufacturers too.And on similar subject, if I wanted to design and get made custom plastic enclosures, is that a thing, and is there any companies in Canada? How does that work, do you basically send CAD files? I imagine that's getting on the pricier side vs buying them premade on Digikey, but it's still cool to know the option is there.

author: exmadscientist
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2019, 09:10:51 am
content: 7pcb/Bittele's manufacturing is in Asia. (I think it's Taiwan but I'm not certain of that.) They do good work and would be a reasonable choice since at least some of your purchase would go to Canada. I'm not aware of any rigid PCB fab houses in Canada, but then that's not the sort of thing I would know. Any that are present are likely geared towards captive markets (defense, etc.) and are likely to be a PITA to deal with. (When I use a US fab house, it seems like there's a 50% chance they screw up the order, and a 100% chance of a heavy markup.) There is a big flex house in Ontario, but I don't think they do rigid.For enclosures, Hammond is at least nominally a Canadian company even though primary manufacturing is now in Taiwan. Again, you could do worse.

author: Gribo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 25, 2019, 05:03:00 am
content: https://itlcircuits.com/andhttps://www.canadiancircuits.com/come to mind, but prices will be at least 10 times higher than Chinese manufacturers.

author: Kasper
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2019, 12:14:16 am
content: PCBs:I've had good experiences with Enigma.They are a little pricey but they offer discount if you accept longer lead time.https://www.enigmacorp.com/If you want low cost and made in Canada you can make your own PCBs. Probably get better quality from China though.Enclosures:Yes you can just send files and get stuff made. I use FreeCAD to design enclosures and it works great, once you figure out which features are buggy and should be avoided.3Dhubs claims to use local manufacturers but I'm not sure if that means you can specify only Canadians. I've had decent results from them. Their website is great, upload your files and see auto quote with a lot of different options and explanations of the options. They also have some good guides for DFM (design for manufacturing). Their prices are ok. Costs more than ready made enclosures from DigiKey. I get custom enclosures from China, at low volumes they are similar quality and price as ready made from DigiKey.You could also look for local makerspacers or sign makers. I've used both. Hired makerspace owner to 3D print and laser cut stuff for me in a rush and got plastic cut with cnc by a shop that makes signs and trophies.

author: Red Squirrel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2019, 03:30:11 am
content: Thanks for the info I'll check out those when I am ready to manufacture. Probably still a while before I'm at that point but good to look at my options.

author: floobydust
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2019, 03:44:00 am
content: It depends what coast you are close to, East or West. There are many hungry PCB houses in Canada. Just make sure they have an independently-audited quality control system in place, like ISO9001.Your production volumes/batch size also affect if you can go big or small house for the run.Hammondwill custom machine their enclosures, min. order 25.

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2019, 06:27:50 am
content: Interesting...They quoted me minimum order 50.

author: floobydust
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2019, 07:02:59 am
content: Was it plastic, aluminium extrusion, die-cast? Simple holes and slots they had no trouble doing. It's almost all CNC setup time.Overall, making any custom enclosures is a huge hassle because (local) machine shops scratch and mangle the boxes, I had many rejects. Then they melted some oven drying the silkscreening and lacquer. That was painful.Custom plastic enclosure moulds from chinese manufacturers are much lower cost than North American shops. It depends on production volumes but they pound out moulds like nothing over there.

author: salvagedcircuitry
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2020, 06:50:51 pm
content: Old thread, but for reference Limor of Adafruit mentioned she uses goldphoenix from time to time. I dont know if for production or prototypes. They are located in Oakville, Canada.https://www.goldphoenixpcb.com/html/aboutus/index.html

author: Red Squirrel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2020, 07:28:55 pm
content: Good to know.Also for 7pcb I was looking further and it looks like they have a plant here and in China, so I presume I could ask to make sure it gets made here if I get PCBs made. Not sure how accurate their online estimator is, but it actually seems quite well priced if that's for being made here. Not so great for low volume as expected but for high volume it's actually quite good. I guess it's probably based on the cost of initial tooling and a large PCB panel, so anything above that initial cost does not cost much more.

author: Jester
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2020, 10:13:04 pm
content: For 2 layer boards, try AP Circuits in Alberta, we have ordered countless prototype size orders from them over the last 25+ years. They usually ship in about 2 -3 days. Use the prototype+ service. You can lower the cost a bit if you use their free drill sizes.One desirable aspect is that you can order as little as 2 prototype boards.

author: Alex Eisenhut
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2020, 11:35:23 pm
content: AP Circuits?? Are they even still in business?https://www.bbb.org/ca/ab/calgary/profile/printed-and-etched-circuits/alberta-printed-circuits-ltd-0017-20326

author: floobydust
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 04, 2020, 12:02:42 am
content: AP Circuits Calgary is no longer in business, for some time now."The Chinese Government has aggressively pursued market dominance for their industries forcing over 600 board shops to shutter in North America in the past 5 years. As of June 2019, pricing for Chinese produced boards delivered to North America are less expensive than raw material costs and overhead for a domestic fabricator. Except for instances where Intellectual Property protection is required, Chinese shops are taking the majority of the remaining orders. Privately owned operations are unable to compete against a government's wealth. This past year, prototyping has been aggressively pursued by Chinese fabricators. A reduction in delivery times from their continent combined with artificially low pricing is impacting all manufacturing in North America. After 35 years in operation, AP Circuits has been forced to discontinue production and layoff it's staff."Alberta Printed Circuits Ltd. Response 10/09/2019

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 04, 2020, 12:08:23 am
content: Quote from: salvagedcircuitry on May 03, 2020, 06:50:51 pmGoldphoenix has always been in China. I see no reasonable explanation why would they run a fab in Canada, it makes no sense. The address in Oakville is a shared office building. My bet they only have a small office there to transit orders to China.

author: Red Squirrel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 04, 2020, 01:08:15 am
content: Quote from: floobydust on May 04, 2020, 12:02:42 amSounds like they are frustrated and rightfully so. It really does seem like the government does everything to make it easier to do business with China instead of domestically. I'm willing to pay a bit more for "made in Canada" but not everyone is.And yeah a lot of these places that say they are Canadian just offload to China so it's something to watch out for. I think a lot of US ones do that too.

author: CDN_Torsten
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2020, 03:28:14 am
content: A couple more Canadian PCB manufactures:http://metaplast.ca/https://www.crimpcircuits.com/I've used both professionally. Excellent quality. Good service.Somewhat related - PCB assembly done locally - excellent workmanship:https://www.creativecircuits.comGood luck!

author: KE5FX
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2020, 04:03:51 am
content: Quote from: blueskull on May 05, 2020, 03:34:36 amIf prices at the North American domestic board houses were 1.5x or 2x as high as China's, that would be "failure to compete." The difference is more like 10x. That's not "failure to compete." It's dumping.Not that I'm complaining. I like cheap high-quality PCBs as well as anybody else. But let's be honest about how sustainable and how healthy this phenomenon really is. It would be much better if US and Canadian board houses could meet the Chinese pricing halfway, at least on a log scale.

author: KE5FX
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2020, 04:18:11 am
content: Quote from: blueskull on May 05, 2020, 04:05:13 amYes, but that always seems to lead to a flame war, where accusations of environmental and labor abuse get thrown around and nothing gets solved.I'm with you, basically -- our domestic suppliers got greedy and complacent, and now they're paying for it, and that's fine as far as I'm concerned. Nobody is a bigger free-trade advocate than I am.The affected suppliers will object that their operating costsarehigher than what their Chinese competitors have to pay, and I understand that as well. I don't expect them to match China's pricing. Like I said, 2x or so to account for the fact that we're not allowed to foul our own nests would be OK.While our regulatory policies do account for some of the pricing discrepancy, however, that's nowhere near enough to account for what's happening in the market. The note from AP Circuits seems to be accusing the Chinese government of subsidizing their competitive efforts against North American suppliers. ("Privately owned operations are unable to compete against a government's wealth," in their words.) If I had a magic wand to wave, I'd force both Chinese and domestic board houses to compete on a truly level playing field. It seems naive to argue that this is the case at the moment.

author: KE5FX
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2020, 04:33:09 am
content: QuoteDefinitely no argument there. In the best of all possible worlds, economic competition would come down to a productivity contest between your robots and our robots.QuoteSure. But my understanding is that this is much easier said than done.

author: OwO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2020, 05:36:05 am
content: Wasn't AP circuits cheaper than chinese fabs for 8+ layer boards? I personally don't care if 2 layer boards are $2 or $20, but I really would like to see the higher end stuff come down in price a bit. Even better would be analog IC fabrication for less than $1000