Experience with Different Assembly Houses? PCBWay, AllPCB, PCBOnline, Bittele... - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: shanekent
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2020, 06:10:15 pm
content: Hi All -I'm designing a really basic adapter board for a PLCC-to-PDIP translation and I've been going around and getting quotes for fabrication and assembly at various PCB and PCBA houses in China and elsewhere. I've quoted the design at PCBWay, AllPCB, and PCBOnline in China and then Bittele based in Canada.I've rolled up all of the hidden costs (shipping, payment fees, import duties, customs handling fees, etc) and I've come to some interesting numbers. Bittele has the advantage at the moment of being based in Canada such that the import duties when importing to the US is 0% for PCBs (under HTS 8542.31.00). The other three options are all based in China and at the moment the import duty to the US is 25% for these units. I've added those import duties to my roll up.I got this design quoted at 1000pcs and 10000pcs for fabrication and assembly only. This means that I am sourcing the entire BOM and sending those units to the assembly houses. This was an easy way to keep the prices fairly controlled and comparable. The last thing to note is that because of my current design needs, I have asked all of the assembly houses to quote a full manual assembly (meaning no wave soldering or oven reflowing). This adds some price across the board, but I can more readily compare assembly labor in this way. I also spoke with customer service representatives for each assembly house and received a quote through their communications as opposed to using their online quoting platforms because I wanted to make sure that my needs and expectations were perfectly clear.So, the numbers... I've listed all of the costs as a percentage of the costs when ordering from PCBWay since they are a pretty standard, go-to option for most hobbyists.Assembly HouseCost at 1000pcsCost at 10000pcsPCBWay100.0%100.0%AllPCB98.0%96.4%PCBOnline72.2%57.4%Bittele115.4%74.2%So clearly PCBOnline blows the other options out of the water at both quantities. Their customer support has been pretty responsive and excited about my job, but I can't find many customer reviews anywhere other than their website. I was pleasantly surprised with the quote from Bittele for their higher quantities, especially considering that they do the assembly work in Canada.I'm a little torn at moment and could use some feedback from folks here about their past experiences.Does anyone have any experience with PCBOnline? Are there any other fab and assembly houses that you'd recommend that I should reach out to for this work?I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts!-S

author: ANTALIFE
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2020, 11:30:05 pm
content: Last time I looked at Bittele, I found that they have an office in Canada but majority of their assembly is done in China

author: shanekent
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2020, 11:42:16 pm
content: I figured the same was likely, but the customer service representative that I spoke to reassured me that the fabrication is done in Shenzhen and the assembly is done at their Canadian location.I suppose we can only really take this at face value, but they still have a benefit over some Chinese houses because of the lack of import duties. Something to consider...-S

author: OwO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2020, 07:15:11 am
content: 10000pcs manual assembly? I somehow think hiring someone temporarily for the job might be cheaper and worth looking into. No logistics or import/export to worry about, and international shipping is a shitshow right now anyway.

author: sam512bb
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 03:03:20 pm
content: Quote from: shanekent on April 26, 2020, 11:42:16 pmGood day all,I had an "interesting", but ultimately a very positive experience with Bittele. About 5 or 6 years ago I could not wait for my usual CM, as they were backlogged by about 7 weeks. I searched around and found Bittele and found that they had a Canadian office which was desirable for me (no potential importation hassles to deal with). I then sent off my bare PCBs and all parts (most on reels) to their Canadian office. Sadly, when the assembled boards returned I found that none of the MCU's would boot or respond to its JTAG debugger interface. Digging deeper I found that there was a ton of leftover residue (flux) that was causing the MCU's clock from starting. Going further the processors looked to have been reworked and the rework was done so poorly that some of the traces leading to the MCU were damaged and/or lifting (too much heat during rework). The best I can figure is that the processor (QFP144) was not properly oriented during automated assembly and so this necessitated the rework. After seeing this I concluded that all of the PCBs (and parts) could not be used and/or would be unreliable in the field. The Bittele representative at first could not believe what had happened. I sent pics and then a PCBs to their main plant in China for their review. At this point I was expecting the worst...I thought that since I was a new and relatively small customer, I expected to be thrown aside and ignored. In fact I could not have been more wrong.. The Bittele rep contacted me a day or so later and asked for my gerbers and parts list, as the main Bittele plant in China decided to remake all of the PCBs, supply brand new parts, and redo the entire assembly. I was shocked and very impressed that they would do this. After about 2 weeks my "new" assemblies arrived and looked and worked perfectly. Later I found out that Bittele was using a local Canadian firm for the smaller assembly runs (my run was for 25) and after what happened to me that they abandoned that idea and punted that company that assembled my boards. If was really unfortunate that my initial assembly run was done so poorly, but the integrity and commitment of Bittele to do right by me really impressed me and so I would not hesitate to use them in the future.Cheers,Sam

author: kylehunter
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2020, 01:58:55 am
content: Quote from: sam512bb on April 28, 2020, 03:03:20 pmThat's wild that flux would cause an issue with a MCU clock line. I've only ever heard of that being an issue with high speed > GHz lines before. Any idea what kind of flux it was, and how much of it was there?

author: sam512bb
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2020, 02:25:29 pm
content: Quote from: kylehunter on April 29, 2020, 01:58:55 amGood day Kylehunter,I have had flux residue cause clock startup issues before on other processors and so it is one of the first things I look for when I get an issue like this. With regards to the clock rate... it really depends on the processor's clock circuitry design and also how you are creating the system clock. Many of the processors can a relatively low frequency crystal clock circuit and then PLL this into higher internal clock rates. It is these type of designs where flux can play a nasty role. Way-back-when if prototypes has this type of problem the board would be respun to use an external canned clock and in doing so the parasitics associated with any residual flux, etc would have minimal effect given the clock rates of the day. This was a band aid of sorts to a less than stellar assembly process, but at times one must what one must do in order to have high assembled yields.As for the flux used... I have no idea of what brand/type, but when I removed the processor (hot air reflow) it and the pcb under it was fully covered. I am pretty sure this was do to reworking the board, as I have done it myself in my early days of hand assembly and reworking. Sometimes one gets a bit too excited with flux and applies way too much in order to address the shortcomings of the so-so rework soldering irons. Making matters worse, having so-so rework tools means it can be easy to apply way too much heat to an area which can cause delamination or damage of the traces... which again I have done myself. However, when I did knacker a board I would never assume it was OK and/or pass it along to a customer. If anything I would mark it for internal testing only... if it worked.Cheers,Sam

author: shanekent
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2020, 05:16:57 am
content: Sam -Thank you for the insightful words about Bittele. I'm starting to heavily consider them for future builds...At the conclusion of the most recent conversations I've had with Bittele, they provided the following information:QuoteIt sounds like they might be a solid option...I'm still curious if anyone has had any experience with PCBOnline.-S

author: jmelson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2020, 10:24:41 pm
content: We have been using E-Teknet (office in Arizona, fab in China) for a VERY long time, just PCB fabrication, no assembly, althought they offer it.I just recently tried out PCBway for just fabrication, they did a FINE job. But, on a couple occasions, we have tried to get PCBway to quote assemblyon a 200, and then a 1000 board run, with them supplying the parts (very few, totally standard stuff, very simple board.) But, we got no responsefrom them.Jon

author: shanekent
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 01, 2020, 12:50:14 am
content: Quote from: jmelson on April 30, 2020, 10:24:41 pmJon - how were the prices from E-Teknet? Can you provide some input on your experiences there?-S

author: jmelson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 02, 2020, 02:38:09 am
content: Quote from: shanekent on May 01, 2020, 12:50:14 amE-Teknet is more expensive than the super-low cost outfits like PCBway. So, 10 pieces of a 100 x 100 mm 2-layer board would run at least $250 to the US.But, we have had close to 1000 different board designs run by them at my "day job" and my home business, and there has only been one foul-up in the entiretime (they got the layer order wrong on a multi-layer board.) They did eventually redo that one.We do lots of 2-layer boards, but also some 4- and 6-layer ones with some small via holes and finer trace/space rules. Many years ago I went through a bunch of different board houses. I always paid for electrical test, and would get 4-layer boards that had inner layer shorts. I considered that the CARDINAL sin, taking your money for electrical test and then just not doing it. So, I end up with boards covered with components before finding they had the power planes shorted out. Much harder to fix with all the parts on there. So, never had this issue with E-teknet.When I get up to larger quatities of small boards E-Teknet is kind of competitive,with the cheap guys.Also, (very small sample size) I've found that PCBway's boards are a bit more fragile to rework than E-Teknet's.Jon

author: shanekent
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 06:35:14 am
content: Thank you for reaching out! I've reach out via email with my design package.For the rest of the folks looking at this post, I will edit my original post with the quote information that PS TECH Shenzhen provides.-S