Bittele PCB Manufacturing/Assembly  - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: jimcrane23
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: July 13, 2022, 03:07:35 pm
content: Hi,I have to manufacture 500 PCBs and need to find reliable and trusted PCB manufacturer/assembler. I started looking into PCBWay, however did not like the poor english/communication and sending $10K to China....So I kept looking and found a company called Bittele,https://www.7pcb.com/Has anyone had any experience with this company? They claim their clients are Google, Bosch, Stanford, Canada gov, etc.In addition, I used their online quote generator to determine the cost of the 500 boards. However, before spending $10K, I want a finalized engineer quote. But their sales rep I'm talking to says that I have to pay first and then the engineers do a DFM/DFA after. Is this a standard practice? I don't know if I like having to pay $10K before receiving any final quote....I would appreciate any information/feedback

author: mon2
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2022, 03:53:00 pm
content: Hi. Allow me to share some friendly feedback on PCBA services and experience.1) Know this company (Bittele) as they are 'local' and in the Toronto area but have not yet used their services. Our main PCBA shop we have used in Markham had some QC issues + escalated the build costs to be beyond our reach so we have started to use other vendors we have met at past trade fairs in Asia.2) Specifically have used Kingford PCB in Shenzhen with high degree of success and excellent QC. They have built bare PCBs for us for at least 7 years and consider them in our top 5 vendors we have used in the past. In the past few years, used their PCBA services and the cost of the actual box was very low compared to our mainstream local vendors. The quality has been excellent as compared to the fall out of 10-20% with our local 'new owner' company.For immediate satisfaction and small protos - we build in house. Our machinery is working very well for us but time is money so we weigh whether we build in house or outsource to Kingford.Where it makes sense, work with the factory to use valid parts for your build. The current market is not soft and you may have to pay premiums on parts they source on your behalf. Yes, they will mark up the parts they source. Suggest that if possible, you supply the parts but understand that it will be at your risk. Found this out the hard way. They do AOI inspection and many other checks which we believe improves the QC.If they down the SMT line so they can ship you sample batch to test -> you will pay for the SMT line to be brought up again. This is normal procedure since it can take hours to days to setup the machine with the tape & reel of parts. It is a royal pain that we fully understand.We did scout around the same BOM; same PCB for a PCBA build and Kingford was the most fair in the end - everytime (4-6 different builds so far and counting).Language will be a minor barrier and that is somewhat to be expected. Use email as the best method and share pictures of the final 'golden sample' of the PCBA. It will be priceless.Be prepared for some late nights to chat live and/or inspect PCBAs from their assembly lines. You cannot delay the build process by more than 15 mins - be aware.In the end, they have a qualified build process - are ISO certified; Automotive certified; Medical certified. I know that I saw builds from AMD when I saw their products at the last trade fair in HK.Send them your BOM and allow them to quote. Be 100% clear on what parts are from you and what they will source. TBH - they usually do not share the BOM breakdown but rather a complete price for the parts.We can help you here in the forum to source many of the passives and perhaps active from the past 20+ years of travelling to Asia and the trade fairs. Let us know.Hope the experience will be a pleasant one.PS: If you have other questions / concerns - send me a PM or you can even phone in to discuss.Quote

author: jimcrane23
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: July 13, 2022, 05:42:17 pm
content: Thanks for your comment. I will consider this other service.Also, can you tell me anything about the ordering process? Is it standard to have to pay before the company does the engineering DFM/DFA checks? My only concern is that I will send the money and then they will come back asking for more because of some "problems" they found.....Any advice or knowledge?thanks

author: mon2
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2022, 06:18:53 pm
content: For us, our designs have been shipping in volumes and are mature widgets - just needed them to be stamped out.We did build a few new adapters for the medical field and they worked out of the box as designed.May I ask if you product is brand new on the PCBA or has been tested already to be functional ? This vendor is ok with building a small batch but of course the full invoice amount may or may not be acceptable. Again, they were the lowest cost across the major firms we sent our BOM out to for a RFQ.Best to do your homework first and even better if you can supply the parts since you will know the full BOM costs. They will NOT accept outside bare PCBs since they are one of the top PCB mfrs in China and they want to build the bare PCBs in the other side of their factory -> then proceed to PCBA in-house.I would just send them the request and confirm that you have a final price.In full disclosure, we did get stuck with the pre-pay on a xx price and once they ran out to buy the parts (weeks later?) - the same parts were not available. However, we had stock here in Canada so we shipped them out (at our expense) to salvage the build. For this reason, highly recommend that you kit up the parts where possible.If needing connectors / passives - we can share many contacts. Resistors / caps / diodes - let them handle it. They are dirt cheap anyways.Overall, we did save money and have a solid quality build for our products. It is time consuming but also a learning curve as we continue to grow. We are planning some consumer widget builds and it will be practical to outsource again. For smaller builds, perhaps will build internally.Like most businesses - money seems to travel oneway - into the vendors hands. I know that we pre-paid for some parts that they could not source in the end due to covid impacted shortage blues. We shipped the same from our inventory so now have a 'credit' built up for next time for these special Diodes load switches that were nowhere to be found in Asia. Just a FYI.

author: jimcrane23
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: July 13, 2022, 06:28:03 pm
content: Wow! I really appreciate your knowledge and feedback.Thanks for helping!!

author: sam512bb
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 14, 2022, 01:42:46 pm
content: Good day,I have used Bittele in the past (around 2014) and found that they really stepped up when a major issue happened. At that time Bittele partnered with a local PCBA firm in Ontario and so although I was dealing with Bittele, it was this Ontario facility that would be doing the actual PCBA. I sent off the build kit (including the PCBs) and about 2 weeks later I received the assembled boards... wow, they were a complete mess. The m,ain processor (a QFP144) had damaged traces and in some cases missing landings. It looked to me that the processor was misplaced and reflowed and then discovered... and then they attempted to remove and resolder the processor, but totally messed up the board in the process. None of the boards worked. I contacted Bittele about this and sent pictures. I thought that I was going to get stuffed. However, Bittele asked to have me ship an assembled PCB to them in Asia at their expense, which I did. They reviewed the PCB and were equally shocked. They then asked for the PCB gerber files, BOM, etc and remade the PCBs + repurchased all of the assembly components and did the full PCBA at their Asian facility. I was very amazed and impressed at how this all unfolded. Given what happened I suspect that Bittele reconsidered their local Ontario firm association. As I said a very bad situation was made right by Bittele and for this I have a lot of respect and would not hesitate to use them again.Cheers,Sam

author: Jester
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2022, 09:14:23 am
content: Have used them a few times (Toronto facility), quality was good. The boards were not super demanding 4 layer.

author: NorthGuy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2022, 03:25:32 pm
content: If you're about to spend $10k with Bittele, then you will only need to send $2-3k to China.