Why is the the DIY PCBs on openhardware.io so expensive?

[Cliff Karlsson]

I was really looking forward to buying alot of complete nodes from the openhardware.io page and was prepared for a higher price for the complete boards as you do not need to spend alot of time tracking down components and soldering.

But I really got a shock looking at the prices on the https://www.openhardware.io/view/5/Battery-based-atmega328p-sensor-no-SMD#tabs-bom

If I glance through the components and pcb it look like it could cost between 3-5$ for all the components and pcbs (probably closer to 3$). If I look at the price for 5 DIY kits it costs 98$ including slow china shipping (15-30 days) that is almost 20$ / board and if I understand correctly it is still NOT soldered/assembled ? Have I got it wrong ?

[hek]

It's up to the manufacturer to set the price (you can email them directly with your inquiries at sales02@pcbway.com). My guess is they are calculating the cost of acquiring the parts and labour involved per order. They probably don't dare to stock up on large quantities of parts until they see where board sales is going.

When we get more manufacturers on board I hope there will be a bit more competition amongst them, bringing prices down a bit.

[Cliff Karlsson]

@hek said:
Did I understand correctly that the components are not soldered to the pcb?

[hek]

Kit, no.
Assembled, yes.

[Cliff Karlsson]

Ok, so I guess the price will be even higher assembled? Maybe it would be possible to add an option to buy directly from the author of the PCBs (if they are wiling to assemble boards of course)

[hek]

It's already possible, they can add a link and sell off ebay.

Example:
https://www.openhardware.io/view/98/ATMega328p-board-with-NRF24l01-and-Bluetooth-module-socket

[Cliff Karlsson]

Ahh, great. Then there is hope again

[barduino]

Can we filter by the ones that are kit's, assembled, PCB?

[hek]

Not at the moment. There is still only a few boards where the author has activated sales function. When this number grows, I'll add some more filters.

https://www.openhardware.io/explore#view=forSale