rewards for sharing

[NeverDie]

I don't think most people are wanting to buy 10 boards at a crack, at least not for most of these projects.

Maybe better is a model like pcbs.io has: https://pcbs.io/rewards

I haven't tried them yet, but their prices are lower than OSH PARK, and promised delivery times are comparable, so I see no reason for people not to buy from pcbs.io. Unlike the status quo, their reward schema means I might actually recover some of my development cost.

@hek Maybe you can work a deal with them so this can be win-win-win for all of us.

[emc2]

I used them (and http://pcb.ng but unfortunately they don't have a way to easily share boards) and I was quite happy with the resulting PCB.

[NeverDie]

It looks as though Hallard has switched to using them, because he has a lot of recent boards there. That's another vote of confidence.

I'll definitely try them on my next order.

The $15 for 10 boards through mysensors.org's existing vendor is probably a good deal if you have a large board, but I deliberately try to keep mine small, to reduce costs of iterative development. So, at least for me, it's just not a good match. The evidence so far is that people just download the files and then send them to OSH PARK to save money, which benefits no one except OSH PARK. i.e. it's not the virtuous circle that it could be.

[NeverDie]

@emc2 said:

I used them (and http://pcb.ng but unfortunately they don't have a way to easily share boards) and I was quite happy with the resulting PCB.

That pcb.ng sounds very interesting if they'll actually send you a fully assembled PCB in just 12 days, which is what they appear to be offering. With many parts being so incredibly tiny (e.g. BQ25504 and others) these days, I really hate the soldering part. Did you get a fully assembled board from them, and if so, how did it go? If it truly is affordable, I'm definitely interested.

[hek]

Any manufacturer can join in on openhardware.io. But it requires some integration work on their side. Maybe you can nag on them to join (I haven't actively been pushing companies so far).

[emc2]

@NeverDie said:

That pcb.ng sounds very interesting if they'll actually send you a fully assembled PCB in just 12 days, which is what they appear to be offering. With many parts being so incredibly tiny (e.g. BQ25504 and others) these days, I really hate the soldering part. Did you get a fully assembled board from them, and if so, how did it go? If it truly is affordable, I'm definitely interested.

No I got a PCB only, it was for https://www.openhardware.io/view/296/MySFreezer (you can see the PCB color, it's a nice burgundy / cardinal red which actually was the perfect fit for my workplace freezers), not a lot of component on it and depending the use actually not a lot are needed in the same time, and definitively not designed to be automatically assembled for the battery configuration.

One interesting thing on pcb.ng is the fact if you submit a solder paste layer they will actually add the paste, so you can reflow it yourself with a pan in your kitchen (dirty but works).

Assembled price is $8 / $12 per sq. in. (single / double sided assembly) + components I guess. With tiny components and a dense layout it could totally be worth it.

@hek Jonathan (https://blog.pcb.ng/author/jonathan-hirschman/) is quite nice and responsive, you can always shoot him an email to see if he is interested.

[NeverDie]

@emc2 said:

One interesting thing on pcb.ng is the fact if you submit a solder paste layer they will actually add the paste, so you can reflow it yourself with a pan in your kitchen (dirty but works).

Cool! I'm sold on giving that a try. I wonder how they pack it so that the solder paste doesn't get all smeared around during shipment?

[NeverDie]

@emc2 said:

Assembled price is $8 / $12 per sq. in. (single / double sided assembly) + components I guess. With tiny components and a dense layout it could totally be worth it.

It sounds as though if you design the board to be super small, using super tiny components, then suddenly the manufacturing cost becomes quite affordable.

[NeverDie]

I just now placed my first order with pcb.io. For four boards, it cost me $0.97. The exact same board, ordered from OSH PARK, would net me just three PCB's at a cost of $1.20.

[NeverDie]

Anyone know whether osh park also offers rewards for sharing, or is pcbs.io the only one?

[NeverDie]

@emc2 Partly as an experiment, I ordered your Wemos adapter board from PCBs.io. Did you receive the promised 10% credit?

[emc2]

I did.

Thanks!

[NeverDie]

Unfortunately, the order I submitted 10 days ago to pcbs.io is still "awaiting panelizationi." I'm beginning to wonder now whether their stated turnaround time is someone's fantasy rather than reality....

[emc2]

My order was placed on November 3rd and it was shipped on the 16th (9 business days, 13 "real" days).

Don't forget they give you an average and it's probably in business days, as you ordered just before christmas it's been probably only ~2-3 business days so far.

[NeverDie]

Well, to be fair, even OSH PARK is taking longer than usual to panelize submissions, so maybe there's just a general drought of submissions during this time of year.

[emc2]

@NeverDie Did you end up getting your PCBs?

[NeverDie]

@emc2
Not as yet. Up through yesterday they were still awaiting panelization. Today, however, the status indicates that they have been sent to fabrication.

[NeverDie]

@emc2 said:

One interesting thing on pcb.ng is the fact if you submit a solder paste layer they will actually add the paste, so you can reflow it yourself with a pan in your kitchen (dirty but works).

Have you tried that service yourself? How much does it cost? I don't see it listed on their website as a separate line item.

[emc2]

Never tried on my own yet.

No additional cost.
You need to provide a gerber file for the paste of course and it needs to follow these specifications https://support.pcb.ng/support/solutions/articles/9000057010-pcb-constraints#paste

[NeverDie]

Wouldn't the solder paste dry out during shipping? I'm not sure that applying components to dried out solder paste would work.

[emc2]

No idea. I would assume it can be packed in a way to prevent this (vacuum sealed maybe?)
You can always email them to have more infos.

[scalz]

I'm curious to see what this solder paste application looks.

I know that not every seller ship solder paste for many factors, like conservation.
Digikey for instance ships to France, but not Mouser.
When i order from digikey, i always receive it very well packaged in a special cold bag (as it's better to store solder paste in cold place like a fridge..).
If it would dry, i think that would mean that flux has evaporated which is not cool!
When not in cold place, then solder paste becomes creamy, i don't know how they package this. or maybe they send the boards in cold bag..

[NeverDie]

I suspect there are some solder pastes which don't evaporate all that easily at lower temperatures. For instance, SRD flux seems to evaporate pretty quicklly, but ChipQuik flux doesn't seem to as much. As far as I know, solder paste is just solder balls mixed with flux.

[FotoFieber]

@NeverDie
I really like the "RFM69HW interstitial board for Pro Mini Temp-Humidity sensor" and ordered from OSH park last year. They arrived soon.

Now I had to use pcb.io, as there don't seem to be all the files on openhardware.io

I ordered on 28. of december and they are still in fabrication.... quite frustrating if I compare the service to OSH park. And the other manufacturers are to expensive (delivery to switzerland).

Please add all the necessary files to openhardware.io, I don't think that it is open now, as the gerber files are missing and I can't choose to order, where I wan't.

[NeverDie]

@FotoFieber said:

@NeverDie
I really like the "RFM69HW interstitial board for Pro Mini Temp-Humidity sensor" and ordered from OSH park last year. They arrived soon.

Now I had to use pcb.io, as there don't seem to be all the files on openhardware.io

I ordered on 28. of december and they are still in fabrication.... quite frustrating if I compare the service to OSH park. And the other manufacturers are to expensive (delivery to switzerland).

Please add all the necessary files to openhardware.io, I don't think that it is open now, as the gerber files are missing and I can't choose to order, where I wan't.

Done.

[FotoFieber]

@NeverDie
Thx very much! Just ordered some other boards.

[PCBNG]

Hi Folks,

Jonathan from PCB:NG here. Thought I'd drop by, offer to answer any questions that you might have.

Just to be clear: we currently offer, while we're still in beta, both blank PCB and assembly service. Blank PCBs most certainly do not have any solder paste on them - just a nice ENIG finish. In fact, they're the highest quality PCBs that you're likely to come across, especially for the price (which is beta only). Better yet, unlike anyone else, all of our PCBs are fully tested - DFM testing on the way in, full E-test on the way out.

All of our offerings are typically shipped within 12 calendar days. This is not an absolute, but we do ship on time, or early, more than 90% of the time.

Note that we may not offer blank PCBs after beta, and the end of beta is only a few weeks away. Which makes sense, since our goal is to drive the cost of PCBA down to something affordable. And in fact, we recently announced a "sub-beta" for what we call "economode" - more details here: https://blog.pcb.ng/we-jam-econo/

Cheers, and thanks for your interest.

Jonathan

[emc2]

Thanks Jonathan,
I guess I was mislead and thought we were also able to get solder paste even for blank PCBs. My bad!

Any interest to see with @hek if it would be possible for you to join openhardware.io as a manufacturer?

[PCBNG]

Hi EMC2,

No worries - just wanted to respond, since as many have pointed out, shipping boards with solder paste in place would be an interesting logistical and packaging challenge

Cheers,

Jonathan

[NeverDie]

Closing the loop: today I received the boards from pcbs.io. They look like nice boards.