Best deals on blank PCB in the US?

Where would you buy blank single sided PCB if you lived in america or do live in america? I have a bunch of prototypes I need to make. I also need that blue laser printer transfer paper.. I wish i saved the package.

buildafriend said:

Where would you buy blank single sided PCB if you lived in america or do live in america? I have a bunch of prototypes I need to make. I also need that blue laser printer transfer paper.. I wish i saved the package.

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Lately I've been buying prototype PCBs from China (goldphoenix), they turn the parts fast enough and I've only had minor problems.  For single sided they may just etch off the other side...

Coincidentally I just went through the exercise of sourcing a small production qty board and the quotes I got from domestic makers were mostly off the wall... There was a 7:1 price difference between the most expensive and eventual order winner. The winner turned out to be from Canada, but cheaper than all the US PCB houses by a bunch, that are still pestering me about why they didn't get the order days later.

It seems like all the US PCB makers are all about low volume quick turns, as if they have given up the production business to overseas. Too bad...

JR

 

Yeah, pcb cart quoted me 260 for one job, then advanced circuits quoted around 600 for the same thing, longer turn around.

I know we make a LOT more in America, but it really makes me worry about child labor and/or slave labor in China...

I never saw any child labor or slaves in (the few) Chinese factories I visited.

I have read reports about retarded people being kidnapped and forced to work in brick factories that are apparently pretty unpleasant jobs. Of course the ones we read about in western newspapers are the ones who got found out.

China is not as bad as the rumors, but it's not here, yet... they need a lot more lawyers.

if the labor was so cheap, Hon Hai (the company that makes I-poop over there) wouldn't plan to buy 1 million robots to assemble stuff. 

JR 

I'm just thinking out loud again... Maybe they're also so cheap because they've had their equipment paid off long ago? Surely their overhead isn't as great as ours in the US. (no EPA, no OSHA...) You'd think they couldn't be scraping the bottom of the barrel for such intricate, detail oriented work.

China has a kind of a wild wild west, pre-regulation nature to it...  They need to get more like us, and we could stand to be a little less like us...  There is a place for regulation, but too much is too much when it slows economic growth and gets used by government as a weapon against industries it doesn't like (oil,gas,coal, banks, Gibson guitars, etc). 

My only bad experience with prototype PCB (from china) was an adhesion issue with foil separating a little too easily when reworked on my first order. I doubt the PCB maker intentionally used substandard board stock, but probably got a questionable batch from his vendor. That one bad incident did not stop me from dealing with them and I had no problems with subsequent prototype orders.

China is not as cheap as it was even a few years ago, and there is likely to be more wage inflation and currency valuation shifts to continue that trend. We still have a long way to go to compete for low-unskilled jobs, while we don't appear to be making enough engineers to compete for skilled jobs. 

JR

JohnRoberts said:

China is not as bad as the rumors, but it's not here, yet... they need a lot more lawyers.

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That's funny.  I read an interview with the CEO of Foxconn a while back and when asked why he doesn't manufacture in the US since that's where most of what he makes goes anyway, his response was "too many lawyers".

I went through the same lately trying to get a shortish run done locally and found the pricing absurd.  Wound up using Gold Phoenix and am very happy with the results.  I think though that I can kind of dig this.  If you can't compete with a place where manufacturing costs are far less (including salaries, cost of living, everything really..) then you build a business by adding value.  The locals wanted to help me with design, bulk assembly, etc.  Their value was making a finished product, not pumping out boards.  Good way to stay in business in tough times - focus on what you can do better than the other guys.

  Brian

horvitz said:

JohnRoberts said:

China is not as bad as the rumors, but it's not here, yet... they need a lot more lawyers.

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That's funny.  I read an interview with the CEO of Foxconn a while back and when asked why he doesn't manufacture in the US since that's where most of what he makes goes anyway, his response was "too many lawyers".

I went through the same lately trying to get a shortish run done locally and found the pricing absurd.  Wound up using Gold Phoenix and am very happy with the results.  I think though that I can kind of dig this.  If you can't compete with a place where manufacturing costs are far less (including salaries, cost of living, everything really..) then you build a business by adding value.  The locals wanted to help me with design, bulk assembly, etc.  Their value was making a finished product, not pumping out boards.  Good way to stay in business in tough times - focus on what you can do better than the other guys.

  Brian

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Foxconn (AKA Hon Hai) has a sore spot for all the bad publicity they received in the western press over some very spectacular suicides in their worker dormitories when a few workers jumping from tops of buildings or high terraces.  The western assumption is that the suicides were somehow related to working conditions. This resulted in market place pressure against Apple and other customers of Hon Hai.

Hon hai has announced raises for workers, expansion to build new factories in less developed areas of China (to get cheaper workers), and to buy 1 million robots.  I don't doubt that they dislike our lawyers per capita ratio, among other things. Hon Hai is a very large business. 

We (the west) do not understand the chinese culture and mindset. There was recently an incident that neatly encapsulates one major cultural difference between the "old way" and modern more western ways.  A young child was run over by a delivery truck, and left in the road by several passers by, to be hit again and to surely die. Until the child was finally dragged out of the road by a poor rag collector. This apparent indifference had two significant basis. First the old classical chinese, if I don't know you or owe you, you are on your own. This is the reason for ceremonial gift giving, so there will be some nominal debt, on account between individuals or families to influence future interactions. The second even worse issue and this is more lawyer like, is coming to the aid of this run over child in a "nobody does anything for strangers" society, suggest some quid pro quo, like maybe you were the one who ran the child over, and people have been put in prison for coming to the aid of such accidental injuries under the premise that helping a stranger is tacit admission of guilt.  They are now considering some form of a good Samaritan rule, so helping a stranger does not involve personal culpability. But they have a long way to go and this is just one way our cultures are different.

JR

This thread has become something more, way off topic but a good conversation, none the less.

It's very interesting to me how different cultures and societies view human value and relations. Not that one way is right and one way is wrong, although I prefer a society that looks after one-another to some degree.

...anyway.

JohnRoberts said:

We (the west) do not understand the chinese culture and mindset.

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A co-worker previously worked for a company that built factory-automation equipment. Some of that company's kit was sold to a Chinese manufacturing business, so he and a couple of others were sent to China to oversee the installation.

One large machine had a safety bar, which was intended to keep the worker's arm away from the moving parts that could potentially cause harm. However, by restricting the range of worker motion, operation throughput was somewhat reduced.

The factory boss saw the bar and asked what it was. "It's there to prevent the machine from ripping off the worker's arm."

The response? "We have plenty of arms. Remove the bar."

I mentioned this anecdote to a Chinese friend who said that what happened in that story is not uncommon.

-a

It wasn't that long ago that machinery here was hungry for human flesh too, and it wasn't always the evil bosses to blame. Back in the '60s I had a co-op job in a a heavy metal sintering plant, (green powdered metal was pressed into a shape with a paraffin binder, then melted down to final form in ovens). They also had a small parts cut-down operation in the back, with lots of chop saws, cut off wheels, and shears in the small parts area. There were big presses up in the sintering area that could eat hands and larger body parts if not careful. 

By the '60s most of the punches and presses had dual safety buttons, where both hands had to be accounted for, before the machinery would operate, but when workers were paid piece-work, or more money the more parts they cranked out, they were always looking for ways to cheat the safety buttons so they could work faster... I've seen workers hold one button down with their elbow freeing up the hand to feed in parts faster.  :

I also saw a bunch of older workers in the machine area, missing random digits from decades working in similar jobs around the industry.

We are just further down the road than China regarding worker safety.

JR

That reminds me, my dad nearly lost a finger to a chop saw cutting parts from the trees in a steel casting factory. ah, brings back great memories of going to the physical rehab clinic with him... His finger is still crooked, and doesn't bend all the way.

JohnRoberts said:

I never saw any child labor or slaves in (the few) Chinese factories I visited.

I have read reports about retarded people being kidnapped and forced to work in brick factories that are apparently pretty unpleasant jobs. Of course the ones we read about in western newspapers are the ones who got found out.

China is not as bad as the rumors, but it's not here, yet... they need a lot more lawyers.

if the labor was so cheap, Hon Hai (the company that makes I-poop over there) wouldn't plan to buy 1 million robots to assemble stuff. 

JR

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If you don't mind me asking, why were you in china in factories?

At the time Peavey (my day job) was just starting to build product in China, so I went over there to tour a few factories, ranging from simple PCB assembly, to metal fab, and injection molding plants, including tool making operations for the injection molding machines. One of the first products made for Peavey in China was a small mixer my engineering group developed.

I also spent some time in Hong Kong in a different major OEMs design labs In connection with other Peavey projects. This was several years ago so China has surely changed a lot since then, I'm sure...HK has changed too, perhaps not as much as mainland China.

JR

Interesting...  I just received an order of 250 pcs, for a small PCB that I ordered and thought was coming from Canada. I was slightly surprised that Canada would quote out cheaper than the US, but nothing much surprises me these days..

But I admit I was a little surprised when the package arrived today FROM CHINA.... No wonder the canadian website was cheaper.... good one.  ;D

next time I might get the boards cheaper by going to their source in China... but the canadian website may just be a front for the Chinese company.  At $0.47  ea not a big problem to worry about.

JR

Oh, Canada ...

JohnRoberts said:

Interesting...  I just received an order of 250 pcs, for a small PCB that I ordered and thought was coming from Canada. I was slightly surprised that Canada would quote out cheaper than the US, but nothing much surprises me these days..

But I admit I was a little surprised when the package arrived today FROM CHINA.... No wonder the canadian website was cheaper.... good one.  ;D

next time I might get the boards cheaper by going to their source in China... but the canadian website may just be a front for the Chinese company.  At $0.47  ea not a big problem to worry about.

JR

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Bada Bing!

Yup, had the same experience in hte past...might even be the same company? Speedypcb?