Hi all,
Just a quick question to see if anyone has used the assembly service offered by PCBcart.com? I have used them for several PCB's now and potentially looking for some external assembly. They don't seem to advertise the assembly on their website but I have been told they do it. Anyone got any experience with the process/costs etc?
Thanks,
Dave
Hi David,
I used PCB Cart to make 50 PCBs up for me (600 or so through holes). The price for 100 was just a bit less but I wanted to test them with a small order first. All I gave them was a bunch of hi-res picture of a completed board, the BOM and the board Gerbers. We went back and forth about 6 or 7 times hammering out compatible parts (they sourced all parts in China). They had no issues taking pictures of the parts before assembly so I could make sure it was what I wanted.
Now there were a few issues. The 2.1mm DC barrel connectors came as 2.5mm even though the ones I approved were correct. Turns out there was a last minute substitution by their supplier. I complained and they gave me a credit of 10% off the assembly fees.
I have only tested about 20 of the boards and 3 of them failed my bench testing, I have looked into one of them and the issue is a backwards resistor network. Funny thing is I emailed them about it and they said they will not make that mistake next time since they did not know resistor networks were orientation specific (that is the first dumb answer I have every got form them in 5 years of doing business with them).
There were only two other minor issues. The 0.1uF caps they used had wider lead spacing so they could not be fit tight against the board and the flux was not cleaned off the top of the board very well on some boards.
Packaging was very good, the box is solid and the inner foam was cut specifically to hold the bundles of boards.
I think the through hole boards were hand stuffed since some of the resistors were a bit crooked compared to a machine populated board.
Overall I am happy with the results since I know that next time the boards will be flawless.
Price wise the assembly was just a bit more than the components would have cost me.
I can take some pictures of the packaging and board quality if you want.