Different Designs?

[GU49A]

Many cheap PCB manufacturers (easyeda, pcbway etc.) demand that I specify a number of "different designs" in panel:


But why do they care about it at all? If I put one big unique design on entire 100x100 pcb, is it really cheaper than two smaller ones on the same pcb size? How come?

And the definition of "different designs" also seems really confusing.
If they simply detect isolated "islands" on pcb, then it can be found in almost any design!

For example:



This single schematic could be treated as two different designs, right?

And vice versa, I could "trick" the rule by connecting two different designs with one thin "false" trace:



So what's the point?..

And the price is also very disturbing: one design costs $5 for small pcb, but 2 designs cost $25, five times bigger! 

[ataradov]

But why do they care about it at all? If I put one big unique design on entire 100x100 pcb, is it really cheaper than two smaller ones on the same pcb size? How come?

Because that's how they set up their billing. They are providing a service for a cheap price and what to prevent further attempts to "save".

If they simply detect isolated "islands" on pcb, then it can be found in almost any design!

A human does this. And if they get confused, they will ask you. And they will also see your attempts at tricking them.

And the price is also very disturbing: one design costs $5 for small pcb, but 2 designs cost $25, five times bigger! 

Because $5 is a heavily discounted price. They are likely to barely break even at that price. So for real orders, they want to charge actual costs + profit.

[ANTALIFE]

What ataradov said

Also you will find the same is true for PCB assembly. Like if you have a single panel of x4 different designs you will likely get charged x4 setup costs, even though they are assembling just one panel. The reason for this is that the assembly house still has to treat each board as an individual and will need to panelize the design themselves for their particular machine. To be honest we find it's not worth the trouble unless you are doing super large volumes

[Doctorandus_P]

I find this practice quite attrocious and redicilous.

I think it is a remainder from the old days where a complex process such as PCB manufactuing had to be billed in some simple terms.
And everybody copied the way  this billing is done.
It is also common to have a significant price increase if your PCB goes over some random size value by even half a mm.

I do not know how significeant the costs of the etching chemicals are, but these might be substantial.
The rate at which these get consumed is also lineairly propotional to the volume of copper that has to be etched.
Yet I have never seen a PCB calculator tht works on this basis.

Nowaday's it is trivial to build a program that analyses a Gerber file and then spits out a price based on real parameters, such as the number and sizes of holes drilled, PCB area, number of V-scores, Volume of Routing (Determines wear of the Router bits).

Those online calculators already keep track of number of layers, silk screen ENIG, etc and adding those last few parameters would be trivial indeed.

But all of us silly consumers bow to the terms of the PCB manufacturers.

The main reason is probably that they can lure customers with very low prices and then use these as "industry established and accepted" excuses to pull more money out of your pocket.

[ataradov]

I find this practice quite attrocious and redicilous.

So you prefer they charge $25 right away?

Seriously, I remember when making a custom PCB was a big deal and cost a lot of money, and I'd rather be in a situation we have now.

At some point it is not worth making a board, even if calculator told you how much it will cost exactly. This is how pricing works everywhere. Why is this causing problems with PCBs?

[Doctorandus_P]

So you prefer they charge $25 right away?

What kind of a silly remark is that?

I prefer a transparent market without hidden costs where people are paid a fair price for real products.

I despise artificial vagueness, double agenda's and half crooced practices of which this world is so full nowadays.
I switched to Linux years ago, when Windoze started with pushing those blue tiles of death on startup and never looked back since.
In the duration of my live I have probably donated more money to open source projects that I appreciate than I paid for the bloatware I despise.

In my live I've paid for at least 3 different PCB desing CAD packages. One of those did not always remove traces from the netlist if you removed them in the schematic. That was EUR 125 right down the drain.

I am now 80% through a KiCad order for custom PCB's and will get paid EUR 1000 for delivery of some populated PCB's.
Once I get paid between 20% and 30% of that will be donated to KiCad.
I will not do that for every KiCad project,but KiCad is such a wonderfull Open Source project that I will be happy to support them too for the money I make with it.

If you say "This is how pricins works everywhere" and shrug your shoulders you are just sticking your head in the sand.

There is some famous quote, don't remember from who it was which goes like:
All that is needed for Evil to gain, is for Good to remain ignorant.
I try to push back wherever and whenever I can.

[SMTech]

Except this pricing is very upfront very clear, and nothing like the traditional model, where you might pay a fee like $60/layer in tooling with every new PCB and another $60/layer if you later want to tweak one of those layers.  That tooling was a genuine honest cost, China hides that from you, basically buying your custom off your more local suppliers in the expectation they will get the volume work later directly or indirectly. Those old models also used to take into account copper, drilling routing and scoring which make sod all difference to the Chinese. If we're being honest that isn't fair but it makes life cheaper for you as long as you are prepared to understand that the the Chinese pricing model is rigged to attract custom first and make profit later.

Mixed design panel will affect things like bare board testing, cross out policy (and hence wastage) and depending on how you operate they can make assembly more efficient. In our assembly process we tend not to used mixed panels, crossouts, failures,spares, stock issues, build order etc all conspire to make them less desirable. Panels of the same design is another matter, they categorically save you money during assembly, so they're worth a little extra cost and value are after all not the same.

[rea5245]

So you're getting paid 1000 EUR for your work? How did you negotiate that? Did you tell your client your living expenses? Did you get into a discussion of whether your spouse earns money? Did you argue that, as a contractor, you're not employed all the time so you need to charge him a high hourly rate so you'll have enough money to carry you through the times you're not working? Did your client think it was fair that he has to pay extra because there are times you can't find work? (Or, conversely, if you have enough clients so that you always have work to do, do you charge them less?)

Or did you simply charge as much as you thought you could get for the job?

There are lots of ways to come up with a price for something, and there's no morality about whether one way is good or bad. Each manufacturer knows his business, knows how much money he wants to make, and uses that to set a price for his services. When someone says that price isn't "fair", what he really means is "I don't like it". If you don't like it, don't buy it. But don't try to cast it as a big moral issue. It's just the amount of money the manufacturer wants to do a particular job. Doesn't he have the right to ask any price he wants?

As for transparency: PCB manufacturers tell you upfront about the extra charge for multiple designs. They're being honest about it and they're not cheating anyone. What more do you want?

- Bob

[Ice-Tea]

What most folks don't seem to realize is that if they run a production batch it will be with the largest panel they can make. They will then take all the orders they received and put a giant jiggsaw puzzle in place. The larger the "pieces" are, the more difficult the puzzle gets and the more space will be wasted.

So, putting more than one design in a panel is discouraged.

[ar__systems]

Ridiculous is complaining about $25 PCBs Until not so long ago I had to pay $200 for any prototype PCB order.

[Mechatrommer]

recently i cramped 8 designs in the 100 x 100mm board, too much hassle in questionaires from pcbway, in the end... "if you want $5 service, separate each of your design into separate orders", that means 8 designs = $5 x 8 = $40 + probably 8x shipping, yeah! no more question, the right button is "cancel order". i sent the board to seeedstudio, so far not a single question asked, the board is in processing now, finger crossed. but my point is, i tried quotation again in pcbway but instead of 10 qty ($5) i punched 100 qty for a single design rule and what do you know? instead of $5 x 10 = $50, its $130 20 qty? $46 ($36 jump from supposedly $10) they must be using some fancy calculator or really enjoy doing small batch work. unfortunately seeedstudio is using the same fancy calculator formula, except they didnt ask and specifically say you can do different designs trick in a $5 order... http://support.seeedstudio.com/knowledgebase/articles/388503-what-are-the-pcb-panelization-rules (section C bottom most) exactly what i did when i first sent my pcb to pcbway.

[ataradov]

There will be only one shipping charge if you combine orders.

You really don't understand the concept of introductory price? That low price does not mean they are making any money on your order. They expect you to come back and order more boards at a real price after you had a chance to evaluate their quality.

In general it is hard to complain about companies providing a service at cost. But some people still manage.

[Mechatrommer]

well... i dont mind coming back doing mass production at those elevated price, once i confirmed working prototype. i had a bad experience doing single design earlier (first run prototype) 3 same design on a board. the design is faulty, so... i have a useless 30 qty pcb (10 qty x 3) i think i will give away as gift to my students surely they will have no clue what they are. but as far as this topic is concerned... seeedstudio is much better than pcbway and others mentioned in OP, its user friendlier to first time prototyping hobby/cheap job.

There will be only one shipping charge if you combine orders.

very good then, i will just make 10 separate orders later if i want 100 qty then. i think i can save $50 total by doing so, we'll manage to find workaround if someone open up the opportunity (at their own cost)

[ataradov]

very good then, i will just make 10 separate orders later if i want 100 qty then. i think i can save $50 total by doing so, we'll manage to find workaround if someone open up the opportunity (at their own cost)

Don't get mad when they refuse that order. You are not dealing with robots, actual humans are handling orders and I bet you are not the only one who thinks they are smarter than others.

In may case SeedStudio was very slow. With PCBWay I get boards well within a week. SeedStudio took 2 weeks just to manufacture them. And given that price difference is less than lunch, I don't see a problem here.

[digsys]

I can't believe some of the stupid selfish comments here. As others have pointed out, we used to pay $1,000s dollars once for small runs, not just $100s.
I know the costs / losses all to well, I helped start one of the first PCB manufacturing places in OZ. Yeah, we had people trying to "cheat" the system back then too, BUT at least
the customers were trying to save $1,000s not a few shitty $s. We'd talk to the customers and work out a deal. Sometimes we'd let it through, sometimes not (if a loss was involved).
I use PCBWay and others, sometimes I panelize, sometimes not. The HUMANS decide how to charge for the job, depending on how well it fits into THEIR panel.
On a big run (and IF on a rare occasion, just 1 crappy $ was important), I'd ask if there was a dimension change that would help with price, and they are always fair in response.
If you don't like their quoted price, no-one is forcing you to accept it. All this sort of "bitching" does is, possibly make these places cut costs or other measures, which often hurt
other people, than you, in the long run, for NO reason. Coming from the dark ages, I very much appreciate what we have now and the CHOICES we have !! ymmv

[djacobow]

Just piling on:

I use PCBWay all the time and I'm mostly very happy with their pricing. For prototype runs where I'm going to populate the boards, I usually end up paying $50-70 to have 5 or 10 boards at my doorstep in just a few days. Sometimes I am cheap and in no rush, and then it's about 1/2 that and it might take ~3 weeks.

For larger PCB-only runs, the price has also been great, sometimes paying < $1/ea for some boards on the larger end of 10 cm x 10cm -ish.

I've found the pricing for PCBA to be less thrilling (typically on the order of my BOM, maybe a bit more -- I'm using very cheap generic parts), but I think assembly at anything less than 1000's/mo is going to be pricey -- and I'm doing 100's once or twice a year.

I don't know the first thing about PCBWays underlying costs. I don't know what is cheap vs expensive or easy vs hard. If I did, I suspect I could arrange my designs to be more profitable for both them and me. That said, they've been responsive to my queries and, in particular, my desire to get quotes at various volumes, panelization, and assembly options. For example, one of my designs is all single-side stuffed SMT with a single TH part on the reverse side. I was assuming they'd ding me hard for that part, so I left it off the BOM to do back here. But actually, the cost wasn't too bad -- especially if I figured in what a huge pain in the ass it is to solder that part onto each board at clean it again after.

[Mechatrommer]

very good then, i will just make 10 separate orders later if i want 100 qty then. i think i can save $50 total by doing so, we'll manage to find workaround if someone open up the opportunity (at their own cost)

Don't get mad when they refuse that order. You are not dealing with robots, actual humans are handling orders and I bet you are not the only one who thinks they are smarter than others.

this is a matter of competition imho and very well understood. the economy of pcb fabrication has moved to china, and many houses emerged there. i believed some company started this buzz come come cheap cheap $5 campaign, and then the others follow. otherwise they risk themselves extermination. so there come another guy come come cheap cheap $4.90 different design can do. survival of the fittest i guess going on there, if you dont follow the trend you die like the rest. nobody's get mad its very well understandable. we just like to inform the better option from buyers point of view. from sellers perspective? yes it will be hurting. be it no better alternative, then i will be forced to make individual design for each order. dont blame us, blame who started the campaign. if no campaign, diy homebrew machine will grow faster, so its kinda check mate for them anyway at this age. sad but true. well, since i havent got my board, i may change perception once i got them from seeed (quality wise), it just kind of saddening looking at those bunches of pcb left over for a single prototype test, thinking i could save much more and wasted much less. ymmv.

[digsys]

... i had a bad experience doing single design earlier (first run prototype) 3 same design on a board. the design is faulty, so...
i have a useless 30 qty pcb (10 qty x 3)  .....

One great reason I do my own panels is - often I have 6-8 designs ready to go. I make sure just ONE design / job can cover the cost of the whole run.
Then if I get 50% right, first time .. BONUS ... and IF I get 100% right ... JACKPOT !!! :-)
When I have a few dozen shitty little inter-connect pcbs, I panelize them as well - ie 8-10+ in a block. I make sure that I can route / cut them all up easily.
So, irrespective of how "they" charge me, there is no way I can lose. Plus any "prototypes" are included, literally free !!
And yes, sometimes you end up with 10-few 100 extras, which I give away.

[Mechatrommer]

I make sure just ONE design / job can cover the cost of the whole run.
Then if I get 50% right, first time .. BONUS ... and IF I get 100% right ... JACKPOT !!! :-)

not sure what you mean and how you do it, but it sounded like what i did, put many designs in a panel (the 10 x 10cm board?) and later to cut myself. so if i have 4 faulty designs out of 8, i will have 50% failure rate on the production batch. if i have to do 1 design per order (as pcbway required) and that design is faulty, thats a 100% failure out of $5 (+shipping cost not to be forgotten), or $20 loss out of ($5 x 8 )(+ 50% of shipping cost) for 8 orders. anyway, this is for prototyping purpose, after prototype is confirmed working and ready for mass production, the elevated (real) cost will not matter much as we know we will have a 100% rate working no failure pcbs.

if someone mourn about $5 is expensive, i agree that should be unreasonable, its still cheap even if its for only 2-3 prototype boards for testing/hobby purpose. but there are other things involved when dealing with this, such as time taken for shipping forcing us to do multiple design in one go to save time. and extra cost that should not be there, i cant justify why we have to spend $40 on separate orders and have super excessive count of prototype boards that possibly go to waste instead of multiple design in one order when the manufacturing process is no difference between one or multiple design, heck imo it will take longer for human operator to decide whether they have been tricked or what. and i dont take excuse such as this is a loss or no profit business, they should have made risk assessment on this, imagine if 1,000,000 customers around the globe using their $5 service in a year. if this is a loss business, they wont make it even 10% of the whole job. i believe this is "very low margin but mass volume" profit strategy. WellPCB can do $1 for 3 boards, JLCPCB can survive $2 for the same service pcbway et al give for $5, i should consider them earlier but i was in a hurry and seeedstudio is the name i heard before and have my account and address setup. for a simple and single design, i still can produce pcb myself if turnaround time is a major factor, so they should be blessed that i use their service

otoh i think pcbway already have comfortable returning customer list or continuous stream of job thats why they can demand what they like risking new little insignificant customers like me to go away. they are not perfect anyway, someone complained about shorted usb trace here a while ago. ymmv.

[Doctorandus_P]

I have also wondered myself about this and like the others I'am mostly guessing here.

It may be that they mostly earn money by selling big boards, and use the unused edges of big PCB panels (standard sizes, for example 800*800mm) to "fill up" with small designs.  Once the've got the software setup properly to automatically calculate optimall fill factors for the left over pieces they can achieve a higher fill factor from a lot of small designs, then from fewer large designs.

Some time ago I played a bit with the ordering web page from Seeed.
With 10 boards  ( < 50*50mm) I had to pay for shipping, and I did not like that.
20 boards was twice as expensive as 10 boards, but shipping was free, so costs per board was a lot less.
30 boards was exactly the same price as 20 boards.
In the end I think I paid USD28 for 30 boards with free shipping.

[Mechatrommer]

my board arrived this afternoon and cutted this night... 9 separated pcbs/designs (including some soic to dip converter just to fill up empty spaces) traces seem good so far, my only issue is they printed their own code and hit on one of my board, luckily dont overlap with my silkscreen. but ehhh well what to complaint if $5? ($25+ actually incl dhl) i have another board with multiple designs ready to go, maybe this time i'll see what wellpcb or jlcpcb can offer. the problem is, can i test all the arrived boards in time before the second board manufactured? well, getting older getting slower. $5 (pcbway) is a bless compared to $200 (decades ago), but different designs? for $5 (prototype purpose) is blesser (seeed) fwiw...

[thm_w]

I used to do the multi design on one panel for a few years before the supplier started adding additional charges. I get it, its a lot more work when they have to add routes and mouse bites to my design. But the prices they tried to charge were ridiculous ($200+).

At least with JLC now, their pricing is very reasonable IMO.

$15 for an additional design for 10x10 4 layer:
- one design $28
- two design $42 (+14)
- three design $57 (+15)

I could certainly see a competitor coming in (if one doesn't exist already), and saying pay X for 10x10, unlimited designs. Then you have to give them the panelized design (with proper cutouts, etc., this would be the hard part as most hobbyists could easily screw this up). The only major hobbyist supplier that I know of that would allow this is OSHpark, but its not free as they charge per sq inch.

my board arrived this afternoon and cutted this night... 9 separated pcbs/designs (including some soic to dip converter just to fill up empty spaces) traces seem good so far, my only issue is they printed their own code and hit on one of my board, luckily dont overlap with my silkscreen. but ehhh well what to complaint if $5? ($25+ actually incl dhl) i have another board with multiple designs ready to go, maybe this time i'll see what wellpcb or jlcpcb can offer. the problem is, can i test all the arrived boards in time before the second board manufactured? well, getting older getting slower. $5 (pcbway) is a bless compared to $200 (decades ago), but different designs? for $5 (prototype purpose) is blesser (seeed) fwiw...

Looks great, nice use of space. Try to wear a mask though if you can.

[Ribster]

This is from JLCPCB FAQ:

What cases will be charged of extra cost?
1. If there are more than 1 design in your file，then there will be  extra cost for it, and it is 8 dollar/design.

[Mechatrommer]

This is from JLCPCB FAQ:

What cases will be charged of extra cost?
1. If there are more than 1 design in your file，then there will be  extra cost for it, and it is 8 dollar/design.

thanks for providing me info that otherwise i have to spend minutes or hours to figure out. o well, maybe i'll stick with seeed, $1, $2, $5 what difference will it make? for extra $3-4 dollar its very well worth it already for no question asked hassle and its legit in their manual.