JLC PCB Prototype Assembly - Incredibly Cheap

[Styno]

I looked at one part: XC7A75T-2FGG484I. Around $130 at Digi and Mouser, $26 at LCSC. A mistake I expect, or is this another wrinkle in the Chinese market?

Digi and Mouser are extremely easy, but extremely expensive.

True, but their shipment quality is way better for it.

Usually I buy full reels from LCSC which is fine, but yesterday I received a few partial reels with LED's (because they didn't have full reels at hand) and those MSL 3 (168 hours) devices came on a reel inside a plastic bubble bag. When you get such devices from Mouser, Digi or Element14 they are packaged airtight anti-static with desiccant bag, moisture indicator card and a note referring to the MSL level.

However, a reel of international brand resistors from LCSC is $2.5 while the same from e.g. Mouser costs €15, that is a big difference. Excluding shipping for LCSC which is included for Mouser so LCSC only works out cheaper when buying multiple reels.

[thm_w]

Digi and Mouser are extremely easy, but extremely expensive.

Yes but thats not telling the full story here: https://octopart.com/search?q=XC7A75T-2FGG484I
They likely ended up buying the parts cheap, maybe from production overrun or similar, so try to dump them for a relatively low price.

[mrpackethead]

SZLCSC is extremely huge.   I dont' know how much of china's electronics they supply but its massive. They have buying power that rivals everthing.,

[nigelwright7557]

I have used JLCPCB quite a few times now and had mostly good service.
A couple of times they have thrown pcb's back at me as there was a problem.
The pcb's checked out fine in my cad system so  I just resent the same files and the next time they accepted them !
Must have been a different guy on the second time.

Its a shame they dont do assembly too as the yare very cheap for pcb's.
Getting low quantity SMD pcb's made isn't cheap with PCBWAY.
So what  I have been doing is making my pcb through hole and the vital SMD have been put on a separate small SMD pcb that I could deal with myself.
Fine scale smd is a pain but the faster and more modern ic's are pretty much all smd now.
I have done a few PIC TQFP 64 pin 0.5mm pitch pcb's now and they 3 out of 4 worked fine.

[Fire Doger]

I have used JLCPCB quite a few times now and had mostly good service.
A couple of times they have thrown pcb's back at me as there was a problem.
The pcb's checked out fine in my cad system so  I just resent the same files and the next time they accepted them !
Must have been a different guy on the second time.

Its a shame they dont do assembly too as the yare very cheap for pcb's.

If they didn't accept GERBER then probably they had a fault or wrong settings during export, second time probably just corrected it by themself.

They do assembly, that's the whole point of post. They did it for China and now they will offer it worldwide.

Although to keep the cost low they accept only parts from their libraries to loading the reels on machines and setup the software which is the most time consuming part of the process.

[tszaboo]

So let me get this straight. They have dozens of pick n place in series, loaded with standard parts, and each board goes through all of them?

[langwadt]

So let me get this straight. They have dozens of pick n place in series, loaded with standard parts, and each board goes through all of them?

I'd expect that to be the only cost effective way to do it

[mrpackethead]

So let me get this straight. They have dozens of pick n place in series, loaded with standard parts, and each board goes through all of them?

This is exactly how i run my PNP in our fab.   We now have 3 machines, end end on end with about 240 parts loaded..  THat lets me build nealry 40 differnet products without any significant changes. ( I have to load some trays of IC"s sometimes ). 

The job is split between the machines.

JLCPCB, prboably has 20 in a a line.

[Ribster]

So let me get this straight. They have dozens of pick n place in series, loaded with standard parts, and each board goes through all of them?

This is exactly how i run my PNP in our fab.   We now have 3 machines, end end on end with about 240 parts loaded..  THat lets me build nealry 40 differnet products without any significant changes. ( I have to load some trays of IC"s sometimes ). 

The job is split between the machines.

JLCPCB, prboably has 20 in a a line.

Which pnp machines do you have mrpackethead ?

[mrpackethead]

Which pnp machines do you have mrpackethead ?

2 x Yamaha YV100-ii and 1 x Yamaha YV100-xg

[ev4n]

The export method using easyeda.com to Altium has some issues:
- Symbols for a component that are split up i.e. U1_A, U1_B don't get imported into Altium properly
- 3D models are not imported

But good news is LCSC.com's CAD library helper "ECAD Models" is really nice albeit a little hacky. It's a Altium "plug-in" that allows you search then directly drop parts onto the schematic page complete with footprint and 3D model. It's missing the LCSC parameters required for SMT like the LCSC part number but i these can be easily added. It's cross platform and as more people use these models they will become more reliable.

Count down the days of having to place a hundred jellybean parts.

I assume they will also apply paste to the pads of components they can't SMT. This is actually going to a huge time/$$$ saver as this will make placing QFNs a breeze with preheating plate, hotair and a lot of flux.

[ev4n]

ETA is now September 

[wilhe_jo]

Any hints about KiCad?

To me it seems they're software-agnostic as long as you use their CPL and BOM format.
This Altium-ecad-library discussion did confuse me a little bit, tough.

73

[ddavidebor]

Have you got a link for the chinese internal service.

It's part of their portal if you make an account on their Chinese site: https://www.sz-jlc.com/

The SMT service is described further here: https://www.sz-jlc.com/portal/newV2/smt.jsp
There's pictures of rows of P&P machines, one is labeled 5-FR(35-1) suggesting there may be quite a few of them, which would be the easiest (though not cheap to set up...) way to run this kind of service. That's my working hypothesis so far... that they have enough p&p machines to handle all the basic components and a few extra to support the extended component range.

The PCBA part of the service is super-fast, my PCBs left QC in the PCBM part of the factory at 15:51 on Tuesday, were p&p at 16:56, QCd at 00:56 on Wednesday, and in my hands by 19:00 on Wednesday. Not much time for any kind of manual processing.
I've got another board going through it right now, just entered the PCBA department at 18:34 this evening so I'll be impressed if they get that shipped tonight 

And the Altium libraries are here:  http://club.szlcsc.com/article/details_963_1.html (Needs an account on gitee which is a kind of Chinese github clone).

Could you upload somewhere their library? I am very curious

[TimCambridge]

ETA is now September 

Is there an update on this, it's nearly September...

[henla464]

I asked them a few days ago and got this reply:

"Actually we are trying to set about to open SMT service for the international markets gradually in early September this year.
Now it's in internal testing stage."

Yesterday I got another email with this: "This email is to notify you that the SMT Assembly service from JLCPCB will be start soon. So we want to invite you to be our first test customer." They then asked me to prepare the gerbers, pnp files etc...There wasn't any special link included or anything so I don't think I will be able to order before they open for everyone.

/Henrik

[ddavidebor]

Let's cross our fingers... I've got a 200 component board i need manufactured in just 5pcs...

[henla464]

Yes fingers crossed!

I looked at the basic component list and I noticed there are no capacitors on that list. Anyone got an idea why they haven't added some common capacitors to the basic component list? (or did I just not see them?)

[thm_w]

Yes fingers crossed!

I looked at the basic component list and I noticed there are no capacitors on that list. Anyone got an idea why they haven't added some common capacitors to the basic component list? (or did I just not see them?)

Where is the basic list? Maybe for cost reasons.
This list has tons of capacitors: https://jlcpcb.com/video/jlcsmt_parts_library.xls

[henla464]

Ah I now see that they are there but under the category "Inductors (SMD)". Thank you!

[yombo]

Hi!

Are there in the list any connectors? (Basic or extended) I can't find any. I would be interested in a micro USB connector (SMT of course)

I ask because I also didn't find the capacitors because they are mis-categorized.

[henla464]

I only had a quick look but also didn't see any. Searched for the three first micro-usb partnumbers that I found on lcsc.com in the Excel but got no match for them.

Btw, it says "Quote Now" on SMT Assembly instead of "Coming Soon" (at least I think it said that before). It seem to just go to the PCB ordering form though...

[teksturi]

There is also demo available in this site https://jlcpcb.com/smt-assembly
someone can test if you modify
https://jlcpcb.com/quote#/?fromDemo=yes

to

https://jlcpcb.com/quote#/?fromDemo=no

Maybe even order that way?

[ddavidebor]

Currently i am having errors, when pressing "next" nothing happens.

Correct link will probably be https://jlcpcb.com/quote#/?orderType=4

[SteveyG]

Yes fingers crossed!

I looked at the basic component list and I noticed there are no capacitors on that list. Anyone got an idea why they haven't added some common capacitors to the basic component list? (or did I just not see them?)

Where is the basic list? Maybe for cost reasons.
This list has tons of capacitors: https://jlcpcb.com/video/jlcsmt_parts_library.xls

From what I found, the excel spreadsheet doesn't line up with the parts that are available for assembly.

There were parts that couldn't be assembled which were in the excel sheet, but there were also a lot of parts available which aren't in that spreadsheet, so things like SMD electrolytic capacitors can now be assembled.