JLCPCB SMT Assembly Service

[Spirit532]

I decided to try their service a few days ago, but my experience was cut short by the abrupt, and frankly stupid declaration that half the parts on a small board, all of which I've confirmed to be in stock and not "extended" at JLC, weren't available for assembly. The parts lookup system just didn't find anything.
PCBWay had absolutely no issues with the same order and gave me a similar and in some cases lower prices on the parts, so I went with them instead.

I think it'll keep being a service with very limited usability unless they get their parts stock in sync and correct, as well as either expand their portfolio of non-Asian components, or let you specify a Digikey/Mouser/Arrow/whatever order and pay extra for that.

[aix]

The parts lookup system just didn't find anything.

FWIW, I've been having lots of issues in the last few days with JLCPCB's catalogue not working as expected.

[stoepie2002]

Maybe it's their way of not continuing this service?

[donotdespisethesnake]

Maybe it's their way of not continuing this service?

Having dealt with JLCPCB several times I would say it is definitely incompetence. I think they would like to provide a world beating service but just don't have the ability.

Basically they've adopted the "let the customers be your beta testers" philosophy.

[OwO]

The internal version has always worked well for me. I always generate BOM and xy files to exactly match the format they expect. Most PCB software won't generate files in the right format and you have to process them with a script.

[donotdespisethesnake]

The internal version has always worked well for me.

What is the "internal version"??

[OwO]

https://www.sz-jlc.com/consumer/login.html

Not sure if this will ship internationally, but you can ask.

[donotdespisethesnake]

Oh, "internal to China" then. 

[coppice]

Oh, "internal to China" then. 

We used to use that service from Hong Kong, before JLC had an English language web site. I don't know if you could ever use it from beyond Hong Kong.

[snoopy]

Why does JLCPCB say zero availability for a part but LCSC has thousands available of the same part ?

cheers

[thinkfat]

I think they'll fix these glitches eventually, because they cannot afford otherwise. PCBA services are on the way to being a commodity just as PCBs are now. When that happens, where are you going to have your PCBs made? More likely at a place that also offers cheap assembly.

[mikeselectricstuff]

This video shows someone going through the JLC assembly process from a Designspark PCB design
(you may want to play at 1.5x speed!)
https://youtu.be/u61eUqmdZhE

[snoopy]

I decided to try their service a few days ago, but my experience was cut short by the abrupt, and frankly stupid declaration that half the parts on a small board, all of which I've confirmed to be in stock and not "extended" at JLC, weren't available for assembly. The parts lookup system just didn't find anything.
PCBWay had absolutely no issues with the same order and gave me a similar and in some cases lower prices on the parts, so I went with them instead.

I think it'll keep being a service with very limited usability unless they get their parts stock in sync and correct, as well as either expand their portfolio of non-Asian components, or let you specify a Digikey/Mouser/Arrow/whatever order and pay extra for that.

Recently I got a quote from PCBWAY for a board and the pricing was horrendous for the sake of a few extra melf resistors that I ended populating by hand once I got the board done with JLCPCB at a fraction of the price !! Don't get me wrong I have used PCBWAY for both boards and assembly but the pricing of this smaller board was way over the top unless you got large quantities made. I think JLCPCB is on the right track though. No one else is offering a similar service where the assembly process doesn't really add much to the cost of the board, however they still have issues with their inventory.

cheers

[up8051]

I decided to try their service a few days ago, but my experience was cut short by the abrupt, and frankly stupid declaration that half the parts on a small board, all of which I've confirmed to be in stock and not "extended" at JLC, weren't available for assembly. The parts lookup system just didn't find anything.
PCBWay had absolutely no issues with the same order and gave me a similar and in some cases lower prices on the parts, so I went with them instead.

I think it'll keep being a service with very limited usability unless they get their parts stock in sync and correct, as well as either expand their portfolio of non-Asian components, or let you specify a Digikey/Mouser/Arrow/whatever order and pay extra for that.

Recently I got a quote from PCBWAY for a board and the pricing was horrendous for the sake of a few extra melf resistors that I ended populating by hand once I got the board done with JLCPCB at a fraction of the price !! Don't get me wrong I have used PCBWAY for both boards and assembly but the pricing of this smaller board was way over the top unless you got large quantities made. I think JLCPCB is on the right track though. No one else is offering a similar service where the assembly process doesn't really add much to the cost of the board, however they still have issues with their inventory.

cheers

Simple comparison of order processed in JLCPCB and calculation from PCBWAY:

JLCPCB
PCB  20pcs panels 133mmx136mm  (total 480 small PCB 20x24) EING:   51.2$
SMT Assembly 11 components per board, 10 unique elements per board : 38,29$ (without promotion)  6$ (with promotion)

Calculation from PCBWAY
PCB: 107$
SMT Assembly 364$

No comment

[Spirit532]

JLC's prices are unbeatable, certainly - assuming the service works, which it simply didn't for me. I would definitely use it if the parts library worked, but even then I'd use it only for few of my designs, because most of what I design contains parts that are stocked by the thousand/ten thousand at Digikey/Mouser/whatever, but JLC has never heard of them.

480 small PCB 20x24

Neither service is particularly suited for assembling medium sized production runs. You'd probably be better off with a serious fab at that point.
That, and PCBWay's prices is closer to what you're going to see at big fabs.

[up8051]

JLC's prices are unbeatable, certainly - assuming the service works, which it simply didn't for me. I would definitely use it if the parts library worked, but even then I'd use it only for few of my designs, because most of what I design contains parts that are stocked by the thousand/ten thousand at Digikey/Mouser/whatever, but JLC has never heard of them.

480 small PCB 20x24

Neither service is particularly suited for assembling medium sized production runs. You'd probably be better off with a serious fab at that point.
That, and PCBWay's prices is closer to what you're going to see at big fabs.

I have second project with the same problem, parts not stocked by JLCPCB, that why I tried to inquiry PCBWAY.
480pcs x11 elements = 5280 it is several minutes of work on a fast P&P machine, so I think it is small production run.

[snoopy]

JLC's prices are unbeatable, certainly - assuming the service works, which it simply didn't for me. I would definitely use it if the parts library worked, but even then I'd use it only for few of my designs, because most of what I design contains parts that are stocked by the thousand/ten thousand at Digikey/Mouser/whatever, but JLC has never heard of them.

480 small PCB 20x24

Neither service is particularly suited for assembling medium sized production runs. You'd probably be better off with a serious fab at that point.
That, and PCBWay's prices is closer to what you're going to see at big fabs.

So far I have had two boards done by JLCPCB and both came out exactly as specified. However I can't understand why a part I used in a previous board is no longer available in the JLCPCB parts inventory but is in the LCSC inventory ??

cheers

[aix]

Do any of you understand how their online DFM checks work?  In particular, I'm getting lots of "Cannot find this Pad in your PCB" messages for parts that have clearly been placed correctly.

Having exchanged about half a dozen messages with JLCPCB's support, I don't feel like I'm getting any closer to understanding what exactly their system is looking for.

They offered the attached illustration saying that "there was not pad on q3 area".  However, when I tried to understand in what ways, specifically, I need to modify my Gerbers, I didn't get very far.

This is not a real issue for my current design but I am thinking that it would be good to understand how things work so that I can perhaps make use of the automated checks in the future.

[SMTech]

Well I don't think their preview help very much with the way its rendering your picture but TBH I don't think any of the devices marked in your overlay have well defined pads and certainly no attempt at thermal balancing. But its possible a screenshot of the same area from your CAD would tell me something different.

[MarkR42]

I'm keen to use it in the future, but my favourite microcontrollers are always listed as out of stock, I the attiny1617 is quite a recent part but it's showing zero stock, as are the related (possibly compatible with my firmware, with some mods) parts. The microcontroller is the main thing I want to be installed.

I did try going through their interface and managed to reach a plausible looking preview (minus the unavailable microcontroller) with the other parts present, and only a few parts installed backwards.

Also I want to make very tiny boards which are too small for their smt service, which means I either extend the board with removable (waste) panel, or I panelise two boards myself, which complicates matters.

But if it works, and from what I've heard, it's basically unbeatable.

[thinkfat]

Waiting on my first PCBA order stuck in the turmoil of CNY and Corona...

[sirvalence]

I've had 8-10 orders with them and it's been a good experience as long as there's nothing unusual about the order. When my orders have been normal, everything went smooth. When something was off, communication was minimally effective and I found it less frustrating/time consuming to just fix the problem myself when I received the boards rather than exchange endless emails that didn't go anywhere.

The cost effectiveness of the service is so great that I am ok accepting this limitation for the benefits.

Overall I'm stoked to have this option!

[Koen]

I had a stencil made wrong. I filled a claim, sent a photo, they did it again and shipped it by DHL the next day. I now add "please do not edit the stencil" in Chinese instead of English to my orders and all is fine.

JLCPCB's so neat and easy that I dropped other manufacturers who could do fancier stuff. Also, I'd rather wait for them to come back live than try my luck with the other options offered here these past weeks.

[SteveyG]

Waiting on my first PCBA order stuck in the turmoil of CNY and Corona...

Same, got this monster to test their Pick and Place abilities:

[thinkfat]

There was a bit of movement on my PCBA order: They did the DFM analysis and found a component with no footprint.

However, the "before" and "after" pictures show exactly no difference. 
The component they found missing is there in both, with exactly the same orientation.
Curious to see how the PCBs look like when they eventually turn up.

PS: since you mentioned an upcoming GPSDO project, my PCBA order is actually a GPSDO