TinySine / Cheap Chinese PCBA

[Gizmo]

Has anyone got any experience with using TinySine (or other cheap Chinese) PCB assembly?

I've got an expansion board I've developed for an old games console which I've prototyped and is now working well. Ideally I'd like to manufacture about 100 of these, but my surface mount skills aren't great. I've built myself a simple "manual pick and place machine", which is just an XY bed with cheap-ass USB microscope for accuracy and a plunging vacuum head for the placement. I'm going to try this out for the next batch of prototypes, but ideally I'd like to outsource board construction entirely.

I've been using TinySine for my PCB fab, and I must say I've been extremely impressed with their boards for the price. They also offer an equally cheap PCBA service, but a run of 100 boards is likely to set me back around 1000 UKP all in, which for an unknown service makes me a bit edgy.

I was hoping someone could advise me on cheap Chinese PCBA and what their experiences have been?

[rs20]

Ideally I'd like to manufacture about 100 of these, but my surface mount skills aren't great. I've built myself a simple "manual pick and place machine", which is just an XY bed with cheap-ass USB microscope for accuracy and a plunging vacuum head for the placement. I'm going to try this out for the next batch of prototypes...

Practice makes perfect! I predict your surface mount skills are going to improve immensely in the near future.

[MagicSmoker]

...I've built myself a simple "manual pick and place machine", which is just an XY bed with cheap-ass USB microscope for accuracy and a plunging vacuum head for the placement....

I also have a manual pick and place which I use for assembling prototypes and the first 10-20 boards of a production run. Unless your board is very dense, and/or uses 0603 or smaller components and/or has more than 100 components on it I would do the assembly myself. Maybe TinySine is okay, but I wouldn't send them an entire production run for my first order with them. Maybe have them assemble 20 boards with a generous lead time to keep costs low while you assemble 20 yourself.


* - an "ez pick" - http://www.abacom-tech.com/%2FManual-SMT-Pick-and-Place-Machine-ezPick-P93496.aspx.

[calexanian]

We use domestic companies for our short run pick and place. depending on size 100 pieces may be fine. even on panelized arrays many shops would help you. If its a super tiny cheapie type product you may have some issues with the economics of it though.

[kingofkya]

depending on how unique you components are shoot elecrow an email http://www.elecrow.com/pcb-assembly-p-366.html

Also you want to buy them a stensel or they will hand assemble and that dosen't look as nice.

I had them do about a 100 boards with aroudn 20 components. and it took them about 1 week for pcb production and about 2 days for assembally and 3 days shipping via dhl.
pic attached.

But like others have said 100 boards is kinda in the do it yourself range.

[funkathustra]

Has anyone got any experience with using TinySine (or other cheap Chinese) PCB assembly?

I totally disagree with other people on this thread -- if I were you, I'd send that out to TinySine. I've got a "been there, done that" attitude about soldering -- it's no longer fun and novel for me; it's just boring and tedious. I'll do it when it needs to be done, but if you can afford to get stuff assembled, do it.

I've used TinySine on probably 10 different projects, and I freaking love them. Tim is extremely helpful.

Definitely have them order parts -- it's way easier and usually cheaper.

They'll start by manufacturing the boards and ordering components. They'll "dry place" all of your parts on the board and email you if there are any discrepancies (ugh, I got burned once by the wrong package of an SPI flash chip...).

Next, they'll paste up one of the boards, assemble it, reflow it, and email you a photo to look it over. Out of the 10 different projects I've had them do, they only made a mistake on one component on one of the projects -- there was a chip antenna that was installed backwards (I didn't have anything on the silkscreen or mechanical layer to indicate orientation -- Doh!). I caught it when they sent me the initial pic, and they made a note to install the chip antennas in the other orientation. Disaster averted.

Once that's worked out, they'll assemble the rest of the boards.

Tim will shoot you an email and ask if there are any simple ways of testing the boards before shipping them out to you. I don't know how complex of a test jig they'd build for you, but they'll basically do anything you want, labor-wise, for free. I had a design with two different MCUs on it (PIC16 and ESP8266), custom WiFi RF stuff, and a sub-GHz RF thing, too. They programmed both of the MCUs for me, and verified the WiFi stuff (by looking at RSSI on a base station). All for free.

Once they're assembled, they'll test them, put a QC sticker on each board that passes, and individually package them up in cute little anti-static bags. They'll box them up with any leftover parts, and DHL them to your place.

I've gone through Screaming Circuits, Sierra Circuits, Advanced Assembly, etc... all I get with those places is headaches and lots of emails with stupid questions that they could easily figure out themselves. They'll complain if there's no silkscreen designators (even though I send them pick-and-place files); they'll complain if a part is missing a mechanical outline; they'll complain about layer stack-up even though it's specified in the file extension (what do you think L1, L2, L3, and L4 would mean?). BOM line that's out of stock? Obviously, they immediately put the project on-hold and email you, asking for a replacement part number. That's fine if it's some wacky IC, but if the BOM line is for a 100nF X7R 16V 0402 Murata capacitor, maybe they could, you know, find a different 100nF X7R 16V 0402 Murata capacitor, and email you to verify? That's what Tim at TinySIne will do -- he'll email you with the obsolete part number, and ask if it's OK to replace it with the new part number (this happened to me when TI migrated the old Chipcon lead packages to the standard TI lead-free packages, which obsoleted a lot of parts).

So yeah, I recommend TinySine 110%. I'm a graduate researcher on a multi-million dollar grant, so we could easily afford 3-day turn-around through Advanced/Screaming/Sierra -- but I still send stuff through TinySine because it's far less tedious to work with Tim than it is to work with a local assembly house.

ALSO! Before you send your order off, take a look at CircuitHub -- they're the new kids on the block. I just sent a design off to them a few days ago, and I haven't heard a peep from them. So, so far, I'm loving them. The less I hear from my assembly house, the better. Their pricing and turn-around is somewhere between TinySine and Advanced/Screaming/Sierra. I'll post a note on here when the board comes back and let you know how they do.

[marshallh]

My NRE for PCBA through a chinese place is a bit over $1000 USD
It does vary a bit depending on the specs (number of QFP, BGA, single or double sided loadout)

I'd say you price you were quoted is reasonable. Also, once the NRE is paid for you can order more at a later time and only pay the assembly per unit cost.