If you are a designing a product and need to produce a printed circuit board (PCB) prototype, you can manufacture the prototype yourself or outsource it to a vendor who focuses in PCB prototype assembly. But manufacturing a PCB prototype yourself would require an in-house PCB fabrication and assembly facility, which would not be cost-effective if you only need it for PCB prototypes, that are very small production runs. It makes better business sense to subcontract with a vendor who focuses in manufacturing prototype PCBs. Here are the primary guidelines for choosing a vendor to contract out PCB prototype production work:
Online PCB Quote Convenience
Suppliers who provide an online quote system can save you time. The online quote system ought to be simple to use. The system should enable you to go into the salient details of the PCB’s design demands such as thickness, type of building material and manufacturing specifications. The complete purpose of the online quote system ought to be cost control. You do not want to learn about surcharges after the prototype PCB fabrication begins.
Lower Your Costs
It is generally less expensive to manufacture a large quantity of PCB than a small-sized amount. Yet, PCB prototype are usually produced in small quantities as the circuit design is still being bettered. A vendor that specializes in PCB assembly knows how to maintain your costs low because it possesses the ability of minimizing the costs of assembly set up and assorting the cost of production by expanding the production job between several clients in order to sustain the total cost for manufacturing small lot PCB very cheap.
Lead Times
When opting for a supplier to outsource your PCB assembly to ensure you understand the aspects that influence lead time. In case that your PCB design consists of dimensions or materials (i.e., thicknesses) that are not usual, the supplier will need a longer lead time because their is going to be lesser other customers who have these same requirements therefore it will take longer for the supplier to schedule your production run. An online quote system will change the price of the quote relative to the lead time you desire.
File Formats and Design Services
The file formats you use for your electronic circuit designs are appropriate when selecting a PCB assembly supplier. Most suppliers use the Gerber format so, if you use other file formats, ensure the vendor can work with these other types of formats. This is the reason why a PCB assembly company that offers design services in addition to contract manufacturing services is the ideal choice because the company has the technical capabilities and in-house know-how to deal with any problems that may happen in the pre-assembly process.
Package Types
Take a close look at the span of package types that the PCB assembly manufacturer could accept for production. The quality vendors will note this essential information on their web pages. Not all firms can receive very special ball grid array (BGA) or chip-scale packages. By calling the PCB manufacturer’s technical support team to confirm their proficiencies for assembling your prototype PCBs, you can avoid troubles prior to the beginning of production.
These are the six main factors a printed circuit board designer needs to take into account when contracting out their layouts to a PCB manufacturing vendor to produce prototype PCB
Welcome to visit our website(http://www.ifastpcb.com), You can get instant online pcb quotation. And invite you to become our free member by registering in. then you can place pcb orders online directly.It is very convenient. iFastPCB is located in Shenzhen, China. It is an expert in complete PCB manufacturing and assembly services and a specialist in low volume run, prototype PCB manufacturing.. For more information, go to http://www.ifastpcb.com or e-mail [email protected]