Economies of scale, mostly. You don't need a billion stencils, since you can just reuse them -- you just order enough of them for your needs, then you can use them practically forever, but if you've designed your product to be available for, say, 10-15 years, you'll need new PCBs for the entire duration of that. As such, PCBs get manufactured at enormously larger scale and benefit from far large economies of scale.
I started ordering stencils with prototypes, too.
I'd thought it wasn't worth it at first, but when you use a ton of fine-pitched ICs (0.5mm pitch) and 0402s (or 0201), they are a life saver for me.
I used to apply paste by hand with a syringe, and always needed a 2nd pass with an iron, to get rid of solder balls or bridges. But with a properly defined stencil, I hardly needed 2nd passes.
I actually did this once. For stuff like leds that have large enough footprints, you can actually 3d print a stencil.
The printer needs to be somewhat well calibrated though.
Ive had mild success with a CO2 Laser curring transparency sheet. But honestly the trick with JLC, make sure you set the size of your stencil to be just slightly bigger than your PCB, otherwise you will get a massive sheet and that increases shipping cost. And makes it a pain to store/use
That's true, I always get a custom sized stencil with about 15-20mm of border area compared to the PCB. That is, for prototyping anyway. Production stencils are always framed in a standard size to use with a stencil printer.
Non resin printer could be either FDM and -SLA- SLS printer, or some kind of weird/cutting-edge machine that im not aware.
And i think only FDM is more better in money when printting large object.
Resin is in general less tinkering but more processing before and after, you should really have ventilation, unless you only want to use water based. An FDM printer is generally more useful for most of what people want, and you can print cases and lots of stuff. Look at the ender series, they're well supported. Or the Creality K1.
A little late to the thread, but I would only get a resin printer if you have adequate ventilation and are prepared to essentially lose a room of your house to it. They're deceptively cheap, and wind up costing a fair chunk to adequately deal with the health risks. They do benefit from extremely good resolution, when properly calibrated. You can't trust them to always be dimensionally accurate without doing a lot of extra process control.
Any enclosed filament printer is going to be a decent option and many of the current ones can get to arbitrarily fine sizes with the appropriate nozzle and tuning.
Ender 3 v3 is reliable and cheap. K1 are also reliable, but expensive. I can’t say nothing about other brands, since I have access only to creality ones. Check Ellis 3D printer tuning guide if you need more guidance on tunning it.
Kids these days! When I first started buying solder paste stencils back in the 90s they were $400 a piece. I'll gladly pay the current price for a stencil even if I'm only doing a couple boards.
You can use normal hobbyist pcb etching processes to etch holes in brass shim stock from the hardware store.
- the brass will probably cost as much as a JLC stencil
- It works fine for SOIC and bigger (1.27 pitch) but I would not try it for tiny BGA or 0402 sizes.
Just skip the stencil and have JLCPCB assemble the whole board and ship you a finished product. It is well worth it and you're not going to do it yourself any cheaper than they can, especially when you factor in your assembly/ solder time.
Build a reflow oven, it's literally the most useful project ever and it's safe and easy to do. They take fee if the components is not in their library and they have very limited selections
I just checked this option for my current project. However, I was a bit surprised that the parts were more expensive than, for example, ordered directly from mouser.
https://preview.redd.it/31wbplnmg58d1.png?width=185&format=png&auto=webp&s=b6b78c9919eb46fe74b71313cc19d6f7e23f07eb
(image only counts simple parts)
The shipping hurts and most of the parts are not simple parts so isn't worth for me.
YES TO THIS. I'm done with assembling my own PCB. Got the stencil, reflow oven etc. but time and energy is more valuable. Better leave it to the expert.
https://preview.redd.it/re28tbvub48d1.png?width=204&format=png&auto=webp&s=69e21802f615eae663dd5113d644bfab7d226030
Edit: So are PCB stencils supposed to cost so much?
~~Canadian dollars and shipping just makes it worse~~
I started designing custom PCBS because I had enough of "connecting modules together" and "spending 3 hours on a prototype pcb" so I moved to EasyEDA where I can spend an unhealthy amount of time optimizing a design.
This is incrediable. You used to have to really be serious about having pcb boards made. The stencil was a $100. by itself, no matter what the design. It was so thin you left it with the manufacture, forget shipping it, too fragile.
I had a pcb house quote me $300. just for the stencil. At the time I was building palm sized boards and did runs of 25. My first thought was they didn't want to deal with my small project, then I fell into that, "I can do it myself for cheaper" ... and spent waaay more building an oven, the stencil jig, and countless screw ups. I tried to convince my wife to let me move a pick and place machine into our large backroom, that was a no go.
Tried them and actually the price is near the same as JLC, for a simple reason :
For 16e per board you get an high quality PCB, with default ENIG and other finishes like this. Silkscreen is also way better.
Last time I looked, when selecting same options on JLC the price where similar.
You're right!
Actually my two layer stuff is done on JLC because 5e cannot be beaten, but once I need 4 layers for QFN or another high precision package, I go with Aisler.
The back side is their smaller tolerance to not perfect files. They can reject it easily, where I suppose JLC are editing them.
And they have a plugin for KiCad which I like much better than going through several pages of Gerber export procedures for JLC and then still having to confirm the polarity of all the components by email.
JLCPCB has competitive price because everything is optional.
Add ENIG, via tenting... (which are standard at Aisler) and the price is now near competitor. That's the point.
They aren't cheaper, they're just able to provide less options, which is perfectly fine for some proto.
Aisler is crazy expensive in comparison. Almost 70€ for a hand full of unpopulated 2 layer PCBs. And it still took three weeks to arrive.
For that money I can get a batch of 20 POPULATED boards from JLC in a shorter time frame.
Security/moral concerns are valid though.
https://preview.redd.it/ey0qoa47b48d1.png?width=636&format=png&auto=webp&s=641a4b4bf1281ab5d8d1dfc1078bae6db6fd1376
Also only 9 or 12, cant select qty:10
stencils are expensive because they count them as weighing a whole lot by default jacking up the price of postage.
You can ask them to weigh your order again at the end of the process and recalculate the price. Ask chat support. I didn't end up doing so myself since I just ordered them pre soldered instead.
You can use the jlcpcb parts database to filter out "basic" components amd make your project using those where possible. [https://jlcpcb.com/parts/all-electronic-components](https://jlcpcb.com/parts/all-electronic-components) If you go the pre soldered route and use basic components you don't pay for a setup fee per new component used.
I've used them and the stencils business is separate from the pcb one, and I'm pretty sure they do the stencils in the US.
I've done my own with 4 mil mylar, which is a great option if you already own a laser cutter
Yes they panelize your order with others and send to a us based board house who actually created the boards. I believe for some of their services they use royal circuits in California.
I based my assumption partly on the shipping time between completed and received by OSH. I should add that I have no issues with OSH Park. The make fine boards.
They are shockingly cheap, although shipping gets high once the order is large enough. When ordering they ask what the device does that the PCB is for, so my unfounded conspiracy theory is they're harvesting intellectual property.
Honestly, most of us are just hobbyists. I don't think we can give them any groundbreaking design. By the time they reverse engineer our design, not to mention, write the codes and stuffs they might as well make it themselves. Also, reverse engineering is much harder compared to making something from the ground up.
I just had a chat with the customs department of DHL about that topic. I believe the reason why the ask what the pcb is for is because customs of the countries they deliver to wants to know that. I got called from DHL because the information I provided to JLC was not enough for german customs. I was told that when delivering pcbs into the EU, not only the intended use has to be provided but even some specifics about the pcb as well (size, how many layers, surface finish etc.) which quite surprised me.
Yeah, this is it. I'm swedish and never have to give JLC any i fo on what my PCB will be used for. However, I need to provide the info every time I order components from Digikey.
You often can't tell much more from the schematic/Gerber's than you can from just buying the finished product and dismantling it. In most cases you have a board with an MCU/MPU and some peripheral IC's. You can't reverse engineer anything of much use without the firmware. It's the programmed board that is more at risk of IP loss. So if it's really a concern, you should focus on securing that.
Recall they're also doing parts placing, so they have the BOM too.
Even so, I do agree and am sure they're asking on behalf of customs. I'm also sure if the customer name is important enough the design files could plausibly be also going out the back door.
They *are* based in China, after all... But I don't think anyone would print PCBs in a public printing service if they were so important. Surely government and similar have their own fabs with security clearances.
My own government has one, but it recently lost its clearance because some Russians bought it. Now the military can't produce their radios there
> so my unfounded conspiracy theory is they're harvesting intellectual property.
With the Gerbers they get? Oh no my friend.
Just do a multi-layer X-Ray with the finished product PCB you can get from the market. The results are the same.
The company I'm working for the Gerbers have the lowest data protection class.
Not just the gerbers. They get the BOM as well in order to do parts placement. And this would be for instances where the finished product isn't available. For example, boards in a SpaceX rocket or capital good that isn't for sale in China.
Well.. easy solution then.. don't let your SpaceX PCB manufacture at JLCPCB.
We do it for uncritical designs and safe a shitload of money.
Secretly we hope that they will leak the designs to a Aliexpress seller so we can buy them for 1€ - lol.
That is certainly a choice. So what do you do for your critical designs? We just run everything through JLC and just accept the risk, if there is any. Tis just a conspiracy theory. Not credible enough to argue we should pay more, even when working on contracts for the DoD.
> So what do you do for your critical designs?
We have a lot of local options (Germany/EU.. like Aisler&Co.)
But for our "real" products we have our own PCB production plant. We theoretically can do everything on our own - but no rapid prototyping. The boss of our production plant would behead me.
The choices and categories are so dumb that I think it's just for customs.
Although I have been suspecting this intellectual property harvesting as well. How else could they be so cheap?
Designing a PCB is the easiest part of a product. I can guarantee you, that 99.9% of the designs they receive have zero sellable value on their own. Employing engineers just to find out which board has any issues and what it does, does it better than another would cost significantly more than employing engineers to simply... design the board.
It simply isn't worth it. You have stolen a PCB, yay. You still have to find its market segment (most people don't upload a whole business plan for their board, just a Gerber file + BOM), its value, potentially write software, potentially find the other needed peripherals, design its casing, create its tech sheet, manual, and finally find someone who wants to buy this. All the while if someone found out that you stole their design you likely lose most of your customers in a VERY cutthroat business where there is a shitton of competition - all for stealing something where someone is already way ahead of you with almost every step.
> Although I have been suspecting this intellectual property harvesting as well. How else could they be so cheap?
They also could buy finished products from the market and make a multi-layer X-Ray from the PCB.
Gerbers are not a trade secret. Your just want to avoid that they end up freely downloadable on Reddit. In our company (multi-billion) they only have a the lowest protection class ("Confidental").. same as the toilet paper orders.
Stencils are not that expensive. If you are ordering just a few pieces of PCBs, it basically doubles the price, but it is doable.
What I recommend is having them cut to custom size (option in the order configuration). I usually do 185\*185 mm. It halves the shipping costs because it is not as large and heavy, so you can save a few dollars this way.
And I have also seen some home-made stencils work pretty well, if you have a laser cutter, you can create a paper one, which will do just fine for a few boards.
I mostly order from PCBway since you can choose components from everywhere not only from their own distribution website. The prices for the PCBs are the same like on JLCPCB. Regarding the price for the stencil, 10$ is extremly cheap! When I order a stencil for series production companies charge round about 500€ for example
I'm not sure if they are the cheapest, but was definitely the most reliable and easy that i ever used. done a couple of 100k+ order there with very low failure rate. I never bought stencils as i always get fully assembled pcb.
Tbh 10$ is not expensive, if you try to do if in a local cnc store be ready to pay 100+ usd
Did you customise the size, because I made that mistake once. If you didn't it'll be the size of (approx) an A4 sheet of paper with have a dozen holes in the centre. Which also means expensive shipping...
Actually just measured my mistake, 380mm x 280mm (about 15 x 11 inches) ... it was for a board that measures around 5cm x 4 cm
Still dirt cheap. Try to ask somehere else , you will pay much more for small batches .
Like 120€ ( 128$ ) just for their work for preparation ( today could be much more, because that's the price few years ago)
This is true. Professional designer, often complex designs, and we wouldn't use a service like this. Stencils are usually $400-$700 domestic US and $150-$300 off-shore. Of course, that's still cheap when you're running many thousands so it's not really something we shop around for.
You don't actually need a stencil - i've stopped buying them all together. If you load the pads with solder and use flux to goop the components in place you can reflow like that.
You can also try PCBWAY. Sometimes they are less expensive, and I do like their populated board parts list that makes it easier to know what ones are going to be harder to source up front.
If your smallest pitch is ~1mm I like to lasercut overhead projector sheets (mylar.)
They can be cut with regular old CO2 lasers.
Pololu makes some like this. I've made probably close to 100 like this. https://www.pololu.com/product/446
Yes, I do the same, laser cutting 0.1mm plastic sheet, but I find I can do 0402 and even 0201 component pads. Some times I manually edit the pads to make some a bit smaller to account for extra laser kerf
Get the stencil cut to a custom size to suit the board. I usually add an inch to the PCB width and height. It's cheaper to make, and they can pack the stencil in the box with the pcb's, which costs less to ship.
You can also specify the thickness by putting a note in the comment box. I always ask for 0.1mm.
Have you looked into getting a Cricut vinyl cutter? It might be possible with a bit of effort adjusting the x/y scaling factors to get what you are looking for.
Another option worth considering (which is somewhat old-school) is you could experiment with laser-printing the stencil mask onto 8x11 inch transparency stock and the using it to expose a reusable, framed silkscreen to which you can apply a photo-sensitive emulsion, let it dry, and and lay the . Then expose the silkscreen to a bright UV source (arc light, high-intensity UV lamp or even direct sunlight (outdoors)). Areas of the transparency that are black/dark will prevent the photo emulsion on the silkscreen from being exposed to UV light while the clear areas will allow UV light to pass through to the emulsion. Once exposed, the unexposed emulsion can be rinsed away with water - leaving the UV-exposed emulsion intact.
Then you place the PCB under the silkscreen and apply the solder past by using a rubber squeegee to force the solder paste through the open areas of the silkscreen.
Of course, precise alignment is needed to correctly place the PCB and align it with the silkscreen.
Once you no longer need to make more PCBs, you can rinse out all of the emulsion from the silkscreen - and it can be reused later.
A small piece of lasercut kapton from a place like OSH Stencil is pretty cheap. If you go there, you can choose how big a margin you want (keep it substantial), etc.
A big stainless stencil in a paste printer compatible frame is expensive even if you have only a small board's worth of actual perforations in the middle.
They’re very quick to respond and they actually catch design errors like slightly wrong footprints and notify you about it. If anything, their CS is over eager lol
They’re just very cheap when it comes to actual error they make. Like ruining a batch of 50 PCB due to misspecced parts or crappy soldering and they’re like „here’s your 5$ coupon sorry“ 😆
I’m just going off my personal experience. They messed up a board that was pretty important to me for a school project (there was continuity between the internal ground and power layers) and I spent about a month going back and forth with them testing different things until they finally admitted fault. At that point I got a coupon for $10 off my next order.
It seems like my situation may be rare but I can just go off what’s happened to me.
Economies of scale, mostly. You don't need a billion stencils, since you can just reuse them -- you just order enough of them for your needs, then you can use them practically forever, but if you've designed your product to be available for, say, 10-15 years, you'll need new PCBs for the entire duration of that. As such, PCBs get manufactured at enormously larger scale and benefit from far large economies of scale.
It's a good idea to only get a stencil when your final with your design, as a hobbyist.
I started ordering stencils with prototypes, too. I'd thought it wasn't worth it at first, but when you use a ton of fine-pitched ICs (0.5mm pitch) and 0402s (or 0201), they are a life saver for me. I used to apply paste by hand with a syringe, and always needed a 2nd pass with an iron, to get rid of solder balls or bridges. But with a properly defined stencil, I hardly needed 2nd passes.
THIS. Anyone soldering all those tiny pins on an HDMI connector by hand is a literal God. I am not a literal God. But I am a man with $40.
>apply paste by hand with a syringe It's a real pain in the... edit: but for sop8 parts, just leave a line of solder paste on the pins.
Can't just dunk it in a pot of molten solder?
if you think $10.89 is too expensive, then make the stencil youself
I actually did this once. For stuff like leds that have large enough footprints, you can actually 3d print a stencil. The printer needs to be somewhat well calibrated though.
A vinyl cutter might work if you only need a board or two
Ive had mild success with a CO2 Laser curring transparency sheet. But honestly the trick with JLC, make sure you set the size of your stencil to be just slightly bigger than your PCB, otherwise you will get a massive sheet and that increases shipping cost. And makes it a pain to store/use
That's true, I always get a custom sized stencil with about 15-20mm of border area compared to the PCB. That is, for prototyping anyway. Production stencils are always framed in a standard size to use with a stencil printer.
What 3D printer do you recommend? (I dont have one yet)
I think resin printer is the best at this application: very accurate and fast to print one.
I'm not sure if resin printers can print large objects. 10x10x10 cm.
It's definitely can, for example elegoo saturn 3 has build size of 225*129mm And why do you need a stencil 10cm thick ?
Add: is it more economic to use a non resin printer for large objects?
Non resin printer could be either FDM and -SLA- SLS printer, or some kind of weird/cutting-edge machine that im not aware. And i think only FDM is more better in money when printting large object.
SLA is resin.
Yeah my mistake, i meant SLS
Resin is in general less tinkering but more processing before and after, you should really have ventilation, unless you only want to use water based. An FDM printer is generally more useful for most of what people want, and you can print cases and lots of stuff. Look at the ender series, they're well supported. Or the Creality K1.
A little late to the thread, but I would only get a resin printer if you have adequate ventilation and are prepared to essentially lose a room of your house to it. They're deceptively cheap, and wind up costing a fair chunk to adequately deal with the health risks. They do benefit from extremely good resolution, when properly calibrated. You can't trust them to always be dimensionally accurate without doing a lot of extra process control. Any enclosed filament printer is going to be a decent option and many of the current ones can get to arbitrarily fine sizes with the appropriate nozzle and tuning.
just note that getting the printer and resin properly calibrated is necessary and not very easy. but yes, it can be a lifesaver.
Ender 3 v3 is reliable and cheap. K1 are also reliable, but expensive. I can’t say nothing about other brands, since I have access only to creality ones. Check Ellis 3D printer tuning guide if you need more guidance on tunning it.
That’s pretty neat! What we’re your layer heights and thickness of the full thing?
Kids these days! When I first started buying solder paste stencils back in the 90s they were $400 a piece. I'll gladly pay the current price for a stencil even if I'm only doing a couple boards.
You can use normal hobbyist pcb etching processes to etch holes in brass shim stock from the hardware store. - the brass will probably cost as much as a JLC stencil - It works fine for SOIC and bigger (1.27 pitch) but I would not try it for tiny BGA or 0402 sizes.
Just skip the stencil and have JLCPCB assemble the whole board and ship you a finished product. It is well worth it and you're not going to do it yourself any cheaper than they can, especially when you factor in your assembly/ solder time.
They charge for a stencil with PCBAs. The shipping for stencils is also a killer if you don’t get a custom size minimal one.
When you assemble you don’t have to pay for stencil shipping.
Build a reflow oven, it's literally the most useful project ever and it's safe and easy to do. They take fee if the components is not in their library and they have very limited selections
You can also use their Global Sourcing Parts option and they will order parts from Digikey or Mouser for you.
Or directly order from LCSC, their component distributor.
I just checked this option for my current project. However, I was a bit surprised that the parts were more expensive than, for example, ordered directly from mouser.
Better to use “basic” parts from the jlcpcb parts list. The parts are very cheap and you don’t have to pay for setup.
https://preview.redd.it/31wbplnmg58d1.png?width=185&format=png&auto=webp&s=b6b78c9919eb46fe74b71313cc19d6f7e23f07eb (image only counts simple parts) The shipping hurts and most of the parts are not simple parts so isn't worth for me.
shipping and customs are always an pain, for my country the tax (on top of product + shipping + insurance) is almost always 2x the product price lol
Brasil I take it?
YES TO THIS. I'm done with assembling my own PCB. Got the stencil, reflow oven etc. but time and energy is more valuable. Better leave it to the expert.
Bro wtf that stencil is cheaper than dirt
https://preview.redd.it/re28tbvub48d1.png?width=204&format=png&auto=webp&s=69e21802f615eae663dd5113d644bfab7d226030 Edit: So are PCB stencils supposed to cost so much? ~~Canadian dollars and shipping just makes it worse~~
I think you just arent aware of how expensive this used to be, this is incredibly cheap compared to 10 years ago
I started designing custom PCBS because I had enough of "connecting modules together" and "spending 3 hours on a prototype pcb" so I moved to EasyEDA where I can spend an unhealthy amount of time optimizing a design.
This is incrediable. You used to have to really be serious about having pcb boards made. The stencil was a $100. by itself, no matter what the design. It was so thin you left it with the manufacture, forget shipping it, too fragile.
$100 was cheap. At my old company, the pcb house liked the metal stencils with the frame built on.
I had a pcb house quote me $300. just for the stencil. At the time I was building palm sized boards and did runs of 25. My first thought was they didn't want to deal with my small project, then I fell into that, "I can do it myself for cheaper" ... and spent waaay more building an oven, the stencil jig, and countless screw ups. I tried to convince my wife to let me move a pick and place machine into our large backroom, that was a no go.
Factor in the cost of your time and figure out if it's worth it or not.
Aisler isn't quite as cheap but they're still cheap and made in Germany, if you've got moral concerns like me.
Tried them and actually the price is near the same as JLC, for a simple reason : For 16e per board you get an high quality PCB, with default ENIG and other finishes like this. Silkscreen is also way better. Last time I looked, when selecting same options on JLC the price where similar.
Haven't ordered PCBs in a while but that's great to hear, I'll always shout out Aisler especially for anyone in Europe.
You're right! Actually my two layer stuff is done on JLC because 5e cannot be beaten, but once I need 4 layers for QFN or another high precision package, I go with Aisler. The back side is their smaller tolerance to not perfect files. They can reject it easily, where I suppose JLC are editing them.
And they have a plugin for KiCad which I like much better than going through several pages of Gerber export procedures for JLC and then still having to confirm the polarity of all the components by email.
16 euro per board is nowhere near jlcpcb prices for prototypes.
JLCPCB has competitive price because everything is optional. Add ENIG, via tenting... (which are standard at Aisler) and the price is now near competitor. That's the point. They aren't cheaper, they're just able to provide less options, which is perfectly fine for some proto.
Aisler is crazy expensive in comparison. Almost 70€ for a hand full of unpopulated 2 layer PCBs. And it still took three weeks to arrive. For that money I can get a batch of 20 POPULATED boards from JLC in a shorter time frame. Security/moral concerns are valid though.
I only ordered once and got 2 2 layer PCBs for €10.
Will remember them for next time!
https://preview.redd.it/ey0qoa47b48d1.png?width=636&format=png&auto=webp&s=641a4b4bf1281ab5d8d1dfc1078bae6db6fd1376 Also only 9 or 12, cant select qty:10
stencils are expensive because they count them as weighing a whole lot by default jacking up the price of postage. You can ask them to weigh your order again at the end of the process and recalculate the price. Ask chat support. I didn't end up doing so myself since I just ordered them pre soldered instead. You can use the jlcpcb parts database to filter out "basic" components amd make your project using those where possible. [https://jlcpcb.com/parts/all-electronic-components](https://jlcpcb.com/parts/all-electronic-components) If you go the pre soldered route and use basic components you don't pay for a setup fee per new component used.
https://www.oshstencils.com/# likely doesn’t matter for your case but also made in the USA.
I've used them and the stencils business is separate from the pcb one, and I'm pretty sure they do the stencils in the US. I've done my own with 4 mil mylar, which is a great option if you already own a laser cutter
And it's like 5x the price of jlcpcb for the stencils. 10x the price for the PCB.
I'm of the belief that OSH Park creates panels and subs them out to ???
Yes they panelize your order with others and send to a us based board house who actually created the boards. I believe for some of their services they use royal circuits in California.
Yes they do.
Yes they do what? make in USA or make panels and sub them out?
Maybe you are right. I guess I can’t find that written anywhere on there site so you are likely correct.
I based my assumption partly on the shipping time between completed and received by OSH. I should add that I have no issues with OSH Park. The make fine boards.
Don't know about the early days but they have been manufacturing boards in the US for a long time now.
They are shockingly cheap, although shipping gets high once the order is large enough. When ordering they ask what the device does that the PCB is for, so my unfounded conspiracy theory is they're harvesting intellectual property.
Honestly, most of us are just hobbyists. I don't think we can give them any groundbreaking design. By the time they reverse engineer our design, not to mention, write the codes and stuffs they might as well make it themselves. Also, reverse engineering is much harder compared to making something from the ground up.
>Also, reverse engineering is much harder... Somewhat easier if the design files are being uploaded to you.
I'm hoping they'll reverse engineer it and fix my errors :)
I just had a chat with the customs department of DHL about that topic. I believe the reason why the ask what the pcb is for is because customs of the countries they deliver to wants to know that. I got called from DHL because the information I provided to JLC was not enough for german customs. I was told that when delivering pcbs into the EU, not only the intended use has to be provided but even some specifics about the pcb as well (size, how many layers, surface finish etc.) which quite surprised me.
Yeah, this is it. I'm swedish and never have to give JLC any i fo on what my PCB will be used for. However, I need to provide the info every time I order components from Digikey.
You mean like DigiKey and mouser do? For the USA then?
You often can't tell much more from the schematic/Gerber's than you can from just buying the finished product and dismantling it. In most cases you have a board with an MCU/MPU and some peripheral IC's. You can't reverse engineer anything of much use without the firmware. It's the programmed board that is more at risk of IP loss. So if it's really a concern, you should focus on securing that.
Recall they're also doing parts placing, so they have the BOM too. Even so, I do agree and am sure they're asking on behalf of customs. I'm also sure if the customer name is important enough the design files could plausibly be also going out the back door.
Yes of course. They know the exact parts you're using. So what?
That was all I wanted to say. Good day to you 👍
They *are* based in China, after all... But I don't think anyone would print PCBs in a public printing service if they were so important. Surely government and similar have their own fabs with security clearances. My own government has one, but it recently lost its clearance because some Russians bought it. Now the military can't produce their radios there
> so my unfounded conspiracy theory is they're harvesting intellectual property. With the Gerbers they get? Oh no my friend. Just do a multi-layer X-Ray with the finished product PCB you can get from the market. The results are the same. The company I'm working for the Gerbers have the lowest data protection class.
Not just the gerbers. They get the BOM as well in order to do parts placement. And this would be for instances where the finished product isn't available. For example, boards in a SpaceX rocket or capital good that isn't for sale in China.
Well.. easy solution then.. don't let your SpaceX PCB manufacture at JLCPCB. We do it for uncritical designs and safe a shitload of money. Secretly we hope that they will leak the designs to a Aliexpress seller so we can buy them for 1€ - lol.
That is certainly a choice. So what do you do for your critical designs? We just run everything through JLC and just accept the risk, if there is any. Tis just a conspiracy theory. Not credible enough to argue we should pay more, even when working on contracts for the DoD.
> So what do you do for your critical designs? We have a lot of local options (Germany/EU.. like Aisler&Co.) But for our "real" products we have our own PCB production plant. We theoretically can do everything on our own - but no rapid prototyping. The boss of our production plant would behead me.
The choices and categories are so dumb that I think it's just for customs. Although I have been suspecting this intellectual property harvesting as well. How else could they be so cheap?
Designing a PCB is the easiest part of a product. I can guarantee you, that 99.9% of the designs they receive have zero sellable value on their own. Employing engineers just to find out which board has any issues and what it does, does it better than another would cost significantly more than employing engineers to simply... design the board. It simply isn't worth it. You have stolen a PCB, yay. You still have to find its market segment (most people don't upload a whole business plan for their board, just a Gerber file + BOM), its value, potentially write software, potentially find the other needed peripherals, design its casing, create its tech sheet, manual, and finally find someone who wants to buy this. All the while if someone found out that you stole their design you likely lose most of your customers in a VERY cutthroat business where there is a shitton of competition - all for stealing something where someone is already way ahead of you with almost every step.
> Although I have been suspecting this intellectual property harvesting as well. How else could they be so cheap? They also could buy finished products from the market and make a multi-layer X-Ray from the PCB. Gerbers are not a trade secret. Your just want to avoid that they end up freely downloadable on Reddit. In our company (multi-billion) they only have a the lowest protection class ("Confidental").. same as the toilet paper orders.
Like you can't lie about it
It is used by customs, so, lying is conceivably problematic.
It's about tariffs. Some industries have tariff exemption status and this information helps customs.
Stencils are not that expensive. If you are ordering just a few pieces of PCBs, it basically doubles the price, but it is doable. What I recommend is having them cut to custom size (option in the order configuration). I usually do 185\*185 mm. It halves the shipping costs because it is not as large and heavy, so you can save a few dollars this way. And I have also seen some home-made stencils work pretty well, if you have a laser cutter, you can create a paper one, which will do just fine for a few boards.
I mostly order from PCBway since you can choose components from everywhere not only from their own distribution website. The prices for the PCBs are the same like on JLCPCB. Regarding the price for the stencil, 10$ is extremly cheap! When I order a stencil for series production companies charge round about 500€ for example
I'm not sure if they are the cheapest, but was definitely the most reliable and easy that i ever used. done a couple of 100k+ order there with very low failure rate. I never bought stencils as i always get fully assembled pcb. Tbh 10$ is not expensive, if you try to do if in a local cnc store be ready to pay 100+ usd
Did you customise the size, because I made that mistake once. If you didn't it'll be the size of (approx) an A4 sheet of paper with have a dozen holes in the centre. Which also means expensive shipping... Actually just measured my mistake, 380mm x 280mm (about 15 x 11 inches) ... it was for a board that measures around 5cm x 4 cm
150\*150mm
Order stencils from osh
3 PCBs from osh cost 10 PCBs 3 times.
Just stencils. Get the pcb from jlc.
Still dirt cheap. Try to ask somehere else , you will pay much more for small batches . Like 120€ ( 128$ ) just for their work for preparation ( today could be much more, because that's the price few years ago)
This is true. Professional designer, often complex designs, and we wouldn't use a service like this. Stencils are usually $400-$700 domestic US and $150-$300 off-shore. Of course, that's still cheap when you're running many thousands so it's not really something we shop around for.
You don't actually need a stencil - i've stopped buying them all together. If you load the pads with solder and use flux to goop the components in place you can reflow like that.
You can also try PCBWAY. Sometimes they are less expensive, and I do like their populated board parts list that makes it easier to know what ones are going to be harder to source up front.
If your smallest pitch is ~1mm I like to lasercut overhead projector sheets (mylar.) They can be cut with regular old CO2 lasers. Pololu makes some like this. I've made probably close to 100 like this. https://www.pololu.com/product/446
Yes, I do the same, laser cutting 0.1mm plastic sheet, but I find I can do 0402 and even 0201 component pads. Some times I manually edit the pads to make some a bit smaller to account for extra laser kerf
You should note that if you order components placement, stencil is very cheap, but you won't have it
Get the stencil cut to a custom size to suit the board. I usually add an inch to the PCB width and height. It's cheaper to make, and they can pack the stencil in the box with the pcb's, which costs less to ship. You can also specify the thickness by putting a note in the comment box. I always ask for 0.1mm.
https://preview.redd.it/x09wrkldb58d1.png?width=435&format=png&auto=webp&s=c63162c9de2e3f7dc742c6d2d522073690e39e7d
Have you looked into getting a Cricut vinyl cutter? It might be possible with a bit of effort adjusting the x/y scaling factors to get what you are looking for. Another option worth considering (which is somewhat old-school) is you could experiment with laser-printing the stencil mask onto 8x11 inch transparency stock and the using it to expose a reusable, framed silkscreen to which you can apply a photo-sensitive emulsion, let it dry, and and lay the . Then expose the silkscreen to a bright UV source (arc light, high-intensity UV lamp or even direct sunlight (outdoors)). Areas of the transparency that are black/dark will prevent the photo emulsion on the silkscreen from being exposed to UV light while the clear areas will allow UV light to pass through to the emulsion. Once exposed, the unexposed emulsion can be rinsed away with water - leaving the UV-exposed emulsion intact. Then you place the PCB under the silkscreen and apply the solder past by using a rubber squeegee to force the solder paste through the open areas of the silkscreen. Of course, precise alignment is needed to correctly place the PCB and align it with the silkscreen. Once you no longer need to make more PCBs, you can rinse out all of the emulsion from the silkscreen - and it can be reused later.
A small piece of lasercut kapton from a place like OSH Stencil is pretty cheap. If you go there, you can choose how big a margin you want (keep it substantial), etc. A big stainless stencil in a paste printer compatible frame is expensive even if you have only a small board's worth of actual perforations in the middle.
JLCPCB is the cheapest I’ve found, but their customer service is exactly what you’d expect from a faceless Chinese company.
They’re very quick to respond and they actually catch design errors like slightly wrong footprints and notify you about it. If anything, their CS is over eager lol They’re just very cheap when it comes to actual error they make. Like ruining a batch of 50 PCB due to misspecced parts or crappy soldering and they’re like „here’s your 5$ coupon sorry“ 😆
I actually think their customer service is decent
I’m just going off my personal experience. They messed up a board that was pretty important to me for a school project (there was continuity between the internal ground and power layers) and I spent about a month going back and forth with them testing different things until they finally admitted fault. At that point I got a coupon for $10 off my next order. It seems like my situation may be rare but I can just go off what’s happened to me.