[time-nuts] OT stuffing boards: was GPS interface/prototyping board

[Bob Camp]

Hi

Around here, assuming:

1) You supply all the parts on full reels with leaders 
2) There is no hand assembly work
3) You already have framed stencils that are the correct size for their gear
4) You have multiple proper solder and placement fiducials  on both sides
5) The boards are designed to mount on their gear
6) Your parts and design rules fit their gear and rules. 
7) No electrical test, visual inspect only. 
8) Best effort only, If the part does not solder etc, you replace it on your time.

You can get various places to look at a batch for $500 to $1000. If your stencils !=
their stencils figure $100 to $200 each. 

If you want to ship things a ways, you can save a bit of money. Shipping plus packing 
always seems to be a bit expensive. 

By far the best approach is to get all of their rules before you start a board layout. Then
do it in whatever arrays / panel size they are set up for and all the other little details. 

This all starts to make a lot more sense to the local outfits when you are talking a few hundred boards. 
Even more so if it is a few hundred boards a month, every month for a few years. 

====

Some math:

120 parts on 10 boards is 1200 parts. A good machine will do that in < 6 minutes. Setting up the machine, 
loading and unloading the machine, pulling boards on and off the machine, programming the whole thing, 
validating everything ….. that’s an afternoon’s worth of work (maybe more) and maybe an hour of down time
on the machine. 

====

Of course for a few thousand dollars you can buy your own pick and place machine …. 

Bob

 
> On Jun 23, 2016, at 3:28 PM, Bob Stewart <bob at evoria.net> wrote:
> 
> One more related question before this topic dies, if you don't mind.  What about the other side of building: stuffing the boards.  My GPSDOs have about 120 parts per board, plus some custom work on the SMA connectors.  Is there a service out there that will populate boards with SMT components for small orders at a reasonable price?  Small is 10 boards.
> 
> Bob - AE6RV
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> GFS GPSDO list:
> groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/GFS-GPSDOs/info
> 
> --------------------------------------------
> On Wed, 6/22/16, Clint Jay <cjaysharp at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Subject: Re: [time-nuts] RS232 / GPS interface/prototyping board
> To: "Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement" <time-nuts at febo.com>, "Nick Sayer" <nsayer at kfu.com>
> Date: Wednesday, June 22, 2016, 6:06 PM
> 
> Life is so much easier
> now,  dirtypcb is a great service,  I have a pile of
> boards here from them which are far greater
> quality than anything I could
> hope to
> produce at home or even in the lab I used to have. 
> They're also
> better quality than any of
> the local board houses I used in the past.
> 
> Having said that,  I did hand
> manufacture fifty single sided boards from
> photo laminate to completed product in one
> weekend using a Dremel drill
> press for
> somewhere around four thousand holes and hand soldering
> every
> component so it was definitely
> possible
> On 23 Jun 2016 00:01, "Nick
> Sayer via time-nuts" <time-nuts at febo.com>
> wrote:
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