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Guidelines On How To Lower The Price Of PCB Prototype Manufacturing

By: Gunter Fellbaum

Getting your new electronic product design prepared for mass assembly and PCB assembly requires many steps and challenges. I will give several suggestions about how to eliminate costly errors and how to minimize the time to market for your new product designs.

Once you have completed your product and PCB design, you want to get started building prototypes before you commit to large assembly volume. Several design software packages including PCB layout design software and industrial design software have simulation capabilities built in. Performing simulations will require some extra time. However, the results often will discover mistakes in your design. Minimizing the amount of errors in your design will simplify attaining the required reliability of your prototypes more quickly plus in the end save you time.

One plan to speed up sample optimization is working with a modular design. A modular design will concentrate essential features of your design in particular parts which are interchangeable. During your sample optimization you can then rebuild individual modules that do not yet meet your reliability requirements rather than having to improve your whole design. Swapping a single module will be relatively cost effective. Moreover, performance characterization of modules will be quicker than characterizing the whole design.

PCB components are often assembled manually throughout the prototype stage despite the fact that this option is time consuming. To get better-quality boards and to avoid problems with particular components which are difficult to mount consider outsourcing the sample assembly. That may also save you some time.

When doing small-quantity manufacturing runs, the production setup cost is going to typically dominate the total sample build cost. When looking for a subcontractor, it is best to pick a supplier that specializes in sample builds to reduce the cost. Because prototype PCB suppliers mix boards from several customers, you will typically only have a limited selection of board materials and thicknesses when using a PCB prototyping service.

When looking for a supplier, you should though not focus on low setup costs only. Choosing a vendor that can also run production quantity runs later on will avoid many pitfalls during the production stage since the sample data can easily be reused. This way your design is already translated into the exact machine files which means small or no setup cost for your final assembly.

Some PCB manufacturers also can assist you throughout the design by offering in-house PCB design. If you are not very experienced in the design, you might want to consider choosing such a vendor. Such a supplier can also much more simply and much more quickly resolve design-related difficulties.

Component purchasing is a main problem when assembling prototypes as a consequence of the small volume and the freight expense and minimum order quantity requirements of some vendors. Small quantities of SMT parts are difficult to assemble by automatic equipment since they ordinarily do not come in reels. Some suppliers carry inventory of commonly used SMT parts which you can buy which will save you the time of buying these components yourself and also eliminates wasting unused components.

It is smart to select a supplier that also can do the manufacturing and inspecting of the finished products. This will save a lot of time during the assembly. Also, defective-product circuit boards can be fixed in house. Good quality communications with your supplier is crucial since it will help avoid expensive delays and mistakes during all steps of the PCB assembly and finished product manufacturing.

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