JLCPCB Assembly Service – A Tiny Review

[gophert]

I e used the jlcpcb assembly service several times now and also amazed - unfortunately, I cannot share the photos. They are quite pragmatic, they simply skip the parts that are out of stock instead of delaying shipment (basic or extended parts).

They are willing to discuss adding parts to their extended list if they don't have something similar but it is not fast.

Also, they just raised their max number of assembled boards from 30 per order to 50 per order. They consider an "assembled board" as a full panel If you do the panelization yourself and no component names are duplicated. That is, LED2 cannot appear twice because of panelization so you have to be creative and careful.

if you place enough orders, they start giving coupons for various services - free assembly ($3 surcharge for each extended part), $5 off total order, free shipping, etc. I recently has an order for $48 with DHL shipping before coupons that came down to $12 after coupons and discounts.

 

[Visitor]

I wonder if the reference designator needs to appear on the board. Say the original board has LEDs 1 – 9. Could the second board have LED11 – 19, with the labels on the board saying 1 – 9? (i.e., don't put the reference designator on the board, but put text labels instead.

 

[gophert]

I wonder if the reference designator needs to appear on the board. Say the original board has LEDs 1 – 9. Could the second board have LED11 – 19, with the labels on the board saying 1 – 9? (i.e., don't put the reference designator on the board, but put text labels instead.

I haven't tried that, I just went with the flow and used LED 11-16 on the first board then LED21-26 for board2, and so on.

 

[Visitor]

That's actually what Eagle does (or at least used to do) for panelling. All of the reference designators from the original board are copied to a new silk layer, then the board duplicated with the new layer showing instead of reference designators.

 

[MrDEB]

no reply to post #39

 

[gophert]

no reply to post #39

no real question in post 39. Do you mean post #40?

 

[Visitor]

no reply to post #39

It wasn't entirely clear who you were asking what.

If you are referring to my cost breakdown in post #39, the sum total is for ten assembled boards of 73mm × 73mm. The largest cost item is the three INA226 ICs on each board, where account for the majority of the component cost. They were a bit over a buck a piece. At Digikey, they are over $3 each, so I'm happy.

The down side of having boards assembled is that you're paying to populate them all, so if they turn out not to be useful, you've wasted a lot of $$.

Something I learned this time was that JLC has a web page of basic and extended parts, which makes it a little easier to search for allowable parts.

Please keep in mind the following:

"Basic" parts – you pay only the component price

"Extended" parts – you pay the component price + a $3 setup fee

Component is not on the "basic" or "extended" list – there will be an empty footprint when your boards arrive.



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