Can't wait to see how quickly I can get boards next time I need a batch! The adage 'hardware is hard' is getting less true every day
Seems to me that Shenzen still wins at least for the non-USA world.
Plus if you can get someone on the phone there can be value in that.
And if a sales engineer comes out and sees your operation you might get more than a free lunch…
Meanwhile as a hobbyist I'd be glad for the discount "we will get around to it sometime in the next two weeks discount"
Still, looks super cool and I don't think the price difference is very high for a company doing prototypes.
A supply chain that also comes from Shenzhen... last time I checked, North America doesn't make chips or other components either.
Being mindful of wages is great, but eventually you have to accept that creating a job at a less than ideal wage is better than not creating any job at all. If the pay is not enough then you’ll get the signal through being unable to hire because workers are taking better paying jobs.
An unintuitive feature of the job market is that creating more low paying jobs actually puts upward pressure on wages. Ideally the low end of the job market should be saturated with job opportunities, which creates a situation where employers have to compete with each other to raise wages to find and retain employees, which means pay goes up for everyone.
So don’t let worries about not being able to pay as much as you’d like get in the way of paying anyone at all. The alternative (less jobs, more outsourcing) is worse in every way.
For the employee, maybe. For the employer, it depends on how much time/money you have to put into training and what turnover is. Paying non-living wages leads to high(er) turnover because people will leave for anything better.
The fix is you will just have to buy American and pay higher prices for higher "living wages". There's no way around it besides taxes or tariffs on foreign goods to equalize the wage/price difference (which does have some down sides).
I buy American and western-made products as much as possible, and I pay higher prices (assuming high quality) for those higher wages. If you want low cost, you can't by definition support "living wages".
There's no "oh if only the CEO makes less" way around it either. Labor is simply more expensive in the west and will remain so and you can vote with your wallet, as I do, or you can pay people less than living wages.
I'd imagine that just because they've decided it's good enough to go public with it, doesn't mean it's done getting better. Or that someone else can't do it better, now that it's been shown to work.
seddona•2d ago
Teknomadix•2d ago
A domestic PCB manufacturing pipeline, has been a pipe dream for me an many other Hardware startup EEs for a long time. Until costs are more competitive, CN still gets the business. Hope you can bring costs for small batch prototype PCB manufacturing down further in the future, then you will have our business!
seddona•1d ago
Ccecil•1d ago
Currently, all assembly is done in house (in the US) but bare PCBs typically are still made in CN. We used to produce everything overseas and just do the QA/test in the US but during the chip shortage I ended up setting up the production line to attempt to eliminate any possible shortages/tariffs.
It is a difficult struggle manufacturing commercial products in the US (doubly so with an openhardware project) since the final cost is the major blocker but I decided it was worth it for many reasons. Big issue though is knowing that even if I pay someone 2x the going rate for an employee it still will not be a living wage. Not sure the fix there. I see you are planning to lean heavily on automation/AI for this, will be watching to see how it all progresses.
There are still some major blockers in the US. Commercial/Industrial real estate being a big one. Costs are not going down...even if employee count is minimized.
I wish nothing but the best for the project.
yhjc2692•1d ago
Ccecil•1d ago
Making boards for the Smoothieware/Smoothieboard project. [1]
Mostly small SMT stuff on there. 0402, BGA, etc.
[1]https://github.com/Smoothieware/Smoothieboard2
Aurornis•56m ago
doughecka•1d ago
Curious, why are surface mount USB-C connectors not able to be done as part of the surface mount components (treated as a through hole I think)? Too fiddly?
clickok•1h ago
dukeyukey•1h ago
gedy•37m ago
The app feels very vibe-coded, and gives impression it's not well tested and polished for a new user/project.
I appreciate PCBs aren't the usual the consumer-level type of user, but I felt confused by a lot compared to JLCPCB. Hope that helps.
rancar2•33m ago
Also, one question to pick your team’s brain: What’s your team’s AI PCB workflow and design tips to work with your production line? Any specific tips for ESP32-related integrations?
venusenvy47•10m ago