Join the discussion
Write your take first — we'll ask for email only when you're ready to publish.
- Hacker News
- > Now, the need for a domestic PCB supply chain is higher than ever before, yet the infrastructure has been dissolving over the last 2 decades. What is left is mostly small family run manufacturers (CMs) that have been operating in largely the same, labor intensive way since the early 2000’s.
Would really like to see you guys succeed. We definitely need more manufacturers in the US. But this isn't quite true. Not now, and I'm not sure it's ever been the case in the two decades plus that I've been in hardware. Apart from manufacturers like Sierra Circuits in the Bay Area and Advanced PCB in Colorado that have been around all of that time, we had Tempo (in SF then but no longer), and now have MacroFab (Houston) and CircutHub (also YC, somewhere on the East Coast I think).
by eaurouge - True, there are a few standout cases of larger CMs. Tempo was the poster child and they did a lot of things right. MacroFab and CircuitHub will be great competitors to have, and as stated in earlier threads we believe our edge will come from owning the entire stack from design to testing.by willcarkner
- If you can get to JLCPCB levels of automation (in their fab) and produce a better frontend experience (shouldn't be too hard, JLC's is awful but still one of the better ones) then that will be amazing! North America desperately needs something like this. Good luck!by bschwindHN
- I love to see new players in this space! We’ve done a ton of PCBA through Macrofab. My relationship with them goes back far enough to have been a beta customer and I’ve chatted on the phone with the CEO a few times. It’s interesting comparing what you’re offering and what they offer. When I started using them, the fact that you could just upload Eagle or KiCAD files, get an instant quote, and verify MPN/BOM and parts placement online… without having to zip up and email Gerbers was extraordinary. Their lead-time is longer than yours, around 3 weeks, but the pricing has always kinda hit a sweet spot.
I noticed your KiCAD plugin there too. I am super curious to see what your workflow and pricing looks like. There are definitely times when the 7-day turnaround will be a game changer for us.
I guess one gate there: do you ship to Canada? We do have a US branch that could do the export-import for us, but way easier if we don’t have to route it through them as far as end-to-end delivery time goes.
by tonyarkles - Thanks for the feedback. We can ship to Canada, haven't done it yet, but open to it!by willcarkner
- > Suddenly we were spending 90% of our time assembling circuit boards instead of growing the business
> When you look at the full process, you realize that assembly is not the bottleneck.
I’m confused, which one is it?
I assume the growth story isn’t great when you factor in the non-automatable tasks and big capital outlays, so your product leaves that to existing CMs and scales the software stack instead?
Do you see this product as being beneficial to subcontractors (presumably still doing the 90% manual work), or does this legitimately reduce the actual workload/costs at the production level?
by montyanne - Sorry for the confusion, our time was spent doing manual work because we didn't have much automation at all. For the industry, assembly is not the biggest immediate bottleneck, with it being quite commodotized. However, we plan to open an automated assembly facility in the next few months to take stronger advantage of our front-of-house automations.by willcarkner
- This would be incredible for innovation if we can bring this back domestically. It's very hard given lack of raw materials and the supply chain around it often also requires robust network but hopefully this spurs something.
This is something that takes real expertise though, kind of a moonshot for an inexperienced team unfortunately. Would be cool if had mission driven backers otherwise will just end up being hobbyist material. Relying on defense (bubble?) gives at least some breathing room as not actually competing against china for better prices.
by bfeynman - Agreed. For this to work the entire supply chain has to support it. There are starts like mouser and digikey, but the raw materials and production capabilities are even more important.
We believe starting with defense will give us capabilities that we can then bring to other verticals, and will help us make optimizations that bring the cost down. It's impossible to beat china off the bat though.
by willcarkner - When you say PCB at the beginning are you referring to raw PCBs or PCBAs? Presumably your service will be sourcing raw PCBs from China still and just doing PCBA?
When my pal’s raw PCB company went out of business, you could buy a finished PCB from China for less than the cost of FR4, which also came from China. How do you intend to address this supply chain risk? Once China raises your cost of raw PCBs your price argument no longer works.
Also, are you sourcing components from US sources or using China? Recently I stopped purchasing from Digikey and Mouser because their services are much slower than they used to be, and I now get components much faster and for lower cost in China.
by bloggie - We source PCBs from both China and USA. Some of our customers want incredibly fast turn where Chinese shipping times don't cut it.
> How do you intend to address this supply chain risk?
Haven't yet figured it out. Options are opening bare board fabs or partnering with US fabs and panelizing orders.
by willcarkner - I hope you guys are successful because I would love to see more US options in this space. Realistically, you can get boards in 7 days from China, and competing with them on price seems like a challenge. So that leaves ITAR and people who need boards even faster. Sounds like that’s where you’re focusing your energy already. What pick and place are you using now that you’ve moved on from the Neoden world?by jpatten
- Yes that's where we're putting our energy right now. We do most of our assembly with CMs now, but looking at Juki when we open our facility.by willcarkner
- Love the energy, but I can hardly believe the title "Proven Metals" because your website does not stand up to basic scrutiny:
1) First issue: I do not know what your manufacturing constraints are for PCBs...the number of layers is not documented. I don't even know if you support FlexPCBs.
2) I suppose I could figure out if you could make my boards in seven days if I played your upload game...but I should have to do that. Even the following site, with its clunky UI, makes it more clear what they can or can't do: https://quickturnpcb.co.kr/
3) You say you ship "tested" boards, but what does that mean? Firmware testing? Emissions testing? If you ultimately choose the MPNs, does that mean you own the failures if the board doesn't come up?
4) It's not clear if you accept consigned parts. It's not even clear if you are properly storing the parts you are kitting with respect MSL, ESD, etc.
5) In the end, what makes you any different from a typical broker like Millenium Circuits Limited? (Not that I am endorsing them, as I have had terrible experience from them as well)
6) If you are owning testing and promising quick turnarounds, I would assume you are actually shipping test fixtures to the CM before they ship so they can rework if necessary. But again unclear from your description
by codehero - 1) Well noted, we are working on fixing that 2) Agreed, fixed with 1) 3) We should be more clear about testing. We offer a range of tests (in house x-ray, functional, bring-up) that we should show more clearly. 4) This will be made more clear on the site 5) We don't aim to be a broker in the end. We aim to own the whole stack. This is how we start. 6) True, we do in-house testing and rework, which should be more clear on the site.by willcarkner
- This is an exciting project! My main feedback: you can definitely tell the website content is AI-generated. It's okay to vibe code the design, but I really hesitate when I see vibed writing.by stopachka
- You're right, putting more attention to that now.by willcarkner
- I ran a hardware startup for about a decade. We ended up doing all PCB assembly in China. We did try to find this in the USA, but it was indeed too slow and expensive.
The bottleneck in assembling a PCB is usually component sourcing. My product was not the most complicated, and even then, to assemble in Shenzhen, China, it often took a few weeks to get all the components.
The core issue here is that latency is determined by the outliers. Assembly can't start until you have all units, and the hardest to source one is the bottleneck!
To me, the core innovation here is to plug into the design software to source these long tail items ahead of time.
It's pretty interesting that usually when the PCB is being designed, the designer has no awareness of supply chain. They'll bake in a chip that has a 4 week lead time without even realizing it, when a similar component might be one cent more expensive with much faster lead time.
- Is there an opportunity for the design software to suggest alternatives to avoid those long wait time for certain components. E.g. you could also use that kind of capacitor and it is available in 24h.by hahahaa
Well, you’re asking for a design that boils down to a single channel downconverting I/Q ADC for 21.4 MHz IF, how many such products do you think there are? The ones by TI have been discontinued, your FPGA has no budget to do it and you don’t want one with more oumph so ADI it is … and Mouser says they have 800 on order, so that’s our only option.the designer has no awareness of supply chain.by chicken-stew- Not to negate your core points but almost all the HW engineers I've worked with who are experienced absolutely consider sourcing and availability in the decision making process.
It was a reason years ago Maxim's ICs were almost always on a "never design in" list since obtaining them was near impossible in reasonable time frames.
Most "seasoned" HW engineers who are working lower volumes verify availability with distributors and for high-volume (i.e. 100K units+/yr) work with sourcing people internal to company to get commitments for key ICs.
by vrinsd - This is our first step to work more closely with the designer throughout the process.
Currently there's a wall between the designer and the manufacturer, which hurts lead times massively, we're aiming to bring that down.
by willcarkner - Any idea what pricing will be like? The fact that you call out Drone and Defense industries on your page suggests to me this is extremely expensive.
I recently priced out getting a PCB done in China and its insanely cheap. My design isnt complicated, a few ICs, a few connectors, an a dozen or so passives. PCB manufacturing, parts, and soldering/assembly is on the order of $10-20 total per board and that is with zero volume discounts. The parts alone would cost that much in the US, and I suspect the sort of companies that you contract out to also aren't really interested in tiny orders so they would probably quote huge setup fees (looks like your average order so far is ~$7000).
by ac29 - medium to large defence companies tend to have in house board fabs. I worked in one.by cryo32
- Drones and defense have nothing to do with expense. It is 100% about getting on the approved vendor list, at which point the prices go up.
It’s not like PCB boards in the defense industry are somehow special, though they probably should be.
by irishcoffee - This is essentially the problem with a lot of US fabs. Many exist only as a technicality for the defense industry to make things domestically. This means they get the "$1,000 hammer" margins. When you approach them for a prototype, they essentially don't want your business.by MSFT_Edging
- It will definitely be expensive, and if you raised any eyebrow, you will get “made in the US” remarks immediately. Regarding “drone”, it’s a buzz word, in the past two years everyone is piggy backing on it like how all industries did with “crypto” years ago and “cyber” years before, or others with “AI” in software world now, “drone” is the word for hardware related, any new product or startup that has hardware involved, you will see this word quickly. I hate it and I hate how they ruined this amazing hobby with all their corporate defense BS, but oh well.by tamimio
- I'll hijack this point to talk about robotics - I think we agree 1) It's not ideal for China to control production for _all_ of the things we use here.
2) What they already are good at they'll continue to improve at, because of domain knowledge & ecosystem
3) The reason they are ahead in the first place is labor cost & the QOL workers will tolerate (and intentional government investment)
4) The only way around this is for the US to invest into robotics (labor) & subsidize american manufacturing (ecosystem)
by ford - It's also the immense know-how Chinese manufacturers have accumulated at this point. For a 5-piece hobby order $25 shipped, I got feedback confirming a wrong-looking part of my design before they printed.by makeset
- Yes, pricing is much higher than China over here, mainly due to the non-existent support for high-mix low-volume work. NRE adds a lot, and so the prices are high right now. This is why we need to own the stack, optimize for high-mix, and drive down costs over time. It will take a lot of work.by willcarkner