[time-nuts] Ublox 8T

[Matthias Welwarsky]

On Mittwoch, 9. Dezember 2020 23:58:51 CET Bob kb8tq wrote:
> One note: JLPCB is the only “fab + assembly” outfit I’ve tried. Their boards
> are no better / no worse than a lot of other board fab outfits. I have no
> idea how they compare to other assembly houses. My selection criteria: “
> are they the cheapest I can find?” 

Currently, you will not find any other fab+assembly service that is as cheap 
and requiring (almost) no human intervention. For protoype runs with two to 
five boards assembled there is no competition. I'd say even for 50 boards 
there isn't.

The JLCPCB PCBs are ok, the biggest letdown is the solder mask. It's just 
plain bad. It flakes off on the tiniest rub with a hot iron.

The biggest obstacle for sure is the limited parts catalog. They have a decent 
assortment of passives but almost all active parts come from the "extended" 
listing (extra cost, 10 uniques only) and they may not stock the footprint you 
want to use, and the wildly fluctuating inventory.

I'm treating them mainly as a layer of convenience. I let them place all the 
boring passives and maybe a few common actives, but I don't go out of my way 
to design along their catalog only, knowing that they might not have stock of 
all the parts anyway when I order the boards.