[time-nuts] Low-Cost 6+ GHz Prescaler board for HP/Agilent 53181A/53131A/53132A

[Hal Murray]

david.partridge at dsl.pipex.com said:
> I just looked into getting some assembly houses to price  for supply and fit
> of just the SMD parts of my frequency divider design.  The first one came in
> this afternoon, and was so huge I almost had a heart attack!   Over GBP50
> per board. 

That doesn't seem off scale to me.

Paperwork and setup are expensive and you aren't making enough boards to 
spread that cost very far.

There are a lot of details in modern board assembly.  If you screw something 
up the boards might not work, or worse, they will be unreliable.

I'd expect there to be two types of assembly houses.  The good ones will 
consistently do everything right and be correspondingly expensive.

Some companies will try for low(er) cost.  I don't know what corners they are 
going to cut.  A lot of the details may not apply to your particular board.  
So the trick is to find somebody targeting your type of board (and quantity).


-- 
These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's.  I hate spam.