What I really would love is a JLCPCB equivalent in Europe. Slightly higher prices are OK, but I want to have the the Same amount of process automation and flexibility.
Should be good for a scale of a few thousend per year.
Hi! Have you every checked out aisler.net? In my opinion they do an amazing job, it's not quite JLCPCB prices, but maybe only 20% higher depending on what service you take, and they deliver faster since they are based in europe.
Their business model is pooling small orders and sending them to board fabs in europe, mainly germany and some in the east.
The job fee seems to include shipping, which makes it more reasonable. But Aisler's "estimated dispatch" for the budget service is Jan 26. That's 10 business days + shipping, making it not very competitive with JLCPCB's 10-15 business days including the slowest/cheapest shipping.
Express service adds ~20 EUR, roughly the same cost as picking DHL express delivery on JLCPCB.
Aisler is decent for bare boards, but their PCBA is several orders of magnitude more expensive due to the setup & handling fees. JLCPCB has this down to a science, with their preloaded (and therefore dirt-cheap) "basic parts" and pre-approved "extended parts" pulled directly from LCSC for a small fee.
On top of that they also offer 3D printing, CNC machining, sheet metal bending, and even a McMaster-Carr-like parts store. It is literally a one-stop-shop for all your hardware prototype needs.
Thank you for the hint. I tried but the pricing is a bit disappointing. I started with an LTE modem mini-PCIe card that contains a modem module and some simple components (coils, a voltage regulator, U.FL connector).
The offer from JLC for 1500 pieces (without the modem module) was 2000€ + Tax + Shipping, so way less than 3000€.
The comparable best offer from Eurocircuits was 11000€, so a factor of 4.
JLC can even be optimized further (e.g. panelizing, daves another 500€).
I hoped that I can produce here in europe with a maximum price factor of 2 in comparison to JLC which seems not be possible. It's cheaper for us to employ someone who manages JLC than producing in europe - especially when going to mass production.
For a lot of parts the exact details aren't crucial. If I'm using 4k7 0603 I2C pullup resistors I'm more than happy to swap them for 5k6 0402 if they just so happen to have a reel of those lying around and it means not having to wait two days for a restock.
Same with plenty of other parts. Maybe 10% is crucial, the rest can relatively easily be swapped out with whatever happens to be available. Transistor from a different manufacturer, generic level converter with two extra channels, LDO in a different package? If I know what is available, for a proto run I'm more than happy to make a few small changes!
I have been using them in the past, when I needed a board overnight. Problem is that they are prohibitively expensive. For the price of a couple of bare unpopulated boards I could get dozen boards populated (with parts priced in) from China and they would arrive at the same time. Once Brexit was fully implemented their shipping was slower than from China, so they lost all edges to me.
Their business model is pooling small orders and sending them to board fabs in europe, mainly germany and some in the east.