Wow, this looks familiar...

[linnfomaniac83]

I was talking to an EE mate a few days ago and he recommended to me a Chinese PCB fab house of seemingly amazing capabilities and unbelievable price. Further questioning and online checks of my own backed it up as being "for real".
We are talking apparently top quality PCB's where they supply a finished PCB of the right size for a SS phono stage for around 50p each!! This is fully inclusive of set up fee's for the processing machinery etc (labour to program the machinery etc etc)!! The postage is more than the cost of 10 finished PCB's and he assures me he's used them several times and everything is as good as claimed... Yep they make you 10 finished PCB's for £5! This includes them doing the Gerbers and drill rack files for you! You would usually have to do this yourself and provide the files for these to your PCB maker.

How does that compare to the UK? It would cost me something like £3.50 each just to buy BLANK copper clad PCB boards of that size which have not yet been processed for a start! And more like double that for one's pre treated with photo resist, a necessary part of the process. This is if getting them from somewhere like RS to make the PCB's at home.... a thankless task which one wouldn't really attempt these days but useful for illustrative purposes.

A UK PCB house would charge something like £5 - £8 per board plus a set up fee of about £120 (ISH!! could be half or double that but you get the idea) and a bit more for double sided boards. The Chinese ones are double sided...

Would I use these Chinese PCB companies? Would I f**k!!

I use PCBWay and have no problem with them at all, I do just send them the gerber (which my friend creates because I’m an IT klutz and find the software way too clunky)… the boards are inexpensive and they’re top quality. I give no clues as to component values and part numbers so no chance of my designs falling into the wrong hands.

Some parts I have to buy from China, I could buy them from UK suppliers but they buy them from the same Chinese suppliers that I do, so I’d just be giving them a big portion of my profit.

 

[Arkless Electronics]

I use PCBWay and have no problem with them at all, I do just send them the gerber (which my friend creates because I’m an IT klutz and find the software way too clunky)… the boards are inexpensive and they’re top quality. I give no clues as to component values and part numbers so no chance of my designs falling into the wrong hands.

Some parts I have to buy from China, I could buy them from UK suppliers but they buy them from the same Chinese suppliers that I do, so I’d just be giving them a big portion of my profit.

I wouldn't take the chance. IF I ever use PCB's I'll pay a local company £200 rather than a Chinese one £5. If there's any left who haven't been put out of business by the Chinese that is!

 

[linnfomaniac83]

I wouldn't take the chance. IF I ever use PCB's I'll pay a local company £200 rather than a Chinese one £5. If there's any left who haven't been put out of business by the Chinese that is!

To be fair, I used to work for the local one, as an engineer, I designed permanent fixes on some of their machinery that they’d battled with for years, I saved them a massive amount of money and down time, and that wasn’t my main job, I used to stay behind after hours and strip, modify and fix stuff for them after I’d done my day job. I was employed to do the artwork for PCBs and stencils, they outsourced my job to save a few quid, so they can get screwed. The original owner was a lovely guy and I got on great with him… he retired and handed the reigns down to his tosser of a son, who’s an accountant… he just saw my salary as an unnecessary expense rather than recognising the significant value I brought to the business.

 

[Arkless Electronics]

To be fair, I used to work for the local one, as an engineer, I designed permanent fixes on some of their machinery that they’d battled with for years, I saved them a massive amount of money and down time, and that wasn’t my main job, I used to stay behind after hours and strip, modify and fix stuff for them after I’d done my day job. I was employed to do the artwork for PCBs and stencils, they outsourced my job to save a few quid, so they can get screwed. The original owner was a lovely guy and I got on great with him… he retired and handed the reigns down to his tosser of a son, who’s an accountant… he just saw my salary as an unnecessary expense rather than recognising the significant value I brought to the business.

Often the way unfortunately.

 

[Roog]

The difficulty is that it is now almost impossible to make anything more complex than a wooden stool without using Chinese-made materials and components.

I make a carbon fibre tone-arm. Could I find a UK manufacturer of carbon-fibre stock? No. Every firm which put up the appearance of being a UK source was actually getting it from you-know-where.

Then there's cost. The difference in cost of produced parts is the difference between running a viable business or not bothering because nobody can afford your product. We are now the 2nd World.

That may be so, I used to work in manufacturing too, we made almost everything from raw materials and UK suppliers and our customers would cite us as making 'Rolls Royce' like products as a bad thing. If we are to be a successful country which is respected for the products we produce we have to own these issues. I agree it isn't easy, far from it, but if we (the UK) care, we have to move towards this position. It requires a change in attitudes from politicians, financiers, landowners and the prospective workforce to decide what we want as our future, beholden to other developing nations or being a valued brand ourselves.

No doubt it would be a brave move to take and a long game, but things won't get better if we continue on this "cheap is better" approach.