How to Choose the Best PCB Manufacturer

If you, like Tech Consultant Zach Peterson, have made it publically known that you're a PCB Designer, chances are your inbox is flooded with offers from PCB Manufacturers begging for your business. How can you choose the best PCB Manufacturer for your next design? Zach walks through what you need to know.
0:00 Intro
0:35 Manufacturer Email Spam
2:05 Price?
3:10 Lead Time
4:59 NRE (Non-Recurring Engineering) Costs
5:52 Clearances
9:00 Quantity at Lead Time
13:00 Electrical Testing
13:50 Controlled Impedance
14:50 IPC Inspection Levels
15:15 UL Testing
15:48 Castellated Edges
16:20 Plated Edges
16:32 Plating Material
17:28 Via Fill/Via Plug
For more PCB Manufacturing videos, click here: • PCB Manufacturing
For more PCB Design for Beginners videos, click here: • PCB Design for Beginners
For more Technical Consultant Zach Peterson videos, click here: • Technical Consultant Z...
How to Choose PCB Plating for Your Finished Board: resources.altium.com/p/how-ch...
Design PCBs with a Free Trial of Altium Designer Here: www.altium.com/yt/altium-acad...
Download CircuitMaker Here: www.altium.com/circuitmaker/d...
Don't forget to follow us on social to stay up-to-date on the latest Altium Academy content.
Follow Altium on Twitter: / altium
Follow Altium on Linkedin: / altium
Follow Altium on Facebook: / altiumofficial
Ready to try the industry's best-in-class design experience yourself? Download it today and get started! www.altium.com/downloads
The Altium Academy is an online experience created to bring modern education to PCB Designers and Engineers all across the world. Here you can access a vast library of free training and educational content covering everything from basic design to advanced principles and step-by-step walkthroughs. Join industry legends as they share their career knowledge, review real-life design projects, or learn how to leverage one of Altium's leading design tools. No matter your level of experience, the Altium Academy can help you become a better Designer and Engineer!
About Altium LLC
Altium LLC (ASX:ALU), a global software company based in San Diego, California, is accelerating the pace of innovation through electronics. From individual inventors to multinational corporations, more PCB designers and engineers choose Altium software to design and realize electronics-based products.
#Altium #PCBdesign #PCBManufacturing

[@asmi06]

I also like to ask for a microsection sample. It usually doesn't add much to the price (some fabs do it for free), but it allows you to see and verify the actual stackup. And it looks cool 😎

[@Zachariah-Peterson]

I agree, microsection samples are cool!

[@kmacademy6742]

Can you please talk about circuit protection? A video on ESD, TVS and over current would be great.

[@Zachariah-Peterson]

Sure, I'll put together a good video with some examples!

[@shahriarfarmanesh9266]

What is the best solution for a pcba project that has normal and not very very strange components?
1. order PCB + component + assembly to one company?
2. Order pcb to one company, buy the component yourself and send them to a pcba factory?

[@Zachariah-Peterson]

If you ask the manufacturer to purchase the components for you they might mark up the bill of materials and charge you more. For prototypes or short runs, I prefer to handle component purchasing on my own and send them to the assembler. The fabricator will then also ship the finished boards to the assembler. For some products that are simpler and do not need a lot of testing or engineering review, we do everything with one company.

[@fedimakni1200]

Hello, thank you for these amazing series of videos, i have a question if that is possible.
Usually they tell you if you panelize boards so the production will become cheaper. I don't think that it's always true because some manufacturer have their standard size of panel so if you don't do the same size so it's not going to be much cheaper.
I don't think for 1000 pcs (for example) it will be that cheaper. Right?
Thank you again.

[@Zachariah-Peterson]

It is true that PCB manufacturers produce panels so that they can get higher throughput from their process. The low end of the manufacturing costs is fixed to the cost to produce a panel. Every manufacturer I've asked about this does not accept customer-supplied panels because customers will mess up the panels, so the fabricator will just make their own panel on their standard size. I know that some manufacturers do supply a panel template that you can use and it might have different standard sizes.

[@liudolores-pcbmanufacturer1720]

Thanks for your sharing,you are very professional,I am a PCB manufacturer from China,and I've worked for many years
in this field.If everybody have any question also can contact me,it is my pleasure to solve your design problem.

[@woutermelon]

I most commonly get “controlled impedance at no extra cost” spam

[@Zachariah-Peterson]

They're probably screwing it up 😂😂

[@fedimakni1200]

Buying the components by yourself or let the manufacturer buy them (which one is the cheapest) also i wonder if manufacturer really buy genuine components (especially passive components) which you cannot recognize their manufacturer.
So what do you need to do in that case?
Thank you again

[@Zachariah-Peterson]

Buying yourself is always cheapest when quantities are low, full turnkey with your assembler sourcing the components can result in 100% markup in some cases, so you're basically paying double. I prefer buying myself just because I don't want to pay them for that on a prototype run and because I can control which chips I might be getting as alternatives when stocks are low.
For volume production, it's sometimes a different story. The manufacturer I work with for volume jobs will handle a lot of the sourcing for passives and common ICs because they are already buying tape and reel, they might have (or they should have if they are a good company) a lot of the components you need for passives in stock unless it's specialized (for example, automotive-qualified). They don't hold a bunch of specialized ICs. Not all EMS companies will do this though.

[@liudolores-pcbmanufacturer1720]

I am a pcb manufacturer,and I can tell you it is more convenient to use the one-stop service,it can help you to save more time and you don't need to do anything,only release a order,then both pcb and assembly will be done.And you can compare the price and time of buying the components by yourself with through us to produce it,then you can know which one is cost-effective.

[@Zachariah-Peterson]

@@liudolores-pcbmanufacturer1720 Yeah I agree it is more convenient, but sometimes we will have procurement problems that force us to make an engineering decision about a board that the manufacturer is not prepared to make. We just can't risk having the boards getting scrapped when we have to make those last minute decisions about critical components (usually an IC with only 1 or 2 replacements). So in that case we consign those specific parts and let the assembly house deal with the other parts like I described above.