I’ve designed several mcpcb’s recently. And with tariffs being what they are, thought I’d go with an American company to manufacture them.
I reached out to San Francisco Circuits for a quote. First, they kept getting the order wrong. (And even this quote still isn’t correct, it’s 1oz instead of 2oz and HASL instead of ENIG). Then they came back with this insane price.
How would you react?
It’s a quote. Take it or leave it.
I’d leave it.
Oh, I definitely left it!
A lot of companies deliberately do that to weed out “small timers” and only deal with huge companies with huge orders.
There was a company (Elco?) that made thermostats (little clicky things the size of a Canada Mint) where the 1-9 price was 100bux each, then 75bux each for 10-50, 50bux each up to 100, and only slow reductions in price until you get to 10k or more. Not exact numbers, of course, but close to it.
Actual thermostats sold for pennies each, or at least nickels.
Yeah, no. Even looked up distributors instead, and looked for brands other than theirs. Ended up getting a bunch from some surplus joint for like 10 for 5bux.
You’re probably their only customer who wanted copper core right now, so you pay for the entire sheet, the entire setup fee, and all the employees working on this process for you alone.
Chinese factories have sufficient customers for pretty much every process that they can throw small orders somewhere in on the leftover borders of a sheet filled by others, so you’re only paying for the PCB area you actually need, and little to no setup fees.
That’s the messed up part. 30 is nowhere near a full sheet. It’s actually more than 400 at 20mm each. I was willing to go much higher than 30 and possibly even pay for a full sheet, if the price was right. But this is nowhere near right. And it’s still not even up to the spec I requested.
Spite pricing as mentioned because they’re probably set up for serving industry where a 5-figure PO is standard and there exists the possibility of repeat production runs.
They need to use a whole sheet, whether you take 5 or 400, though. So unless another customer gets 370, you will have to pay for the whole sheet/setup anyway.
I offered to purchase a whole sheet! They’re the ones who came back with 30. I did not select that.
If a company is dead set on hostile gatekeeping, (getting your estimate wrong multiple times), I would avoid them. If they can’t even be trusted to at least account for simple details, they CANNOT be trusted to deliver a paid product. Are they buying all chinese components and raw materials or something?
Question is if they have any factories on their own, or if they are actually just a broker that might outsource to China.
If they have their own fabs or outsource to the US, the raw materials will be locally sourced. Different regions have different prepreg thicknesses etc, so I doubt they are sourced internationally and will source from US prepreg/core makers.
This is also a pain if your PCB requires fixed core/prepared sizes because of matched impedances, and you want to move production between EU, US and CN - they will most likely not be able to source your material thicknesses or have to set up a dedicated production road for you alone with imported materials (which costs a fortune, obviously).
In my post on Reddit, someone commented that they work with this company quite a bit and knows that they outsource.
I’m wondering if they’re charging you for the sheet in your protos, then using the rest of your sheet if you decide to move forward with production. Could be a case of simple misunderstanding, BESIDES the fact that they quoted you wrong. I’d be pissed if a company were using sheet that I footed the bill for to supply other customers.
According to a quick google, one company is selling 0.08" copper in a 3’×4’ sheet for just over $1,000. HYPOTHETICALLY, IF they account losses on 1 inch diameter, that sheet could get you anywhere from 250-300 pieces depending on the cut. So, $1,000/30 =~ $30 a core, not including machining and padding. Add their markup and logistics, that’s likely how they get their stupidly high figure. Now, if you took that same $1,000, but ÷ 300, you get a much lower cost per core, (but they shouldn’t be double billing you for the copper IF they already charged you for it the first time) so that’s like $33 off each subsequent bulk core, at least. The machining and padding still need to be done and compliance tested,so they MIGHT be able to give you a bulk rate, but the units would probably have to be in the thousands.
I’m not getting the prototypes from them. I’ve already gotten them from Oshpark and everything checks out (I had mentioned this to them earlier in the email chain). I’m only looking to make a run of production mcpcb’s.
Either way, I have a couple of other places to check out. If nothing else, I’ll be going through PCBWay as they can get it exactly to the specs I’m wanting
Then, with all due respect AND IN JEST, you’re just too small to be worth anyone’s time >.> peasant.
For real though, definitely go with a company who gives you the same mutual respect as they’d give anyone else.
It’s all fun!
What are you hoping to achieve by making a spectacle out of this?
Point out this company who appears to be taking advantage of consumers. Get others opinions of the situation. Gather info for myself that others are sharing.
Do you feel I’m wrong for doing so?
Taking advantage how?
You go to them with a problem and say “how much to solve my problem?” They say “it’ll cost this much for us to solve your problem.”
That’s it. You can accept their offer, or negotiate, or find someone else who is willing to offer to solve your problem.
Either way it is entirely voluntary. It is just business. You have not been taken advantage of.
It is definitely poor etiquette. Private business correspondence and transactions are in general conducted in private. A lot of business correspondence will include a confidentiality statement saying that the message is confidential in nature and intended for the recipient only. Talking about it privately with peers is one thing, but intentionally blowing it up all over social media? That’s wild.
