Group order of printed circuit boards - myths and reality

I wanted to organize a community of amateur electronics, collect project boards from them, combine them into group blanks and order them in production. The essence of the idea is obvious - due to the fact that the preparation of production is divided into all it turns out a decent savings. Even if you throw a small commission expenses for the organization. I think many electronics engineers visited the idea of ​​creating such a service.

Life cruelly taught me a lesson. In fact, the necessary minimum of restrictions to ensure tangible benefits turned out to be MUCH more than I expected. In the end, I did not succeed. We, of course, collected and launched one order. All financial calculations and technical subtleties under the cut.

Who needs it

I have a lot of non-commercial just-for-fun projects and I, of course, the Jedi of a laser iron, but anyway, I even wanted to use “real” boards in such handicrafts, with mask and metallization. First of all, I wanted to organize such a service so that I myself would have been cheaper to order fees.
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Secondly, my scheme could be of interest to lovers who, like me, have nowhere to wait for funding. Hackspaces, freelancers, clubs and my students very much supported the initiative.

Thirdly, such boards can be ordered to check the design of the future module in hardware. I have repeatedly ordered the prototypes of commercial products, laying out a substantial amount of money, despite the fact that I had to roll a couple of copies before a large lot was ordered.

I will not hide the fact that I was counting on, if not on the commercial benefits from this whole event, then at least on compensation for my labor costs.

Method limitations

I decided to make a group blank only five pieces each. That is, customers had the opportunity to order fees only in a multiple of five.

Technical specifications of the board are the same for everyone.

I chose urgent production of boards (about one week), but before that there is an unpredictable time to collect the order. Looking ahead, I say that it took a little less than three weeks to collect the first order.

The first steps

For a start, we decided on the technical characteristics of the board:

• two-layer PP
• minimum clearance - 0,24mm
• minimum conductor width - 0,24mm
• material thickness - 1.5mm
• foil thickness - 35 microns
• minimum hole - 0.6mm
• edge processing - milling

I made a table and sent it to manufacturers asking them to fill in prices. The table summarized the options for board size and mask / silk-screen printing. In response, I received various offers, but one of them was the most profitable. Here is the table with prices (in rubles):

Dimensions	100x200	200x200	200x300
Without mask and marking	1800	2200	2600
Masked, unlabeled	3200	3700	4300
With mask and marking	6000	6600	7200

Prices instilled in me hope for the success of the enterprise. I chose the option 200x200 with a mask, without silk-screen printing, and set to work.

To start, I created a group in contact. I will give a link to it at the end of the article, when you realize that this is not an advertisement and I am not inviting you to join it. In the group, I laid out the TTX boards and information about the group order scheme.

The cost I calculated based on the area of ​​the board - 1200rub / dm2. Not the total area of ​​five boards, namely the area of ​​the board in the project. This meant that, for example, five 50x50 boards would cost the customer 300 rubles! If you order yourself you have to pay at least 700 rubles for the preparation. In other words, the prices were very nice.

It is easy to calculate what to collect for the manufacture of a group order I wanted 4,600 rubles. My profit would be 4600-3700-overhead.

Order picking

After a small PR campaign among my friends in the community, there were more than a hundred subscribers, and I began to collect the order. I must say that I agreed with the manufacturer to provide Gerber files. That is, all the preliminary processing had to be done to me.

Every few days I spent the evening working with other people's projects. By the way, I chose the Layout for preparation, as it is free and most fans use it. On the preparation of the group project, you can write a separate article. I felt like a technology company! A lot of approvals, checks, calls - at first it was especially difficult. I had to constantly delve into the study of Sprint Layout, making boards, posting any recommendations in the group.
In the end, I collected the first order. This is how the finished project looked at the first stage:

The thunder of the clear sky

Pleased as an elephant, I exported all this to a gerber and sent it to the manufacturer. In response, I received an account in which it was ...

more than 11,000 rubles! I sat and doused with cold sweat! Such a blow of fate, I just did not expect! I was 100% sure that everything is going great.

Gathering my thoughts, I began to look for the source of the problem and he showed up immediately. It turned out that everything is simple - initially they gave me the price of one set! Of course, I said that they would need five pieces, but everything turned out as it happened.
I was offered options to optimize the cost, but, of course, not at times. All of the above instantly lost its meaning.

"Solution to the problem

Fortunately, only six people participated in the entire order, of which five were my good friends. Coordinating actions, apologizing and looking for ways out of this situation was much easier.
To begin with, the order jumped off those who needed a lot. My group board was about 30%. I was not ready to pay more than three thousand rubles for my part. In addition to me, one more person refused to participate. As a result, four people left.

The fee is very thin to the size of 103x161mm. The order we sent to the production in Rezonit. The cost was 3200 rubles. Customers had to put up with a 30% rise in price and a fourfold increase in time, because this cost corresponds to the usual production time.

The fee has already been made and given to not very happy customers:



In addition, I ordered a second group fee. In my hobby projects I often use Arduino-compatible boards and I had to make various shields for them. First, I fitted several boards to the size 57x47mm. This allowed us to separate the fees by scribing. Secondly, I refused the mask and ordered not five group boards, but four. Ordered according to standard terms. I got a fee of 188x228 in size and it cost me about 1,500 rubles. That is, if you introduce additional, fairly tough restrictions, you can save money, but the point is much less.

Results

The group is dead. Do not go there and do not enter. Many interesting experiences and even more hefty cones have been obtained.

Anticipating advice on ordering boards in China, I will answer briefly - I will do so.

Taking this opportunity, I want to thank my former student who helped me. MandarinVP is the author of the first electrolyte in Yekaterinburg. He also took over the issues of shipping boards to customers (they are all from Ekaterinburg). He also leads his own development of an onboard computer for an electric bicycle and was among the customers. This is the man who helped the guys from this post in Yekaterinburg.

UPD: By the way, about the Chinese.
While I was collecting the order, I was written twice by Chinese managers from manufacturing plants. Some of them offered a price of 597.65 dollars for our fee, while others even more! Honestly and honestly it was - I even have pdf saved! I told them that Rezonit does it for 300 dollars, and you know what they said to that? WHAT ARE NOT READY TO COMPETE WITH SUCH A “REALLY VERY LOW COST” - MANUFACTURER! It was some kind of surrealism!

PS: I know very well the services for the production of boards in China, which are MUCH cheaper. Apparently, the Chinese are different.