Makerfabs One-stop PCB Assembly Service

PCB & PCBA at Makerfabs

What are PCB and PCBA?

Printed Circuit Board(PCB) is a conductive pattern formed on conductive material according to the engineers’ design, there only traces/holes/layer on it,  but without any components installed; While the PCBA means PCB(Printed Circuit Board) assembled with components such as resistors/ capacitors/IC, to make the whole board works as intended. After the PCB was designed, the files can be sent to PCB factories for production. Meanwhile, components sourced, and then installed on the PCB, and finally programming, testing….

But this is not actually an easy work, there are many processes for creating a working board, especially for a maker& startup…

Makerfabs provides the service from PCB production, Components Sourcing, Soldering, Programming, Testing to end shipping. With this service, the electronic designer does not need to suffer from these very detailed work such as soldering the prototype board and thus can concentrate on creating and designing works.

Makerfabs PCBA Advantages :

• Focus on prototyping& small batch, more than 100 cases /month;                                               
• Friendly with Makers/ Start-ups/ R&D;                                                     
• 20+ engineers for DFM /Testing and Costing down works;                                                               
• 6 years' experience on IoT / Smart Home/Arduino/Raspberry Pi ;
• ​PCBA Top quality, visual inspection + 100% functional testing;

1. The PCB Materials: FR4/FPC/Aluminum/Rogers…

There are many kinds of PCB, mainly:

1. FR4: the most commonly used material for PCB.
2. FPC: Flexible Printed circuit is a thin insulating polymer film that conductive circuit patterns are printed on, the most advantage for FPC is flexibility, which allows it to be the connection within a compact space or parts that need to bent. Also, check the Rigid-flex PCB and Flex PCB with stiffener.
3. Aluminum board:  the Aluminum PCB has good heat dissipation than FR4, which makes it suitable for boards that need quick/large heat dissipation, such as LED Boards.
4. Rogers: when advanced electrical properties and performance are critical, such as Dielectric, dielectric constant, Rogers boards would be a solution, normally only for Professional high-frequency electronic engineers.  

Bellows some PCB(PCBA), with FR4/FPC/Aluminum/Rogers:

Makerfabs FR4 PCBs Specs:

Multi Layers:	1-2-4-6-8-12	Surface Finish:	Hasl Lead Free/ ENIG/  Silver
Vias:	NPTH/ PTH/ Blind Vias/ Buried Vias/ HDI	Special process:	Half-holes/ Golden finger
Board Color:	Green, Red, Yellow, Blue, White, Black, Matte Black, Purple, Support  Customizing	Silk Color:	White/ Black
Max Size:	80x80 cm	Out Layer Copper Thickness:	1 oz/ 2oz/ 3oz
MOQ:	1 PCS	Inner Layer Copper Thickness	0.5 oz/ 1oz
Thickness:	0.4/ 0.6/ 0.8/ 1.2/ 1.6/ 2.0/ 2.4	PTH hole Tolerance	0.1mm
Thickness Tolerance:	+/- 0.1mm	NPTH hole Tolerance	0.05mm
Minimum Track Space:	6 mil	Minimum silkscreen text width:	6 mil
Minimum PCB track width:	6 mil	Minimum pads Space:	6 mil

As the specs for FPC/Aluminum/Roger, are very complex, and hard to list the details, please contact the project manager service@makerfabs.com for detailed info and Spec/ Productivity checking.

2. Make a PCB order

If only bare PCB is needed, there are many PCB online shops, that can make you complete a PCB order in 2 minutes.  In Makerfabs, you can:

• Registered an account at https://www.makerfabs.com/register.html
• Fulfill the PCB spec and input the Gerber files at the PCB prototyping page, at Makerfabs->PCB Prototyping.
                                               
• Checking out, with Paypal.
• Waiting for your PCB arrival, total lead time less than 1 week.

Of course, for complex PCB, and special requests, it would be easier to contact our project manager  service@makerfabs.com to check and quote for you.

3. Makerfabs PCBA（Printed Circuit Board Assembly） Service

If a fully assembled PCBA is needed, few steps to Order PCBA from Makerfabs:

1. Send your request to sales@makerfabs.com or service@makerfabs.com  for a quotation. For PCB Assembly work, please send us:

• PCB Gerber files(RS-274X),  and the spec such as color/ pads finish/ layers, etc.
• BOM Files, some reference link, or Digikey/ Farnell parts number would be helpful for our quotation. Check the 5 Tips In BOM When Asking PCB Assembly Price Estimate
• Files for the soldering such as parts mapping for the pick-n-place machine, or a simple mapping for hand soldering.
• Programming/ Testing method, Makerfabs will help to test all the PCBA to ensure you 100% pass.
• Other files that you want us to know to avoid mistakes in the production.

2. Makerfabs make you quotation in 1 working day. 

3. Custom’s checking on the quotation and confirmation, and negotiation if needed. Refer to the  How To Check The PCBA Quote From Shenzhen PCBA Factory
4. Makerfabs works on project production.
5. Shipping, customer’s checking, and projects closed if all OK.

Makerfabs PCBA Capabilities

PCB:	● FR4 PCB                  ● Aluminum PCB ● FPC Flex PCB        ● Roger
Components:	● Customer Consign ● Makerfabs Sourcing
Quotation:	● <24 hours
SMT Assembly:	● 0201/0402/0603/0805/1206 ● QFN/QFP/SOIC ● BGA >0.3mm pitch
THT Assembly:	● Manual Soldering ● Wave soldering
Programming:	● Atmel                       ● PIC ● ARM                       ● FPGA ● DSP
Testing:	● IPC-A-610F class 2  ● ISO9001 ● 100% Visual Inspection ● 100% functional Testing ● X-Ray Inspection support
Production Lead time:	● 2~3 weeks
One-Stop Service:	● PCBA Co-design; ● 3D Printing& CNC ● Conformal coating

4. Payments & Lead time

Makerfabs accept payment:
1.  Paypal. For payments less than $1,000.  As you confirmed the quotation, you can :

1. Sent the Payment directly to our Paypal: mount.m@hotmail.com and notify your project manager about this payment;
2. Ask your project manager to send a Paypal request; 
3. By purchasing the same amount of PCBA service at Makerfabs official on-line store:https://www.makerfabs.com/maker-fabs-service.html. For example, the quotation is $500, you can directly purchase 500 pcs($1/ pcs) of the PCBA service.

2. Wire Transfer:  For payment >$1,000, wire transfer would be cost-effective.  Leave a bank slip to your project manager, so we can start the production without waiting for the bank confirmation.

As Lead time, for prototyping production(<50 pcs), 12 working days needed,  and  15 working days for mass production. The detailed lead time depends on many factors such as the components sourcing difficulty/ testing time, so the final lead time may be altered for each project.

Makerfabs will keep customers in touch in the whole process of production, or customers can check with your project manager anytime.

5. Testing& Quality;

With more than 5 Years' experience in PCBA Production, Makerfabs treat quality as the most important factor in our business, to ensure quality, Makerfabs acts strictly as quality control as:

• PCB production All PCBs are E-tested after production, for mass production, we may test them with the fixture.

Makerfabs PCB etesting video

• Components. Makerfabs cooperated with the official components distributor, or Mouser/Digikey/Farnell, to avoid bad/fate components. For components that substitute brand will be used, normally for resistors/capacitors/connectors, Makerfabs will mark them in the quotation sheet, let customers know the detailed components used. All components will be double tested before the soldering:
  
• DFM and Prototyping. Makerfabs engineers will check every single project DFM and notify the customer if any medication is needed. before the mass production, golden samples will be produced and tested, mass production will be only done after the sample was confirmed by customers.
  
• 100% visual inspection: For quantity >100 pcs, AOI inspection, according to IPC-A-610E and GB2828 sampling standard;
  

• Programming& Functional Testing. Makerfabs provide fully functional testing to ensure all the boards work perfectly as hand to customer. Our engineers will programming/ test all the boards, as per the customer testing requests.

Makerfabs cherish every relationship with customers and servers every customer by heart. Makerfabs would be 100% responsible for the mistakes/ faults in the production. If there are indeed some problems in our production that lead to your loss, you can directly contact your project manager or sales@makerfabs.com to request re-production or even a refund.

Makerfabs would be glad to hear your suggestions/complaints if not satisfied, and your recommendations to your friends with your satisfaction.

6. Security

Your originality and all design file security are stored& protected at Makerfabs. Makerfabs promise:

• None release any design files to any 3rd party without customers agree.
• None release/leakage of the originality anywhere, include Internet/Paper/ Conference.
• None release customer contacts to any 3rd party without agreeing.

Besides, Makerfabs can assign NDA files to the customer, to protect customers’ intellectual property legally.

7. PCBA OEM/ ODM Cases

In the past 5 years, there more than 500 projects produced at Makerfabs, Mainly projects on IoT/Smart Home/Educational...
1.)  SmartPID Temperature Control

2.) Pets for kids educational:

3.) Skin360, for skin cares:

For more cases, please refer to Makerfabs cases show: https://www.makerfabs.cc/cases/all.html

This article is first published by Makerfabs.