Updates: JLCPCB improved a lot! I have not had any problems with them in last years (this video is old). Also BUTTON - yes, this was my mistake. LED - the component mark doesn't show Pin 1 location, it says R- (and the RED pin is pin number 2). BAD soldering - the accelerometer was badly soldered also on the next board which I tested (when I removed the chip, two of its pins were completely without solder). Thank you everyone for leaving so many feedbacks with your own experience. PS: Everyone makes mistakes.

I just received my order for 275 pcb's spread across 3 designs. Each included mostly extended parts such as digital isolators and adc's. I also had the through hole components soldered by jlcpcb. 4920 solder joints by hand for 600 jst connectors. Every board works 100% and the hand soldering quality is satisfactory. Used kicad. Definitely recommend them

@chrislee6650

Жыл бұрын

The thing most people don't realise is that a few boards will be assembled by hand, from the stenciling to the component placement, the reflow may even be by a hot air gun. Essentially you will get something little better than you could achieve at home with some time and a bit of kit, possibly better if done yourself as it would be your design and you would have a better understanding of it regarding correct component placement etc. A larger order of several hundred boards will be automated, with checks on the first few through to ensure parts are placed correctly and the solder has reflowed okay etc, so the results are going to be much better.

@muskku

5 ай бұрын

how much money did it cost you? to know a little how much they charge...

The 'basic' components in their library, like resistors and capacitors are basically free, and hard to get wrong, so it is well worth having them put on all the small stuff. 'Basic' components are pre-loaded on their machines and are used all the time, so they will very likely be correct. 'Extended' components are not part of their production line, and are loaded into their machines manually, so they are not as proven and more likely to have an error. So go hybrid, let them do the 'basic' components and you do the 'extended' components, or at least triple check the extended component footprint and rotation before ordering.

@2goXD

Жыл бұрын

Hi, i just asked this on the EasyEDA forum. How exactly do i go the hybrid way? I want them to assemble the basic parts and one of smaller extended parts. How do i inform them, which parts i want them to assemble and which parts i want them to include in the package, so i can solder them manually? Thank you in advance :)

@alexandersage6019

Жыл бұрын

@@2goXD You can de-select the components you don't want to be assembled during the ordering process (Robert also mentions this in his video).

I order assembly of all the cheap 0402 resistors and LEDs for prototype boards and place more rare parts myself. Works fine! Huge time-saver for prototypes.

@samihawasli7408

2 жыл бұрын

Some chips are nearly impossible to mount without a stencil. If you populate part of your board, aren’t you stuck using an iron or blobbing on paste yourself?

@OrbitalCookie

2 жыл бұрын

@@samihawasli7408 Yeah, you have pretty much figured out my hobbyist ways

@KostiantynKostin

Жыл бұрын

HI, what is your process of ordering parts? Can JLC deliver them or you order them separately? If separetely where?

@OrbitalCookie

Жыл бұрын

@@KostiantynKostin Right, so my original post was more than a year ago. Since then, I started working with electronics professionally and soldering things by hand is the last-resort thing, usually left for really unique components, patch jobs or debugging. Ordering automated assembly is really cheap compared to the hourly cost of manual labor. And about those "rare" components, I try to design things so that everything could be assembled in the factory, even if this means using stranger parts from JLCPCB catalogue. Unique part examples I can think of are something like a compact power supply module or a pin header with extra-long pins - both easy to solder and gone from the latest designs.

@KostiantynKostin

Жыл бұрын

@@OrbitalCookie Got it. I'm new to electronics, but I have a project that I want to finish and planning to develop a board in the upcoming months based on STM32F4 chip to potentially make as many devices as I need. I tried soldering SMD components by hand and investigated assebly with solder mask and reflow hot plate. I'll investigete automated assembly further if it is economically viable for me. Anyway thanks for sharing and good luck with your work.

I love JLCPCB and their assembly service saved me days worth of microscope work on a recent 15 board run. It was a large 200mm 4 layer board and they did an almost perfect job with over 120 passives. You do have to pay very close attention to the DFM analysis. I missed that they swapped a cap and resistor but they're constantly improving and their service is so quick and pain-free. I've done 100s of boards now with JLC from KiCad and it's just so damn easy, cheap and quick. Got my first order in to PCBWay for their assembly service and so far it's been anything but easy. We'll see how that turns out...

@fase144

2 жыл бұрын

hello, how have been PCBWay's service for you until this day?

@waylandsmith

Жыл бұрын

@@fase144 My own $0.02 since I started the process of having a board produced and assembled at PCBWay: the production file analysis and BOM selection is done by sending Excel files back and forth by e-mail which was annoying, but at least didn't take too long. The kicker was that the quotation page showed a $33 shipping charge based on the quoted final weight and a 3-4 day turn-around time for PCB + assembly. After all of the back-and-forth with the production files and the BOM, once I saw the final total before payment, the shipping was $55 and the turn-around time was 3-5 weeks. When I asked them about this, they pretended to not understand what I meant, saying only that "shipping is based on weight" and "assembly time is always 3-5 weeks". Their pricing model for assembly is also very opaque, since after I had submitted my first design I went back to the quotation page and the same design now had a 50 unit minimum for assembly instead of what it had been originally (5, I think). In frustration I switched to JCLPCB and all of the production file and BOM selection was right on their website, the final total and turn-around time (3 days) was exactly what it said on their quote page. Every choice that changed the price on the quotation page (surface finish, etc) and BOM selection (extended part surcharge, part attrition, etc) was line-itemized, most with a help popup offering further explanation. This was my first PCB design and first assembly order and I felt like I understand what was going on the entire time. I had a similar problem with my parts not aligning like Robert did but it was automatically corrected. My design was too simple to actually test the quality of the assembly, though.

The SMT assembly service is great, I have used it several times :) Issues are -- SMT assembly not available on boards paneled by V score :( Limited to the parts that JLCPCB stock Looking up parts is buggy with many parts not listed unless you go directly to the JLCPCB SMT parts library ( try finding an 0805 red LED in the Basic range). There are some strange omissions from the Basic Parts range ( such as no 0805 100nf cap). Just because a part was in stock last time you ordered does not mean that it will still be a stock item (example FE 1.1s usb hub chip). SMT assembly only available on green or black pcb's.

@norm1124

8 ай бұрын

Assembly is now available for other colors too.

I've done a lot of PCBs with assembly work done at JLC, and never had a problem. this is very rare in my experience.

@muskku

5 ай бұрын

how much money did it cost you? to know a little how much they charge...

@PaulasTechStuff

4 ай бұрын

@@muskku It depends on the size, it can be as little as $5 and up to $50. Small (100x100mm) double sided boards are very cheap.

Hello Robert, thank you very much for taking your time and money to make this video. I have used JLCPCB many times but only for bare PCB's and Stencils to do the placing of the components myself, and now I am glad that I did so. I am currently working on a new product to crowd fund and was considering to have the boards assembled, but seeing this, which might not be always as bad as in your case, I will look elsewhere or finally finish my PNP machine and do the assembly work with it instead of doing it by hand. Regards, Hayri.

Isn't your switch the wrong way around on your schematic?

@Robi000001

3 жыл бұрын

I agree, it is clear from the symbol that pin 1 and 3 are connected together (and pin 2 with pin 4).

@gianlucalocri

3 жыл бұрын

Yeah I think this time Robert hasn't paid enough attention...

@RobertFeranec

3 жыл бұрын

You are right! :D My mistake .... I never draw button this way and I automatically connected it as I always do it :)

@Gelf54

3 жыл бұрын

@@RobertFeranec Sadly, I've been there, done that, bought the T-shirt. :)

@unsearchablethings8167

3 жыл бұрын

I was thinking the same. Well, these things happen when designing boards. Doing an 8 or 10 layer board, just one tiny mistake and boom! Nothing works and it’s a troubleshooting nightmare. So much can go wrong so easily.

I'll take a different view. Robert was quite resourceful in the way that he addressed the manufacturing flaws. Such options are not always available. If one of his ICs was not rotated properly, he very well might not have been able to fix it. Four evenings of my time is not worthless, and the components on my boards can be expensive, so having to discard more than a few quickly overcomes any savings from using an unreliable service. I'll invest my evenings in perfecting my designs and pay a premium for a reliable PCBA service. In the end, I expect this to be more economical. Thank you, Robert, for this very honest video :-)

I use this service twise to assemble one board. And I get two absolute different device. First one was very bad. 5 board from 20 can start out of box. Other 15 have different soldering issue. Next time I assemble same 30 boards I got perfect result. All 30 boards start out of box. I was very hapy )))

I've used JLC for boards for years now and i'm very happy with their bare PCBs. They have really good support and i've never had a problem with it or the boards. I've never had a chance to use their assembly service, so i dont know how good that is.

Hi Robert. It's nice to see you trying out JLCPCB services. It looks like you were really unlucky here! I use JLC regularly for manufacturing prototype orders because of the quick turnaround time (PCB designed from KiKad or Altium) and have never faced grave issues like cold solder or wrong rotation. One thing you must ensure is that your component rotation are proper. I see that even in the confirmation email the LED rotation was wrong. So if it was not corrected, the wrong rotation was done during assembly (since it's automatic machine using pick and place data, the machine does it as per data provided). I have never used them for soldering through hole components, so the USB issue was quite a surprise! Since the services are so cheap, they do not do AOI I suppose and hence cold solder was not rectified. But this has luckily never happened to me. Like you said, for quick prototypes to test if your idea works, it's a really good service. Considering that you would spend 3x the amount with local vendors and atleast 2 to 3x the time.

@RobertFeranec

3 жыл бұрын

Thank you Abhay PS: I just answered about the LED in CPZeroDue's comment. This could maybe fell into category of misunderstanding (for some reason they marked the pin in the LED component as R- which I interpreted as the RED pin and that would be correct - however, that is pin 2 in datasheet).

@PriyankBolia

3 жыл бұрын

May be you are lucky, for me there bad library and wrong rotation costed me a ton. Needed for mesh n/w so ordered 20 pieces, learned a hard lesson never use there assembly services for more than standard/basic components, and not order more than 5pcs in one shot of a single PCB. Also another problem with them, is any confusion they cancel the order and ask to recreate, that may not be an issue for others, but for me unnecessary credit card charges happens 2 way plus project delays, instead of sending email and clarifying.

Thank you, Robert. Very helpful and insightful. I like your open mind on this problematic board. I think each supplier has their own strengths, which can greatly support your different projects, if you use them well.

Last November I also had a bad experience. First I made a batch of 50 units for testing, it arrived well and works well. After I placed an order for 1000 PCBs assembly. When it arrived I checked that they had not soldered the smd leds. I went to review and the cause was because when I made the purchase I bought the right amount, I bought only 3000 leds. And for assembly were necessary 3004 leds. Summary: the production of the 1000 units went wrong because 4 LEDs were missing from the reel. I had to manually solder the 3000 leds so as not to lose production. I would have expected someone from the JLCPCB to have warned. No one informed and currently I still have 3000 leds in stock at their warehouse. Missing JLCPCB assistance in assembly service.

@smtfabpcba9630

9 ай бұрын

Dear Cesar, would you like to try our one-stop pcba service? we have 13 years experience in pcb+components sourcing+pcba service,

@greg77389

3 ай бұрын

User error.

First of all, Thanks Robert..!! I believe that a manufacturing service tune-up is always necessary and you always have to be careful with the first batch. I had bad experiences even with recognized suppliers.

My experience with JLC is with PCB manufacturing only. They have screwed up on numerous occasions, claimed they can't build boards that they built a month prior etc. On boards where I have verified their production files they still manage to screw up. Then when you file a complaint you get a lousy coupon that barely covers the cost of a fraction of the PCBs, let alone shipping and import taxes / fees. For extremely simple boards that aren't too complex I might still use them in the future but there's no way in hell I'm trusting them to do any sort of PCBA.

I am actually using jlc assmbly for many small batches, never had any problem by them. I did made some mistakes like assmbling 3M resistor instead of 3 ohms, but these were all my mistaks. Given the limitaion of selected parts and not able to assmble non smt or connectors, I find the service very good.

I have been waiting for this unpaid review for a very very long time. Thank you for that! It would be good to know about the statistics of all the boards. How many of them had the same soldering problem as with the acceleration IC? Were all the buttons and LEDs rotated the same way on the other boards, or did they messed up only that one board?

@RobertFeranec

3 жыл бұрын

Thank you Andrew. I will check them when my USBs will arrive. I am also curious. PS: All the LEDs are rotated the wrong way, I checked that.

I used JLCPCB for my graduation project and it worked for me. But u have to rotate the parts yourself by editing the Excel file and make sure to ask the support if those warnings u had are solvable for PCBA, they will answer your questions live and pretty fast btw.

Interesting video. I've not used the assembly service, but have used JLC for quite a few big 4-layer 220mm square boards, and they've all been fine & amazing value for money.

Thank you for sharing your experience.

Hi Robert, thanks for your video post. Your project clearly demonstrates two of the main sources of errors - yourself and the service provider. Back in the 1970’s- early 1990’s one of my duties was to make, design and assemble commericlal prototypes. Without the aid of CAD I expected infant errors. Knowing this, the assembly techniques used were manual and incremental with plenty of testing along the way. Each encountered issue was logged so that subsequent iterations ensured that the same issues did not recur. In later years when PCB CAD was used I deliberately did not use predefined library components because I never found any to be satisfactory. The first module of any PCB CAD package that I used would be its PCB land and schematic symbol editors ensuring that these vital foundations are sound. The second aspect would be to determine the best method of placing test points and additional PCB pads. Once all of the desired components were created then the schematic capture could commence.

About 20% of the boards I've had assembled at JLC have had at least one issue. Recently, a TVS diode array was rotated 90 degrees - even after we agreed on the revised placement - exactly the same as your experience. However, they do provide an excellent service, in my opinion, as they allow me to produce very small boards with rather small components - without the hassle and inevitable placement mistakes _I would make_ myself. ;) For boards I really care about, I send them to Screaming Circuits in Oregon, USA. Even so, with a top-tier assembler, I've seen at least one assembly error from them. I think it might just be a natural, human factors part of the assembly process. When ordering boards for assembly, I use either KiCad or Altium Designer. Even for a pro like you, I'm truly impressed that you were able to learn the EDA tool and get the job done (with only one, small mistake😉) in just an hour! On the PCB side, I've been totally satisfied with JLC's service. HASL surface finish is always excellent and TH are always drilled dead-center, unlike some other low-cost board houses that I've used in the past. Naturally, ENIG is even better.

I ordered 500 boards from itead with assemble and all was perfect. I also ordered 5 boards from different project and assembly cost to me about 100$ per board for assemble. So I think for small bunch it's easy to assemble by yourself. And also a little advise, check all part numbers in your bom excel document, all process going automatically, so in most cases they not check links to seller(mouser, digikey), so when I ordered other bunch of boards they send to me picture of board and connector that actually bigger that my board with question "How to solder it?", in my case, I am lucky it's cheap connector so they agree to solve this problem without any fees. I also have bad experience compare to chines with local services, they actually change entire my bom list without my permission. So if your are living in post USSR country(like Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine ...), I think it's good to make additional agreement about penalties for changes in your board without your permission.

Yes, JLCPCB is not perfect, however i have been using their service for almost a year, one order per month and had problems 3 times, bad soldering, but a very easy fix. I think if you are designing very small, complex/high precision or with subminiature components, you shouldn`t use this service. but for average consumer level projects it is absolutely great because it is an all in one service, reasonably fast and very cheap.

I have a board with many LEDs that I have had manufactured more than one with PCBWay PCBA. It wasn't super cheap, but they've always sent pictures in advance and the boards have been fine. The JLCPCB PCBA offering looked too good to be true, so I decided to give it a whirl on the same board. One of the parts, they said they could not get (Attiny84A), which annoyed me, since they are associated with LCSC and LCSC showed the part in stock. They also will only do one side, and my design has a battery holder on the back. All that said, the boards came back, and when I added the controller and battery holder, they worked fine. For prototypes, I was pleased. The smallest components I had were 0402 resistor arrays.

Yeah, I'd call this a very successful small-batch prototyping run. Very successful being I got the all the knowledge of your experience without it costing me anything but 25 minutes of my time watching your video.

You just had bad luck. I do a lot of assembly with JLCPCB and it never went wrong.

@LeLaboDeHarry

3 жыл бұрын

Same for me, no email, no missing components, no bad soldering...

I used JCLPCB more than 10 times and have not incurred any problems that were my fault for not checking things properly. I am also a hobbyist for this and avoid using packages that are beyond my ability to solder. Things like BGA packages, 0402’s SMD’s etc.

I used their service for the very first time recently and had a similar experience to yours. My PCB had a USB C connector (which in the design process I had to change it twice to make sure it is available in their library and they will assemble it) which was not fitted and was not placed inside the package. In my case the connector was going to be used for comms with the PC. So I had to cut one end of an existing USB cable and solder the wires directly to be able to do anything with the boards I received. The annoying thing is that you can see the pads of connector has solder on them. So that means they actually created the stencils with plans to assemble the connectors. For whatever reason they did not assemble them, they did not bother getting contacting about the issue. This is very unprofessional. They gave me similar response saying they are not component supplier but a PCB manufacturer so they cannot ship the connectors I've already paid for but can only offer discounts. I am having difficulties accepting this answer. If you go into LCSC website you can see that JLCPCB is listed as "family site". At least they should ship them from LCSC. I don't like to be asked for paying again for the connectors and the shipment while it is them who made the mistake and not bothered to get into contact.

My experience with JLCPCB is very well. The motivation to use it, is the integration, the speed and, of course, the price. Quality issues, like you mentioned, I also had with European manufacturers. But of course on a much higher price level... Many small projects are not worth to make in Europe. I also get a service and a response time in China, which is awesome. One important point, from my point of view is, that I also get parts there and will be lead to standard parts. So the sourcing is easy. Of course this may be not possible, if you need special parts. I have to solder some parts in my office, if they are not in their stock. But also in this case, it safes me so much time and cost, so that it is even worth it sometimes.

I think the USB connector wasn't placed because it contains these through-hole pins. JLC cannot assemble through-hole as of now, you gotta be careful with that. It's also a good idea to preview the component placement and manually fix any rotation errors in your position file before ordering as well as marking pin 1 explicitely on the silk screen. I haven't had any issues with the soldering itself so far, even for very tiny components like 0402x4 resistor packs. So yea, the process isn't as automatic as it could be but if you are careful you will get good results.

18:20 here you see that pushing the button makes no sense because it connects pin 1 to pin 2 which is equal to connecting GND to GND , and pin 3 and 4 are connected always(!) to GND independently of the button state. So this is not a library-error, but a user-error. 21:47 to 22.00 --> the problem started on the schematic ;-) Anway, thank you for your review --> thumbs up :-)

@edgarp1

2 жыл бұрын

Oh yes you are right. So I guess the only non user error was the bad soldering. About to send my first order for assembled boards soon so hoping they will be ok.

The pcb is usually good quality. The components- that can be a problem. As others have said, let them do the jellybean components. Be sure to spec the ceramic caps. You buy and install the more expensive or challenging components.

Hi. I use this service for prototype pcb. But without assembling. Over 100 projects. 2 or 4 layer. Some quite big and complex. All ok! No any problems. Build time is 1 day for 2 layers and 3 days for 4 layer.

An order for a few boards gets made by hand by these manufacturers as it simply isn't cost effective to set up a production run otherwise, and so we don't get the benefits of a professional factory made board that we are sort of led to expect. This means with a bit of kit and some practice we could achieve the same thing at home without the mistakes. If ordering a few hundred boards then they will set up a production run and the first few out of the reflow oven will be checked to ensure parts are placed correctly and the solder has reflowed nicely, with necessary tweaks made, so that the run of boards will look good and be correct and consistent quality. Basically we get what we pay for, and a few tens of dollars to assemble a handful of boards isn't going to be a great experience, and will depend on who gets to do it on the day. For example, see PCBWays video, here they show small production runs being made, the components are hand placed then reflowed using a hot air gun. kzread.info/dash/bejne/o4p7yLqyaJi5pJs.html

Never tried the assembly service, but the boards I have ordered from JLCPCB have been fine. Because of shipping time and cost to Norway I now order from aisler.net. They accept Kicad files directly and you can also order parts.

I have been through the same situation, but the difference is my board was having around 200-250 components..I can't tell how much brainstorming I was doing on that..Finally made that work and didn't go for the same manufacturer again... But yes we can produce small boards with these services as it costs very less..

Thanks for a GREAT Video that will be high in the recommended videos for my students. V E R Y Usefull! PS: Some 15 years ago we added a rule: "Always connect 4 pins tactile buttons diagonally". And some students learned it the hard way too.

I ordered several simple things assembled from JLC - I checked very carefully it was all right on my side, and they did the assembly fine. The big problem I have with the JLCPCB assembly service is that parts disappear from stock - if you design a board, get a few prototypes made, they work fine, then you want a short production run - if a critical part is out of stock it's a dead end.

@freddyvretrozone2849

Жыл бұрын

No, You can pre order your own stock and they get it from other providers.

@markxr1

Жыл бұрын

@@freddyvretrozone2849 You can now, they've added that service recently.

It always takes 3 try's, boards, versions of components, etc. until all is right. I never got it all working at first time. But because JLCPCB is so cheap and fast, it is worth it to start. Same you said...

I've had fairly good luck with their PCBA service but I prefer ordering a stencil and placing components myself. One other good thing about their service is using the component ID from LCSC which is a bit cheaper for most components than Mouser/DigiKey. One annoying aspect of their PCBA service is errors result in a coupon for future orders and not a refund. Oh and I have no idea what solder they use but it can be a pain to rework the PCBs, especially if you need to remove/swap parts with fine pitched legs.

I did a lot of assembly with hundreds of different components using JLCPCB and had no issues at all. It's really good service which has a great support. You just always have to double check the pinouts in the datasheets and placement on the board right after you upload the files to JLCPCB. The only disadvantage is that they don't have a lot of parts in their library so you have to order and solder them on your own.

Used JLCPCB for my first ever PCB, it was a simple 2 layer board with components on both sides. The JLCPCB manufactured the boards and assembled, them and they work!

Hi Robert. I used JLCPCB for a few boards this month and they returned pretty good results. I read that they were having teething issues with their earlier PnP service when it first came out. Trying to use "Basic" parts will simplify things by reducing the chance of human error, as well as speed up board build time. It would be interesting to try them again sometime; maybe you have and I haven't seen the video yet. :) Thanks... Clark

I've used their SMT service once for an analog design, the board was a 4 layer with impedance control. I haven't faced any problem you've mentioned, maybe it was just bad luck :) Currently I'm waiting for the second SMT assembly this week, I'll edit my comment if anything goes wrong

Nice video... thanks for your contribution & effort!

Similar experience here. It is worth it, price and time wise, to have prototypes made this way. Also they often cancel the order because components aren't on stock. I recommend them for simple 2 layer prototypes. Prepare to do some rework and have an osiloscope handy.

I find JLPCB is great for PCB's but as they will not fit any part not in their own stock I never use them for my assembly work. So I use PCBWAY for assembly. Have had many parts made and cannot complain. Good service and they double check everything.

That’s why for leds and diodes I Mark anode cathode on silkscreen near footprint so that they pick it up during pre assembly files checking

Thank you for this interesting review. I have never had any problems with JLCPCB, but I always make sure that the components I use have sufficient stock margin and I thoroughly check each and every component position by myself (although they say they will do it). The service is really excellent. The web interface could be better, it would be nice if we could rotate the components directly instead of reloading the position file for example. But just as it is now, this is an awesome service for an amateur. I would have dreamed about such possibilities a few years ago when just making a PCB was impossible at low cost! They do such a great job that it seems to me unfair to complain about anything. I hope that the workers are treated correctly, and that they take care of ecology concerns, I have no information on these topics however.

This is why i manifacture all my prototype designs at home. I had similar problems with component availabilities and incorrect part numbering in the EDA libraries. At least the bare PCBs are excellent value for the price. I guess it will still take some time for them to improve the assembly process. Until then, buy a cheap mircroscope, good tweezers, a hot air station or even build a small DIY reflow oven out of an old toaster oven. This drastically reduces time and frustration used for debugging.

I also had problems with JLCPCB assembly. I thought that I order only basic parts assembly like capacitors and resistors, and more exotic components like step-down IC I will solder myself. I have spent few hours trying to debug why my step-down doesn't work, i was triple checking my design, resoldering step-down IC like 10 times, just to find out that i was having bad solder on one critical capacitor that my IC required to operate. After fixing soldering on this capacitor the well known magic happend and it worked.

Great Video thank you. Learned even more reading the comments.

I have used this JLCPCB a few times in the past with no problems. However, I soldered the components myself. In fact I received 2 boards just a few weeks ago and they were perfect. This may just be a spot of bad luck. However I will be careful if I want them to assemble a board based on your experience. Q. Would I use them again. Ans. Absolutely.

You are being very generous Robert.

I think you were a little bit unlucky in this case. I ordered 10 samples of a relatively large board with 700 passive components (on the back side only of course) most of them 0603 resistors and caps, there were only 2 or 3 issues in all 10 boards.

It was interesting to see your experience. I've used JLC's PCBA service numerous times for prototype boards. I usually get longer runs done by other services like PCBWay (I have no affiliation with either of these, by the way - I've just used them). It's true that you do have to carefully check rotation of parts - I use Eagle to design, and then a script to convert the production files to the format JLC/PCBWay use. I also make sure to use + and - to mark the anode and cathode of LEDs/diodes, and always mark pin 1 on other parts, as they will then correct errors if they notice. I have also tried EasyEDA, and noticed some problems with it - for example, the gerber output is (or was) dependent on the current view of the board. So if you have defined ground planes, but forgot to fill them, the gerber output will omit them. I had this problem with a design. Generally I've found the soldering to be fine - I've found it's worth sometimes changing a design to use the "standard parts", rather than "extended parts" from their supply as it can make a big difference in price for small runs. The latest boards I've ordered are pretty large (320 x 320mm) and they have turned out fine with several hundred parts loaded. I've noticed they have some parts that are ALWAYS out of stock, which is annoying - but I think it's a result of automation on their end. I often have designs where I reflow some parts myself as they don't stock them. Still much faster than loading a whole board, especially with 0402 parts. They will soon be supporting double-sided PCBA too, which will be really useful for me! Anyway that's my experience :)

I had ordered PCBs from Jlcpcb many times. I once had a problem with component rotation (electrolytic capacitor) and solder bridges between ic pins (TQFP and QFN packages). Also some components are get out of stock and it takes months to re-stock. But other than that it's great pcb service for prototype PCBs as it's cheap and fast.

@steverpcb

3 жыл бұрын

How on earth did that happen, SMT electrolytics have a double chamfer on the + end, both on the silk screen and physically ! If you used a through hole silk screen then that could have caused the issue due to being marked for the cathode rather than the + :(

@siddharthmali5841

3 жыл бұрын

@@steverpcb Also I was surprised because only one smd electrolytic capacitor placed wrong way on 1 PCB out of 5 PCBs 😶.

I have made many boards at JCLPCB, never had any issues with rotated components. You had back luck, but still a quality problem on their side. My main issue with them is their component selection, they have quite strange parts in their catalog, and they tend to go in and out of stock randomly.

@RobertFeranec

3 жыл бұрын

Thank you Pontus. PS: Yes, I noticed, that half of the datasheets have Chinese characters .. it may be hard to get the same components on the standard market (e.g. in digikey).

@maximilianjohanneswurmitze7178

3 жыл бұрын

I also had some bad rotations in my design, but they allways where corrected well by JLCPCB.

Design defensively if you want to consider using off shore companies. Use simple parts that only fit in one direction, keep parts on one side of the board. I've never had issues. For more complex boards use in country sources.

I have been using JLCPCB for 3 years now, and been using their SMT assembly for 1.5ish years. I made the same footprint mistakes and rotation mistakes. To anyone reading this: TAKE YOUR TIME AND CAREFULLY check EVERY footprint that you didn't create yourself. CAREFULLY CHECK ROTATION in the JLC generated 3D view! I learned my first order, never had another problem. I frequently send orders for 130+ component count boards, never had one issue with solder. Sounds like Murphy got ahold of this order

The pushbutton -- heads-up everyone! There's a widespread problem with these seemingly simple "tactile" pushbutton components, mostly precipitated by Omron's goofy non-standard pin-numbering, which maps unexpectedly incorrectly into footprints in PCB software. (See Omron B3F-xx series.) Also the fact that of the 4 pins, pairs are connected internally, so that if you get the footprint wrong, you're apt to have the internal interconnections short across where you thought the switch terminals would be. I know, for example, that the footprint was wrong in Kicad 5, not sure if it was fixed in 6. (I made my own footprint and just continued to use that). Another commenter suggests always connecting these using the diagonal pins, and leave the other two pins disconnected. This way, whether you choose 1 and 4 (diagonal on Omron's footprint numbering) or 1 and 3 (relative to conventional counter-clockwise numbering), either way you'll get a functioning switch. Of course, on Robert's schematic there appears to be a mistake that wont allow the switch to function -- but that's beside the point!

Used JLC for many projects. One of my orders was for 120 boards and of out those boards only 3 boards had bad soldering on MCU. Quick rework to the chip and problem solved. It's is unfortunate but the cost savings for these little projects make it worth it for me.

I've also used the JLCPCB service for years, but never the assembly one, happily I've yet to have a bad board. Sadly I don't have any experience in schematic design and my boards are very simple. So I draw them in Design Spark's PCB layout software yet I would love to take this further, becasue I'm now over 70 and soldering SMD components is becoming a chore. I only use resistors and LEDs, mainly for backlighting in products like gauges, so if you can suggest a tutorial for such projects I would be grateful. Very interesting video by the way, and your "simple board" looks rather complicated to me... :-)

My last pcba order returned with 2 malfunctioning boards out of 5, with error rate of 40%, which is not acceptable for production. It might be good for prototyping, however, it takes an extra week for the assembly. I order the pcb only and assemble by hand, which usually takes a few hours, so i save a lot of shipping time, shipping cost and customs duties.

I think that Robert did not explain their component libraries. They have basic and extended components. The basic ones are preloaded into assembly machines and does not cost extra. The extended ones are not preloaded and you can have only a certain number of different components on the board (it used to be 10, now is 20 I think). And you pay 3USD for each one type. This is the way how they reduce the cost so they can offer such a low price even for small quantity.... And just to be clear, they will not assemble parts that aren't in they catalog... I've ordered like 3 different boards and I did not find as much errors combined as Robert did on one :-) And I did push the extended limit to the limit (pun intended). The board had cca 150 components and 10 extended (I even did have to change some resistors because they were extended.... However I had a really bad experience with "complicated" parts. I am using a RGB LED that for some reason has notch on pin 3... I even ordered a small board just to test the orientation. And even though the support tried to help, they did manage to rotate the LEDs wrongly every time except the test board :-) And it is also worth mentioning that they do only one side assembly. And also the issue is that if they do not have the component then they will assemble it. This may sound simple bud I had one board with two main uncommon components that were in their library but was out of stock and I was checking their stock every day to catch the day when they were both in stock :-) So as many people in the comments said, for simple boards the price is unbeatable. As long as one sided assembly from their library with not much extended components - it is great deal. But be sure to check the orientation of every component and also double check the footprints. How ever if you are willing to test another cheap assembly in China for some next video, I would recommend PCBWAY. They are not so cheap as JLCPCB but they are also much more "professional". They have some sort of "sale" that the assembly is 20-30USD for small board and parts quantity (like 1-20 boards and 600 parts in total). But you can ship them the parts, or they can order them for you according your BOM, you can choose whichever parts you want, they can assemble both sides and their help desk speaks better English. The boards that cost me about 110USD at JLCPCB cost me cca 160USD at PCBWAY. But at PCBWAY they assembled both sides and there were more components because of it. And just to be fair, they also managed to rotate the RGB LEDs but they do send pictures of the assembled board for you to check. So I was able to spot the problem and they rotated the parts to correct orientation. And to be extra clear, I've misplaced the assembly drawing (I've put it into gerbers ZIP file) and I've found out that they did not find it for the assembly so they were doing it only according to PnP file and silkscreen..... Also it takes a little longer for them to assemble the boards as they need to source the components...

Had two 2-layer boards assembled by them recently, each with close to 600 LEDs (0402), 16 QFN-44s, plus about 100 passives. The first board worked out-of-the-box, *except* for 3 LEDs which wouldn't light up. I placed the board under the microscope and saw that those 3 were placed in the wrong orientation. I don't have the slightest clue how that would happen, given that all the other LEDs of the same type were placed correctly. Interestingly, I had pretty much the same conversation about LED orientation right after placing the order, and also after filing a complaint about the misplaced LEDs, the response was very similar. With a bit of patience, I managed to rotate the LEDs into place and now it's working flawlessly. Wouldn't hesitate to use their assembly service again for prototypes, although for boards with just a few dozen components, I prefer to do the assembly myself.

So far I haven't had any complaints about JLC. I'm ordering PCBs from them for years now, but I've used their assembly service only three times and in one instance I had to reflow a QFN chip, but I think it was my fault, because I accidentally messed up the solder mask expansion. It's probably always a good idea to give the boards a thorough inspection under the microscope before start working with them.

great video - finally nice to see an honest take on jlcpcb assembly - thanks

Yes, i would love to see more about that lightsaber control circuit you designed here and want to see it working... We did lots of boards with PCBWay and they were good, but it's worth comparing prices if you source yourself you might be able to produce locally if you factor in all costs.

Nice video. thanks. i have been working in China for 14 years, there's good and bad supplier like everywhere. for hobby projects, better choose close supplier in your own language

Hi Robert! Thank you for your videos! As for JLCPCB, I use them mainly for PCBs only, and not using their assembly services, as it available only for one PCB side and secondary I did had many problems like you mentioned here, so I prefer to manually solder them for my prototypes.

About the pushbutton I think the footprint is ok, but you placed it wrong direction in the schematic. Please review it again. Maybe I am wrong I don't know...

i ordered 5 100x100mm flexible pcbs from jlcpcb, pretty densely populated with little smd components. Figured it would be cheap to have them assemble it too. Figured total cost would be like $35 with shipping tops including materials. Boy was I wrong. They charged me $240! OUCH! still cheaper than doing it myself as I'm very slow soldering smd components but still that was painful. I probably will just look back to diy again because that is just hurting the wallet TOO MUCH

@artbyrobot1

5 ай бұрын

oh yeah and they charged $25 shipping with no cheaper option. WTH is up with that!? and $15 sales tax

Great video! If it is possible, you can try the PCBWay assembly service to compare the quality.

actually, your fix of lifting the pins on the button corrects the fact that you've shorted the switch out on the schematic.

I have made about 150 boards of low complexity with their aseembly between 4 designs. Until now zero problems whatsoever

I use them every time. Right now with silicon shortage they have really expensivce prices for simple ICs. (Right now all my projects are on hold since even a simple STM32 have a lead time of 40weeks) I generally use SMT from them for Passive and only basic parts. I just rework the boards to add the missing componets. Their quality seems fine to me, but remember I'm just a hobbyst. Some duedes even create SBCs with this service. They have finally decided to provide their stackup and now they can do "impedance controlled" PCB. Not bad for 30/50USD for a full 4 layer assebled PCB. They flagged a lot of of my errors in PCBs (mostly errors in export and in a couple of situation a uncovered track. (It was a art PCB but it had real signla tracks on it and a design element was exposing a track) Have you asked them about the missing USB connector? That was really an odd miss. I generally triple check parts orientation. Especially on leds and ICs. I dont use easyEDA and I create the footprint by myself. I use LCSC to find the part datasheet and from that I look on how the part is placed in the TAPE. They have a rule somewhere on their loading orientation. Doing so I generally have good orientation: support.jlcpcb.com/article/99-does-the-red-dot-means-pin-1-in-the-placement-previewer I think that their symbol and footprints are automatically generated. EDIT: About pin 1 of the LED, the language barrier sometime is an issue so they probbably got the wrong orientation.

@RobertFeranec

3 жыл бұрын

Thank you TuttoCrafting. PS: Yes, they confirmed the USB was their mistake and offered me a 8USD coupon. It would be great if they sent the unsoldered components from BOM in the box together with boards.

@tuttocrafting

3 жыл бұрын

@@RobertFeranec What I generally do is place an order on JLCPCB and then I place an order on LCSC. They have some sort of "combined shipping" and you order from the other platform the parts that are not fitted by the SMT process.

@tuttocrafting

3 жыл бұрын

I heavily use a altium library made by them and than partially updated by me for their basic components. github.com/actiBMS/JLCSMT_LIB. This have their internal part no. so exporting the BOM is quite easy. Not recently heavy updated but their parts serach on SMT import is able to find alternatives quite well when a component is missing. Unfortunatly they seems to have dropped ferrite beads from the basic library and moved to extended parts :(

@RobertFeranec

3 жыл бұрын

@@tuttocrafting I didn't know they can ship the components together with PCB .. that is very good to know.

@tuttocrafting

3 жыл бұрын

@@RobertFeranec You're welcome. For DIYers thoose service are really good. I still remember in 2012 when I did my first PCB (it was a RPI HAT for the first RPI the one without mouting holes and with full SD slot for my high school gratuation) it was like 300USD. OSHpark was slighty cheaper but it wasnt so common here in europe. A friend of mine (from ST) suggested eurocircuit. Their PCB quality and surface finish is/was great but the price WOW that was expensive for a bare PCB. (The dot matrix silkscreen was not hi resolution but whatever it was good for me)

@18:14 I saw immediately that the switch was wired wrong, 1+3 are side A and 2+4 are B. The icon says it switches from 1+3 to 2+4, but you wired them together so they are always "pressed" or well shorted.

For anyone who is going to try this service, you can not just place something like a resistor. Each value must have its own separate part. I havent placed an order using their PAP service, but I do know this. It could be different now though, this was back when they only had single layer assembly.

@Graham_Wideman

Жыл бұрын

What do you mean by "you can not just place something like a resistor. Each value must have its own separate part"?

Thank you Robert. I haven't used JLC yet. I was going to comment that your switch schematic appears to be shorted, but I see someone already noticed that. I have a couple of small projects that I'm playing with, so I'm looking at options, just haven't made my mind up yet. Thanks for pointing out things to be aware of and to be careful, careful, careful.

@18:00 to tell the footprint they provide should have raised some flags already. Until now, I haven´t found / seen any buttons like this, so going to the layout I would already had flags waiving in front of me. Dunno, what is your experience?Edit: I see now also your pinned comment, can happen to the best of us :-). We all need vacations I think :-/

The assembly service of JLCPCB is in my opinion very good, indeed there is a lot of work from my side before I upload all the files (specially the BOM and CPL). But once it is correct, everything is fine. Checking the placement (and maybe changing the CPL file again) of the parts is very important before you order your board. JLCPCB is also asking, if there are problems with the placement (in my case a lot of digital gates) to be sure that every thing is o.k.

Great video, though I'd agree with most of the commenters and say that you've been somewhat unlucky. I've used their assembly service once before and it was perfectly fine. I only moved to other suppliers as I needed more freedom in component choice and getting both sides assembled. As it happens, I have just had one more board assembled by JLC but it won't come in till next week so I can't yet make any comments about it.

One problem with small series is that the manufacturer can´t do test run (soldering profile, visual inspection). But it´s not while it´s China, I´ve the same problems in Europe. And always check the definition of the components in a free component library.

I agree with button layout as it was wrong...but bad solder is quiet problematic to debug....and it's serious issue that needs to be address by manufacturer

Great and honest review. Thank you.

look at the bright side, They got the soldering temperature right 😂

You had really bad luck but it's worth talking about these Chinese PCBA services. I use them for PCB construction only, PCBA is limited: - reduced choice of components - they keep for them part of the components (but you pay :-) ) - one time I had to wait more than 3 weeks for some customs clearance in Germany (I choose "Europacket" delivery), but the advantage is that there is no customs fees to pay I do agree that the fact that the support replies is _not_ a good service, most of the time they say sorry and propose a coupon .... Surely it's good for hobby projects, where you have time and patience and a very limited budget

We have our boards made there now, the problem is now not all the boards fit the test jig, the holes are not consistent, the pins on the test jig don't hit the mark on all boards.

Really enjoyed seeing your perspective of more hobbyist services. :)

Yea the problems you're having with this service is exactly why I am building an SMD capable home lab, Its not worth it when even on something that simple manufacturing defects are costing you multiple days in development time

Regarding shipping the components along with the PCB, there are some hurdles. In my country India, customs refuse to entertain unassembled components with PCB's from JLC citing rules such as "misleading or under pricing of goods" and penalise the importer. Since invoices are from two different companies (LCSC and JLCPCB) with a single AWB number, it is not legal in my country. Thus JLC has stopped combining shipments of PCB and bare components. May be similar scenario in many other countries as well.

Mr Robert, Thank for you video. Never trust 100% in a footprint library always check and check. I learned that in your videos 😅. I'm being using jlcpc for prototype some ideas and in my case it was a good service for a good price. Nothing it's perfect. I don't like to have to use only their components but at the end it's a very good service for prototype and proof some ideas. It would be great to have had this kind of service 10 years ago(in my case) when I was an student

Guessing this video was not sponsored by JLC

You need a binocular microscope. You can see alot of stuff like bad solder connections. Troubleshooting hardware issues can be a real pain.

I been using PCB Cart recently and have had no problems. I sent them a really complicated board as a test and they all came back working.

For the button, it looks like your schematic is wrong? You connected all 4 pins together?