Open Source Lack of Funding...

[Ricketty C]

The project leader on the ventilator project has managed to have a few of the rev 1 boards built, but they are terribly full of bugs. Just stupid things that would have been caught in a design review, but until I came on board there was no one to do the design review with.

We are working on rev 2 of the board (something the Brits like to call Mk 2). It has been a real cluster f**k because of the lack of a requirements analysis and \"stuff\" just keeps changing and getting added.

The project lead had been working on getting the rev 2 boards made for free by JLCPCB, but now that we\'ve sent a BoM to them they said they will only assemble parts from their parts list. I\'m not certain this excludes us providing parts they don\'t carry, but still, just trying to go through their list to see what they have that might be compatible is a huge time sink.

It\'s not remotely like using Digikey. They let you select from a general category, then a sub category. Then you can select a package. Then you have to wade through all the parts individually and view data sheets to get info. It reminds me of the 90\'s.

JLCPCB links to LCSC for all of their parts. Are they connected? I see links between their sites as well as to EasyPCB.

--

Rick C.

- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[bitrex]

On 7/28/2020 1:40 AM, Ricketty C wrote:

The project leader on the ventilator project has managed to have a few of the rev 1 boards built, but they are terribly full of bugs. Just stupid things that would have been caught in a design review, but until I came on board there was no one to do the design review with.

We are working on rev 2 of the board (something the Brits like to call Mk 2). It has been a real cluster f**k because of the lack of a requirements analysis and \"stuff\" just keeps changing and getting added.

The project lead had been working on getting the rev 2 boards made for free by JLCPCB, but now that we\'ve sent a BoM to them they said they will only assemble parts from their parts list. I\'m not certain this excludes us providing parts they don\'t carry, but still, just trying to go through their list to see what they have that might be compatible is a huge time sink.

It\'s not remotely like using Digikey. They let you select from a general category, then a sub category. Then you can select a package. Then you have to wade through all the parts individually and view data sheets to get info. It reminds me of the 90\'s.

JLCPCB links to LCSC for all of their parts. Are they connected? I see links between their sites as well as to EasyPCB.

Would it be easier to use LCSC to look up candidates and cross-reference
back? LCSC\'s search function is better than that.

 

[Lasse Langwadt Christensen]

tirsdag den 28. juli 2020 kl. 07.40.39 UTC+2 skrev Ricketty C:

The project leader on the ventilator project has managed to have a few of the rev 1 boards built, but they are terribly full of bugs. Just stupid things that would have been caught in a design review, but until I came on board there was no one to do the design review with.

We are working on rev 2 of the board (something the Brits like to call Mk 2). It has been a real cluster f**k because of the lack of a requirements analysis and \"stuff\" just keeps changing and getting added.

The project lead had been working on getting the rev 2 boards made for free by JLCPCB, but now that we\'ve sent a BoM to them they said they will only assemble parts from their parts list. I\'m not certain this excludes us providing parts they don\'t carry, but still, just trying to go through their list to see what they have that might be compatible is a huge time sink.

It\'s not remotely like using Digikey. They let you select from a general category, then a sub category. Then you can select a package. Then you have to wade through all the parts individually and view data sheets to get info. It reminds me of the 90\'s.

JLCPCB links to LCSC for all of their parts. Are they connected? I see links between their sites as well as to EasyPCB.

LCSC supplies components to JLCPCB, they are the same company but separate locations

the reason they can do assembly for next nothing is because they only use their own parts already in the machines and can do everything almost automatic, they couldn\'t do that if they had to deal with everyone shipping them random bags of components

 

[Ricketty C]

On Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 4:01:32 AM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:

On 7/28/2020 1:40 AM, Ricketty C wrote:
The project leader on the ventilator project has managed to have a few of the rev 1 boards built, but they are terribly full of bugs. Just stupid things that would have been caught in a design review, but until I came on board there was no one to do the design review with.

We are working on rev 2 of the board (something the Brits like to call Mk 2). It has been a real cluster f**k because of the lack of a requirements analysis and \"stuff\" just keeps changing and getting added.

The project lead had been working on getting the rev 2 boards made for free by JLCPCB, but now that we\'ve sent a BoM to them they said they will only assemble parts from their parts list. I\'m not certain this excludes us providing parts they don\'t carry, but still, just trying to go through their list to see what they have that might be compatible is a huge time sink.

It\'s not remotely like using Digikey. They let you select from a general category, then a sub category. Then you can select a package. Then you have to wade through all the parts individually and view data sheets to get info. It reminds me of the 90\'s.

JLCPCB links to LCSC for all of their parts. Are they connected? I see links between their sites as well as to EasyPCB.


Would it be easier to use LCSC to look up candidates and cross-reference
back? LCSC\'s search function is better than that.

Depends on the degree of overlap. If LCSC has 10x more parts than JLC then it\'s pretty much the same deal.

Yesterday in the conference call I asked how we were going to handle the parts JLC simply doesn\'t carry, like the pressure sensors. It may turn out we simply don\'t want to work with them because their restriction is too severe. For the moment I\'m going to wait for a response.

--

Rick C.

+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Ricketty C]

On Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 6:30:01 AM UTC-4, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:

tirsdag den 28. juli 2020 kl. 07.40.39 UTC+2 skrev Ricketty C:
The project leader on the ventilator project has managed to have a few of the rev 1 boards built, but they are terribly full of bugs. Just stupid things that would have been caught in a design review, but until I came on board there was no one to do the design review with.

We are working on rev 2 of the board (something the Brits like to call Mk 2). It has been a real cluster f**k because of the lack of a requirements analysis and \"stuff\" just keeps changing and getting added.

The project lead had been working on getting the rev 2 boards made for free by JLCPCB, but now that we\'ve sent a BoM to them they said they will only assemble parts from their parts list. I\'m not certain this excludes us providing parts they don\'t carry, but still, just trying to go through their list to see what they have that might be compatible is a huge time sink.

It\'s not remotely like using Digikey. They let you select from a general category, then a sub category. Then you can select a package. Then you have to wade through all the parts individually and view data sheets to get info. It reminds me of the 90\'s.

JLCPCB links to LCSC for all of their parts. Are they connected? I see links between their sites as well as to EasyPCB.


LCSC supplies components to JLCPCB, they are the same company but separate locations

the reason they can do assembly for next nothing is because they only use their own parts already in the machines and can do everything almost automatic, they couldn\'t do that if they had to deal with everyone shipping them random bags of components

So are they mainly a hobbyist\'s tool? Looking at the available parts it would be hard to design a product being so limited, especially given the lack of parametric search capability.

I would find it hard to believe that kitting and loading customer\'s parts would be that big of a deal. The majority of the cost is amortization of the machines. Kitting is done before tying up the machine. Switching reel setups is done in a few seconds.

Is JLC capable of building boards with custom stack ups or do they only work with their own fixed stack up? I\'ve never looked into them since I don\'t have a need for a contract manufacturer without test capability. I see they have a six layer stack up with \"impedance control\", but it looks like you can have any stack up you want as long as it\'s that one.

If LCSC and JLC is the same company, it would makes sense that LCSC would have an option to search only for JLC parts. Maybe they have better search capabilities in the EasyPCB schematic capture program.

--

Rick C.

-- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[server]

On Tue, 28 Jul 2020 04:01:27 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 7/28/2020 1:40 AM, Ricketty C wrote:
The project leader on the ventilator project has managed to have a few of the rev 1 boards built, but they are terribly full of bugs. Just stupid things that would have been caught in a design review, but until I came on board there was no one to do the design review with.

We are working on rev 2 of the board (something the Brits like to call Mk 2). It has been a real cluster f**k because of the lack of a requirements analysis and \"stuff\" just keeps changing and getting added.

The project lead had been working on getting the rev 2 boards made for free by JLCPCB, but now that we\'ve sent a BoM to them they said they will only assemble parts from their parts list. I\'m not certain this excludes us providing parts they don\'t carry, but still, just trying to go through their list to see what they have that might be compatible is a huge time sink.

It\'s not remotely like using Digikey. They let you select from a general category, then a sub category. Then you can select a package. Then you have to wade through all the parts individually and view data sheets to get info. It reminds me of the 90\'s.

JLCPCB links to LCSC for all of their parts. Are they connected? I see links between their sites as well as to EasyPCB.


Would it be easier to use LCSC to look up candidates and cross-reference
back? LCSC\'s search function is better than that.

Wouldn\'t it be easier to check the designs, to get them right the
first time?

And to spend a few dollars to build them soon? It\'s probably too late
for a new ventilator design anyhow. There\'s a zillion sitting around
unused, and they tend to kill people.

Serious medical equipment takes years and megabucks to qualify. And
then the manufacturing and QC requirements are extreme. JLPCB would
*not* do.

I know one guy who worked for a big-name theraputic x-ray machine
maker, pretty much a particle accelerator. They got an unannounced
inspection from the FDA. The inspector found a new pc board and a
repair unit on the same test bench, one with a yellow tag and one with
a red tag, so shut down the company and sent everybody to re-education
classes. After six months of that, my friend quit.





--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

Science teaches us to doubt.

Claude Bernard

 

[server]

On Tue, 28 Jul 2020 03:29:56 -0700 (PDT), Lasse Langwadt Christensen
<langwadt@fonz.dk> wrote:

tirsdag den 28. juli 2020 kl. 07.40.39 UTC+2 skrev Ricketty C:
The project leader on the ventilator project has managed to have a few of the rev 1 boards built, but they are terribly full of bugs. Just stupid things that would have been caught in a design review, but until I came on board there was no one to do the design review with.

We are working on rev 2 of the board (something the Brits like to call Mk 2). It has been a real cluster f**k because of the lack of a requirements analysis and \"stuff\" just keeps changing and getting added.

The project lead had been working on getting the rev 2 boards made for free by JLCPCB, but now that we\'ve sent a BoM to them they said they will only assemble parts from their parts list. I\'m not certain this excludes us providing parts they don\'t carry, but still, just trying to go through their list to see what they have that might be compatible is a huge time sink.

It\'s not remotely like using Digikey. They let you select from a general category, then a sub category. Then you can select a package. Then you have to wade through all the parts individually and view data sheets to get info. It reminds me of the 90\'s.

JLCPCB links to LCSC for all of their parts. Are they connected? I see links between their sites as well as to EasyPCB.


LCSC supplies components to JLCPCB, they are the same company but separate locations

the reason they can do assembly for next nothing is because they only use their own parts already in the machines and can do everything almost automatic, they couldn\'t do that if they had to deal with everyone shipping them random bags of components

I just worked over a board design to minimize the number of
pick-and-place feeders, so our line could build it in one pass. What a
pain, putting resistors in series or parallel to replace one unique
value, mis-using voltage regulators, compromising the values of bypass
and timing caps, all that.



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

Science teaches us to doubt.

Claude Bernard

 

[Ricketty C]

On Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 12:28:55 PM UTC-4, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Tue, 28 Jul 2020 04:01:27 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 7/28/2020 1:40 AM, Ricketty C wrote:
The project leader on the ventilator project has managed to have a few of the rev 1 boards built, but they are terribly full of bugs. Just stupid things that would have been caught in a design review, but until I came on board there was no one to do the design review with.

We are working on rev 2 of the board (something the Brits like to call Mk 2). It has been a real cluster f**k because of the lack of a requirements analysis and \"stuff\" just keeps changing and getting added.

The project lead had been working on getting the rev 2 boards made for free by JLCPCB, but now that we\'ve sent a BoM to them they said they will only assemble parts from their parts list. I\'m not certain this excludes us providing parts they don\'t carry, but still, just trying to go through their list to see what they have that might be compatible is a huge time sink..

It\'s not remotely like using Digikey. They let you select from a general category, then a sub category. Then you can select a package. Then you have to wade through all the parts individually and view data sheets to get info. It reminds me of the 90\'s.

JLCPCB links to LCSC for all of their parts. Are they connected? I see links between their sites as well as to EasyPCB.


Would it be easier to use LCSC to look up candidates and cross-reference
back? LCSC\'s search function is better than that.

Wouldn\'t it be easier to check the designs, to get them right the
first time?

You don\'t seem to understand the problem at all. This is not about \"checking\" designs. This is about getting boards built.


> And to spend a few dollars to build them soon?

Perhaps you are offering to make a donation? Check out the donate button on the main page.

https://openventbristol.co.uk/

It\'s probably too late
for a new ventilator design anyhow. There\'s a zillion sitting around
unused, and they tend to kill people.

No, as you point out there are many places coming up the curve the first time. There may be a lot of ventilators unused in NY and California... well, NY anyway, but that does no one any good in South Africa. This ventilator can be built for under $1000 material costs.

Serious medical equipment takes years and megabucks to qualify. And
then the manufacturing and QC requirements are extreme. JLPCB would
*not* do.

They are just the ticket for prototypes. You do understand prototypes, right?

I know one guy who worked for a big-name theraputic x-ray machine
maker, pretty much a particle accelerator. They got an unannounced
inspection from the FDA. The inspector found a new pc board and a
repair unit on the same test bench, one with a yellow tag and one with
a red tag, so shut down the company and sent everybody to re-education
classes. After six months of that, my friend quit.

That was likely in the US, no? These will be made elsewhere. Pretty much everyone knows to stay away from the US when it comes to health care products, all vastly over priced just like our health care.

 

[Lasse Langwadt Christensen]

tirsdag den 28. juli 2020 kl. 18.27.05 UTC+2 skrev Ricketty C:

On Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 6:30:01 AM UTC-4, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
tirsdag den 28. juli 2020 kl. 07.40.39 UTC+2 skrev Ricketty C:
The project leader on the ventilator project has managed to have a few of the rev 1 boards built, but they are terribly full of bugs. Just stupid things that would have been caught in a design review, but until I came on board there was no one to do the design review with.

We are working on rev 2 of the board (something the Brits like to call Mk 2). It has been a real cluster f**k because of the lack of a requirements analysis and \"stuff\" just keeps changing and getting added.

The project lead had been working on getting the rev 2 boards made for free by JLCPCB, but now that we\'ve sent a BoM to them they said they will only assemble parts from their parts list. I\'m not certain this excludes us providing parts they don\'t carry, but still, just trying to go through their list to see what they have that might be compatible is a huge time sink.

It\'s not remotely like using Digikey. They let you select from a general category, then a sub category. Then you can select a package. Then you have to wade through all the parts individually and view data sheets to get info. It reminds me of the 90\'s.

JLCPCB links to LCSC for all of their parts. Are they connected? I see links between their sites as well as to EasyPCB.


LCSC supplies components to JLCPCB, they are the same company but separate locations

the reason they can do assembly for next nothing is because they only use their own parts already in the machines and can do everything almost automatic, they couldn\'t do that if they had to deal with everyone shipping them random bags of components

So are they mainly a hobbyist\'s tool? Looking at the available parts it would be hard to design a product being so limited, especially given the lack of parametric search capability.

it is affordable prototyping, maximum 30 pieces

they have 30K part to chose from and even if you have so hand solder a special part it is a huge timer saver to have all the jelly bean and passives mounted

I would find it hard to believe that kitting and loading customer\'s parts would be that big of a deal. The majority of the cost is amortization of the machines. Kitting is done before tying up the machine. Switching reel setups is done in a few seconds.

the setup fee is $7 ! would you mess with people sending boxes of random parts, loose in bags, on cut tape, more or less well marked, putting them in feeder and make sure the rotation is correct for $7 ?

They can do it so cheap because they have streamlined the process with minimum manual work.

they consolidate everyone’s designs into big panels and feed them through a row of machines that has already been setup for all their basic components, with a few extra spots for extended components that\'ll cost you an extra $3 setup

 

[bitrex]

On 7/28/2020 12:28 PM, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Tue, 28 Jul 2020 04:01:27 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 7/28/2020 1:40 AM, Ricketty C wrote:
The project leader on the ventilator project has managed to have a few of the rev 1 boards built, but they are terribly full of bugs. Just stupid things that would have been caught in a design review, but until I came on board there was no one to do the design review with.

We are working on rev 2 of the board (something the Brits like to call Mk 2). It has been a real cluster f**k because of the lack of a requirements analysis and \"stuff\" just keeps changing and getting added.

The project lead had been working on getting the rev 2 boards made for free by JLCPCB, but now that we\'ve sent a BoM to them they said they will only assemble parts from their parts list. I\'m not certain this excludes us providing parts they don\'t carry, but still, just trying to go through their list to see what they have that might be compatible is a huge time sink.

It\'s not remotely like using Digikey. They let you select from a general category, then a sub category. Then you can select a package. Then you have to wade through all the parts individually and view data sheets to get info. It reminds me of the 90\'s.

JLCPCB links to LCSC for all of their parts. Are they connected? I see links between their sites as well as to EasyPCB.


Would it be easier to use LCSC to look up candidates and cross-reference
back? LCSC\'s search function is better than that.

Wouldn\'t it be easier to check the designs, to get them right the
first time?

And to spend a few dollars to build them soon? It\'s probably too late
for a new ventilator design anyhow. There\'s a zillion sitting around
unused, and they tend to kill people.

Serious medical equipment takes years and megabucks to qualify. And
then the manufacturing and QC requirements are extreme. JLPCB would
*not* do.

I know one guy who worked for a big-name theraputic x-ray machine
maker, pretty much a particle accelerator. They got an unannounced
inspection from the FDA. The inspector found a new pc board and a
repair unit on the same test bench, one with a yellow tag and one with
a red tag, so shut down the company and sent everybody to re-education
classes. After six months of that, my friend quit.

My father worked in a shoe store as a teen where you could just stick
your feet in a fluoroscope and see your toe bones wiggle around. Well it
was a different time, I guess.

My hobby projects are more pedestrian I was thinking the other day about
whether you could build a scrolling Times-square like marquee in 1:160
scale, whether there are any SMT LEDs small enough for an approximation
with reasonable resolution or if you\'d have to resort to fiber optics.

 

[Ricketty C]

On Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 1:39:31 PM UTC-4, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:

tirsdag den 28. juli 2020 kl. 18.27.05 UTC+2 skrev Ricketty C:
On Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 6:30:01 AM UTC-4, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
tirsdag den 28. juli 2020 kl. 07.40.39 UTC+2 skrev Ricketty C:
The project leader on the ventilator project has managed to have a few of the rev 1 boards built, but they are terribly full of bugs. Just stupid things that would have been caught in a design review, but until I came on board there was no one to do the design review with.

We are working on rev 2 of the board (something the Brits like to call Mk 2). It has been a real cluster f**k because of the lack of a requirements analysis and \"stuff\" just keeps changing and getting added.

The project lead had been working on getting the rev 2 boards made for free by JLCPCB, but now that we\'ve sent a BoM to them they said they will only assemble parts from their parts list. I\'m not certain this excludes us providing parts they don\'t carry, but still, just trying to go through their list to see what they have that might be compatible is a huge time sink.

It\'s not remotely like using Digikey. They let you select from a general category, then a sub category. Then you can select a package. Then you have to wade through all the parts individually and view data sheets to get info. It reminds me of the 90\'s.

JLCPCB links to LCSC for all of their parts. Are they connected? I see links between their sites as well as to EasyPCB.


LCSC supplies components to JLCPCB, they are the same company but separate locations

the reason they can do assembly for next nothing is because they only use their own parts already in the machines and can do everything almost automatic, they couldn\'t do that if they had to deal with everyone shipping them random bags of components

So are they mainly a hobbyist\'s tool? Looking at the available parts it would be hard to design a product being so limited, especially given the lack of parametric search capability.


it is affordable prototyping, maximum 30 pieces

they have 30K part to chose from and even if you have so hand solder a special part it is a huge timer saver to have all the jelly bean and passives mounted

I get all that. My issue is they have virtually no useful selection features so it is some hundred times more work to find a useful part on their web site than on Digikey. Definitely not worth my time to mess with. I\'m not sure I\'m willing to do all that searching for this open source project either.

You can say it is \"useful\" but in reality it\'s not very unless you are happy with very generic parts and don\'t mind spending a lot of extra time searching for parts you can use. That latter is a HUGE factor in my view. i use Digikey mostly for their search tool. What good is 30k parts if it takes you hours to find one?

I would find it hard to believe that kitting and loading customer\'s parts would be that big of a deal. The majority of the cost is amortization of the machines. Kitting is done before tying up the machine. Switching reel setups is done in a few seconds.


the setup fee is $7 ! would you mess with people sending boxes of random parts, loose in bags, on cut tape, more or less well marked, putting them in feeder and make sure the rotation is correct for $7 ?

I found where they say they don\'t install your parts. If they are part of LCSC, why wouldn\'t they work with all the LCSC inventory? Heck, even the LCSC site is not that great. They can\'t even tell you what they carry and what they don\'t without going to the individual pages. They seem to list a bunch of Chinese FPGAs, but don\'t actually have any of them.

They can do it so cheap because they have streamlined the process with minimum manual work.

they consolidate everyone’s designs into big panels and feed them through a row of machines that has already been setup for all their basic components, with a few extra spots for extended components that\'ll cost you an extra $3 setup

I found a page explaining their assembly and they will only do boards with up to 30 parts, 2 or 4 layers and once you go beyond the 689 basic parts it\'s $3 extra per part. That gets expensive real quick. Trying to design things with the 689 basic parts would be like the up goer five.

https://xkcd.com/1133/

--

Rick C.

+- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Lasse Langwadt Christensen]

tirsdag den 28. juli 2020 kl. 20.44.37 UTC+2 skrev Ricketty C:

On Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 1:39:31 PM UTC-4, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
tirsdag den 28. juli 2020 kl. 18.27.05 UTC+2 skrev Ricketty C:
On Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 6:30:01 AM UTC-4, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
tirsdag den 28. juli 2020 kl. 07.40.39 UTC+2 skrev Ricketty C:
The project leader on the ventilator project has managed to have a few of the rev 1 boards built, but they are terribly full of bugs. Just stupid things that would have been caught in a design review, but until I came on board there was no one to do the design review with.

We are working on rev 2 of the board (something the Brits like to call Mk 2). It has been a real cluster f**k because of the lack of a requirements analysis and \"stuff\" just keeps changing and getting added.

The project lead had been working on getting the rev 2 boards made for free by JLCPCB, but now that we\'ve sent a BoM to them they said they will only assemble parts from their parts list. I\'m not certain this excludes us providing parts they don\'t carry, but still, just trying to go through their list to see what they have that might be compatible is a huge time sink.

It\'s not remotely like using Digikey. They let you select from a general category, then a sub category. Then you can select a package. Then you have to wade through all the parts individually and view data sheets to get info. It reminds me of the 90\'s.

JLCPCB links to LCSC for all of their parts. Are they connected? I see links between their sites as well as to EasyPCB.


LCSC supplies components to JLCPCB, they are the same company but separate locations

the reason they can do assembly for next nothing is because they only use their own parts already in the machines and can do everything almost automatic, they couldn\'t do that if they had to deal with everyone shipping them random bags of components

So are they mainly a hobbyist\'s tool? Looking at the available parts it would be hard to design a product being so limited, especially given the lack of parametric search capability.


it is affordable prototyping, maximum 30 pieces

they have 30K part to chose from and even if you have so hand solder a special part it is a huge timer saver to have all the jelly bean and passives mounted

I get all that. My issue is they have virtually no useful selection features so it is some hundred times more work to find a useful part on their web site than on Digikey. Definitely not worth my time to mess with. I\'m not sure I\'m willing to do all that searching for this open source project either.

You can say it is \"useful\" but in reality it\'s not very unless you are happy with very generic parts and don\'t mind spending a lot of extra time searching for parts you can use. That latter is a HUGE factor in my view. i use Digikey mostly for their search tool. What good is 30k parts if it takes you hours to find one?


I would find it hard to believe that kitting and loading customer\'s parts would be that big of a deal. The majority of the cost is amortization of the machines. Kitting is done before tying up the machine. Switching reel setups is done in a few seconds.


the setup fee is $7 ! would you mess with people sending boxes of random parts, loose in bags, on cut tape, more or less well marked, putting them in feeder and make sure the rotation is correct for $7 ?

I found where they say they don\'t install your parts. If they are part of LCSC, why wouldn\'t they work with all the LCSC inventory? Heck, even the LCSC site is not that great. They can\'t even tell you what they carry and what they don\'t without going to the individual pages. They seem to list a bunch of Chinese FPGAs, but don\'t actually have any of them.

guess it is not for you then, it is a helluva lot better than the old way with
even a tiny PCB costing 1000s, assembly another 1000s and that\'s after spending weeks ordering and labeling parts

They can do it so cheap because they have streamlined the process with minimum manual work.

they consolidate everyone’s designs into big panels and feed them through a row of machines that has already been setup for all their basic components, with a few extra spots for extended components that\'ll cost you an extra $3 setup

I found a page explaining their assembly and they will only do boards with up to 30 parts, 2 or 4 layers and once you go beyond the 689 basic parts it\'s $3 extra per part. That gets expensive real quick. Trying to design things with the 689 basic parts would be like the up goer five.

$3 expensive? it is per part number, not per part

 

[Ricketty C]

On Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 2:44:37 PM UTC-4, Ricketty C wrote:

On Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 1:39:31 PM UTC-4, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
tirsdag den 28. juli 2020 kl. 18.27.05 UTC+2 skrev Ricketty C:
On Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 6:30:01 AM UTC-4, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
tirsdag den 28. juli 2020 kl. 07.40.39 UTC+2 skrev Ricketty C:
The project leader on the ventilator project has managed to have a few of the rev 1 boards built, but they are terribly full of bugs. Just stupid things that would have been caught in a design review, but until I came on board there was no one to do the design review with.

We are working on rev 2 of the board (something the Brits like to call Mk 2). It has been a real cluster f**k because of the lack of a requirements analysis and \"stuff\" just keeps changing and getting added.

The project lead had been working on getting the rev 2 boards made for free by JLCPCB, but now that we\'ve sent a BoM to them they said they will only assemble parts from their parts list. I\'m not certain this excludes us providing parts they don\'t carry, but still, just trying to go through their list to see what they have that might be compatible is a huge time sink.

It\'s not remotely like using Digikey. They let you select from a general category, then a sub category. Then you can select a package. Then you have to wade through all the parts individually and view data sheets to get info. It reminds me of the 90\'s.

JLCPCB links to LCSC for all of their parts. Are they connected? I see links between their sites as well as to EasyPCB.


LCSC supplies components to JLCPCB, they are the same company but separate locations

the reason they can do assembly for next nothing is because they only use their own parts already in the machines and can do everything almost automatic, they couldn\'t do that if they had to deal with everyone shipping them random bags of components

So are they mainly a hobbyist\'s tool? Looking at the available parts it would be hard to design a product being so limited, especially given the lack of parametric search capability.


it is affordable prototyping, maximum 30 pieces

they have 30K part to chose from and even if you have so hand solder a special part it is a huge timer saver to have all the jelly bean and passives mounted

I get all that. My issue is they have virtually no useful selection features so it is some hundred times more work to find a useful part on their web site than on Digikey. Definitely not worth my time to mess with. I\'m not sure I\'m willing to do all that searching for this open source project either.

You can say it is \"useful\" but in reality it\'s not very unless you are happy with very generic parts and don\'t mind spending a lot of extra time searching for parts you can use. That latter is a HUGE factor in my view. i use Digikey mostly for their search tool. What good is 30k parts if it takes you hours to find one?


I would find it hard to believe that kitting and loading customer\'s parts would be that big of a deal. The majority of the cost is amortization of the machines. Kitting is done before tying up the machine. Switching reel setups is done in a few seconds.


the setup fee is $7 ! would you mess with people sending boxes of random parts, loose in bags, on cut tape, more or less well marked, putting them in feeder and make sure the rotation is correct for $7 ?

I found where they say they don\'t install your parts. If they are part of LCSC, why wouldn\'t they work with all the LCSC inventory? Heck, even the LCSC site is not that great. They can\'t even tell you what they carry and what they don\'t without going to the individual pages. They seem to list a bunch of Chinese FPGAs, but don\'t actually have any of them.


They can do it so cheap because they have streamlined the process with minimum manual work.

they consolidate everyone’s designs into big panels and feed them through a row of machines that has already been setup for all their basic components, with a few extra spots for extended components that\'ll cost you an extra $3 setup

I found a page explaining their assembly and they will only do boards with up to 30 parts, 2 or 4 layers and once you go beyond the 689 basic parts it\'s $3 extra per part. That gets expensive real quick. Trying to design things with the 689 basic parts would be like the up goer five.

https://xkcd.com/1133/

Correction. The 30 count is the number of boards they will produce.

--

Rick C.

++ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
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[Ricketty C]

On Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 4:36:06 PM UTC-4, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:

tirsdag den 28. juli 2020 kl. 20.44.37 UTC+2 skrev Ricketty C:

I found where they say they don\'t install your parts. If they are part of LCSC, why wouldn\'t they work with all the LCSC inventory? Heck, even the LCSC site is not that great. They can\'t even tell you what they carry and what they don\'t without going to the individual pages. They seem to list a bunch of Chinese FPGAs, but don\'t actually have any of them.


guess it is not for you then, it is a helluva lot better than the old way with
even a tiny PCB costing 1000s, assembly another 1000s and that\'s after spending weeks ordering and labeling parts

Yeah, but if you need a hammer, selling you a hamburger is not so useful even if it\'s with a free drink.

If I want a board with parts on it they don\'t offer I have to hand solder or find someone with a hot air station. But the part that really bugs me is the huge work required to select parts from their difficult to search data base. That is where it turns into a false economy even if the boards are free.

My time is worth a few bucks. I\'d love to get the prototypes cheaper, but I\'m not going to waste my time searching for parts in a non-database.

--

Rick C.

--- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
--- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Clifford Heath]

On 29/7/20 6:54 am, Ricketty C wrote:

On Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 4:36:06 PM UTC-4, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
tirsdag den 28. juli 2020 kl. 20.44.37 UTC+2 skrev Ricketty C:

I found where they say they don\'t install your parts. If they are part of LCSC, why wouldn\'t they work with all the LCSC inventory? Heck, even the LCSC site is not that great. They can\'t even tell you what they carry and what they don\'t without going to the individual pages. They seem to list a bunch of Chinese FPGAs, but don\'t actually have any of them.


guess it is not for you then, it is a helluva lot better than the old way with
even a tiny PCB costing 1000s, assembly another 1000s and that\'s after spending weeks ordering and labeling parts

Yeah, but if you need a hammer, selling you a hamburger is not so useful even if it\'s with a free drink.

If I want a board with parts on it they don\'t offer I have to hand solder or find someone with a hot air station. But the part that really bugs me is the huge work required to select parts from their difficult to search data base. That is where it turns into a false economy even if the boards are free.

My time is worth a few bucks. I\'d love to get the prototypes cheaper, but I\'m not going to waste my time searching for parts in a non-database.

It\'s a problem, but I\'m trying to surmount it for my own designs.

The JLCPCB parts list is a CSV file, which includes datasheet links as
well as price breaks and stock levels. You can load it into Excel, but I
just use Unix \"grep\". It\'s in categories, but some of those are too
non-specific. For example there are 780 in-stock DC-DC converters, and
no information to choose between them. Also, some of the probably-useful
chips only have Chinese language datasheets.

LCSC has a parametric search engine which is good for some categories.
It\'s unfortunately useless for DC-DC converters, because the parameters
simply aren\'t populated. Also, JLCPCB doesn\'t have all the LCSC parts,
so you need to cross-check the CSV.

I\'m toying with the idea of auto-downloading all the JLCPCB datasheets,
and linking them to a database from the CSV file. Populate that with
LCSC web links... add generalized parameter storage/search to the
database and start populating it... perhaps including some web scraping
of Digikey\'s parameters...

Then, progressively build a Kicad library (of footprints, etc) for the
parts listed, possibly even modify Kicad\'s library system so a
parametric search over the database can be used to select symbols and
footprints...

The whole thing would be a big undertaking, but the result could be very
slick to use. Maybe I could persuade LCSC to fund it...

Clifford Heath

 

[Ricketty C]

On Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 7:58:11 PM UTC-4, Clifford Heath wrote:

On 29/7/20 6:54 am, Ricketty C wrote:
On Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 4:36:06 PM UTC-4, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
tirsdag den 28. juli 2020 kl. 20.44.37 UTC+2 skrev Ricketty C:

I found where they say they don\'t install your parts. If they are part of LCSC, why wouldn\'t they work with all the LCSC inventory? Heck, even the LCSC site is not that great. They can\'t even tell you what they carry and what they don\'t without going to the individual pages. They seem to list a bunch of Chinese FPGAs, but don\'t actually have any of them.


guess it is not for you then, it is a helluva lot better than the old way with
even a tiny PCB costing 1000s, assembly another 1000s and that\'s after spending weeks ordering and labeling parts

Yeah, but if you need a hammer, selling you a hamburger is not so useful even if it\'s with a free drink.

If I want a board with parts on it they don\'t offer I have to hand solder or find someone with a hot air station. But the part that really bugs me is the huge work required to select parts from their difficult to search data base. That is where it turns into a false economy even if the boards are free.

My time is worth a few bucks. I\'d love to get the prototypes cheaper, but I\'m not going to waste my time searching for parts in a non-database.

It\'s a problem, but I\'m trying to surmount it for my own designs.

The JLCPCB parts list is a CSV file, which includes datasheet links as
well as price breaks and stock levels. You can load it into Excel, but I
just use Unix \"grep\". It\'s in categories, but some of those are too
non-specific. For example there are 780 in-stock DC-DC converters, and
no information to choose between them. Also, some of the probably-useful
chips only have Chinese language datasheets.

That info alone is rather useless if you want to select a part with specific parameters or functionality. I want a generic linear regulator with 1 amp, 5 volts and an enable input. What can I search on? Package.

LCSC has a parametric search engine which is good for some categories.
It\'s unfortunately useless for DC-DC converters, because the parameters
simply aren\'t populated. Also, JLCPCB doesn\'t have all the LCSC parts,
so you need to cross-check the CSV.

That means you go through the selection process only to start over when the part isn\'t in the JLC data base.

I\'m toying with the idea of auto-downloading all the JLCPCB datasheets,
and linking them to a database from the CSV file. Populate that with
LCSC web links... add generalized parameter storage/search to the
database and start populating it... perhaps including some web scraping
of Digikey\'s parameters...

Much more useful would be to add a field to Digikey\'s search to indicate if it is carried by JLC. Why not ask them if they\'ll add it?

Then, progressively build a Kicad library (of footprints, etc) for the
parts listed, possibly even modify Kicad\'s library system so a
parametric search over the database can be used to select symbols and
footprints...

The whole thing would be a big undertaking, but the result could be very
slick to use. Maybe I could persuade LCSC to fund it...

A huge undertaking for minimal return. Maybe you could charge people to use it? Charge $0.10 per part searched and selected. 100 parts on your board would cost $10, a bargain.

--

Rick C.

--+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
--+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Przemek Klosowski]

On Tue, 28 Jul 2020 11:44:32 -0700, Ricketty C wrote:

I get all that. My issue is they have virtually no useful selection
features so it is some hundred times more work to find a useful part on
their web site than on Digikey.

I got them to publish a spreadsheet with their parts:
https://jlcpcb.com/componentSearch/uploadComponentInfo
so you can do your own search. The spreadsheet is a little cryptic (e.g.
the price is encoded with with multiple quantity breaks, and you have to
retrieve the datasheets yourself, but hey.

 

[Ricketty C]

On Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 11:31:37 PM UTC-4, Przemek Klosowski wrote:

On Tue, 28 Jul 2020 11:44:32 -0700, Ricketty C wrote:

I get all that. My issue is they have virtually no useful selection
features so it is some hundred times more work to find a useful part on
their web site than on Digikey.

I got them to publish a spreadsheet with their parts:
https://jlcpcb.com/componentSearch/uploadComponentInfo
so you can do your own search. The spreadsheet is a little cryptic (e.g.
the price is encoded with with multiple quantity breaks, and you have to
retrieve the datasheets yourself, but hey.

What sort of data sheet comes in the form of an .exe file?

Even so, the problem is not the format of the data. The problem is that they don\'t include the useful parametric data that is needed for selection. What\'s in this spreadsheet that would be useful?

--

Rick C.

-+- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Rich S]

On Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 11:58:11 PM UTC, Clifford Heath wrote:

On 29/7/20 6:54 am, Ricketty C wrote:
On Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 4:36:06 PM UTC-4, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
tirsdag den 28. juli 2020 kl. 20.44.37 UTC+2 skrev Ricketty C:

I found where they say they don\'t install your parts. If they are part of LCSC, why wouldn\'t they work with all the LCSC inventory? Heck, even the LCSC site is not that great. They can\'t even tell you what they carry and what they don\'t without going to the individual pages. They seem to list a bunch of Chinese FPGAs, but don\'t actually have any of them.


guess it is not for you then, it is a helluva lot better than the old way with
even a tiny PCB costing 1000s, assembly another 1000s and that\'s after spending weeks ordering and labeling parts

Yeah, but if you need a hammer, selling you a hamburger is not so useful even if it\'s with a free drink.

If I want a board with parts on it they don\'t offer I have to hand solder or find someone with a hot air station. But the part that really bugs me is the huge work required to select parts from their difficult to search data base. That is where it turns into a false economy even if the boards are free.

My time is worth a few bucks. I\'d love to get the prototypes cheaper, but I\'m not going to waste my time searching for parts in a non-database.

It\'s a problem, but I\'m trying to surmount it for my own designs.

The JLCPCB parts list is a CSV file, which includes datasheet links as
well as price breaks and stock levels. You can load it into Excel, but I
just use Unix \"grep\". It\'s in categories, but some of those are too
non-specific. For example there are 780 in-stock DC-DC converters, and
no information to choose between them. Also, some of the probably-useful
chips only have Chinese language datasheets.

LCSC has a parametric search engine which is good for some categories.
It\'s unfortunately useless for DC-DC converters, because the parameters
simply aren\'t populated. Also, JLCPCB doesn\'t have all the LCSC parts,
so you need to cross-check the CSV.

I\'m toying with the idea of auto-downloading all the JLCPCB datasheets,
and linking them to a database from the CSV file. Populate that with
LCSC web links... add generalized parameter storage/search to the
database and start populating it... perhaps including some web scraping
of Digikey\'s parameters...

Then, progressively build a Kicad library (of footprints, etc) for the
parts listed, possibly even modify Kicad\'s library system so a
parametric search over the database can be used to select symbols and
footprints...

The whole thing would be a big undertaking, but the result could be very
slick to use. Maybe I could persuade LCSC to fund it...

Clifford Heathmsi

Hmm, please, where did you find the CSV file?
I only see this link:
https://jlcpcb.com/componentSearch/uploadComponentInfo

which downloads a binary file (compressed into a .msi file).
In the file near the top is \"Java Excel API v2.6.12\"

 

[Clifford Heath]

On 30/7/20 4:23 am, Rich S wrote:

On Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 11:58:11 PM UTC, Clifford Heath wrote:
On 29/7/20 6:54 am, Ricketty C wrote:
On Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 4:36:06 PM UTC-4, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
tirsdag den 28. juli 2020 kl. 20.44.37 UTC+2 skrev Ricketty C:

I found where they say they don\'t install your parts. If they are part of LCSC, why wouldn\'t they work with all the LCSC inventory? Heck, even the LCSC site is not that great. They can\'t even tell you what they carry and what they don\'t without going to the individual pages. They seem to list a bunch of Chinese FPGAs, but don\'t actually have any of them.


guess it is not for you then, it is a helluva lot better than the old way with
even a tiny PCB costing 1000s, assembly another 1000s and that\'s after spending weeks ordering and labeling parts

Yeah, but if you need a hammer, selling you a hamburger is not so useful even if it\'s with a free drink.

If I want a board with parts on it they don\'t offer I have to hand solder or find someone with a hot air station. But the part that really bugs me is the huge work required to select parts from their difficult to search data base. That is where it turns into a false economy even if the boards are free.

My time is worth a few bucks. I\'d love to get the prototypes cheaper, but I\'m not going to waste my time searching for parts in a non-database.

It\'s a problem, but I\'m trying to surmount it for my own designs.

The JLCPCB parts list is a CSV file, which includes datasheet links as
well as price breaks and stock levels. You can load it into Excel, but I
just use Unix \"grep\". It\'s in categories, but some of those are too
non-specific. For example there are 780 in-stock DC-DC converters, and
no information to choose between them. Also, some of the probably-useful
chips only have Chinese language datasheets.

LCSC has a parametric search engine which is good for some categories.
It\'s unfortunately useless for DC-DC converters, because the parameters
simply aren\'t populated. Also, JLCPCB doesn\'t have all the LCSC parts,
so you need to cross-check the CSV.

I\'m toying with the idea of auto-downloading all the JLCPCB datasheets,
and linking them to a database from the CSV file. Populate that with
LCSC web links... add generalized parameter storage/search to the
database and start populating it... perhaps including some web scraping
of Digikey\'s parameters...

Then, progressively build a Kicad library (of footprints, etc) for the
parts listed, possibly even modify Kicad\'s library system so a
parametric search over the database can be used to select symbols and
footprints...

The whole thing would be a big undertaking, but the result could be very
slick to use. Maybe I could persuade LCSC to fund it...

Clifford Heathmsi

Hmm, please, where did you find the CSV file?
I only see this link:
https://jlcpcb.com/componentSearch/uploadComponentInfo

which downloads a binary file (compressed into a .msi file).
In the file near the top is \"Java Excel API v2.6.12\"

Oh sorry, I downloaded an xlsx file, opened it in Excel and saved it as
a TSV (Tab Separated Values) file. The xlsx file was presumably
generated from that Java API, not from Excel. I didn\'t see any MSI nonsense.

Maybe I should put up a web service that makes an up-to-date version of
that file more easily searchable . Would anyone here subscribe to that?

CH.