Rpschultz13
Well-known member
I’ve studied this guys videos, specifically on grounding. Great stuff, very informative:
Getting Started with PCBA at JLCPCB
- Thread starter z2amiller
- Start date
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z2amiller
Active member
I built a board using through-hole components and wanted to see what the JLCPCB assembly would look like for a purely through-hole board.
For purely through-hole, there's no setup cost and no stencil fee. However, the cost-per-unit for assembly is a lot higher.
For really small runs of boards, I think THT boards would actually be cheaper due to the smaller up-front setup costs.
There's no "Basic vs Extended" juggling because everything is extended but you don't pay a per-extended-part fee
like you do with SMD.
In my example, the boards come out to about $7.50/ea with THT (This is for 5x4-layer boards):
To stack that against a SMT board, here's a board with similar parts count / complexity that is SMT:
You can see the $8 setup and $9 in extended fees, but both the assembly cost per board and the component costs are lower.
The component cost for this one is artificially low since some components come out of my pre-purchased parts library.
But I do notice that the SMT parts are significantly cheaper than the THT equivalents.
So anyway, for runs of 5-10 boards the costs will be pretty similar, but for more than that, the lower per-board cost
and lower component costs will quickly offset the setup costs of SMT.
For purely through-hole, there's no setup cost and no stencil fee. However, the cost-per-unit for assembly is a lot higher.
For really small runs of boards, I think THT boards would actually be cheaper due to the smaller up-front setup costs.
There's no "Basic vs Extended" juggling because everything is extended but you don't pay a per-extended-part fee
like you do with SMD.
In my example, the boards come out to about $7.50/ea with THT (This is for 5x4-layer boards):
To stack that against a SMT board, here's a board with similar parts count / complexity that is SMT:
You can see the $8 setup and $9 in extended fees, but both the assembly cost per board and the component costs are lower.
The component cost for this one is artificially low since some components come out of my pre-purchased parts library.
But I do notice that the SMT parts are significantly cheaper than the THT equivalents.
So anyway, for runs of 5-10 boards the costs will be pretty similar, but for more than that, the lower per-board cost
and lower component costs will quickly offset the setup costs of SMT.
vigilante398
Authorized Vendor
Yeah I have a friend that had a through-hole design he wanted set up for JLC assembly and I was shocked at how much cheaper it was than my usual SMD boards (which admittedly use a large number of weird extended parts).
Rpschultz13
Well-known member
I had NO idea you could get thru-hole assembled like SMD.
vigilante398
Authorized Vendor
Yeah I've been getting mixed assembly (mostly SMD with through-hole film caps) for a while now, but last month was my first time trying a 100% through-hole board. It's funny how much you save without feeder loading fees, setup fees, stencil fees, etc.I had NO idea you could get thru-hole assembled like SMD.
z2amiller
Active member
I had NO idea you could get thru-hole assembled like SMD.
I've been adding some THT parts to all of my designs. Sometimes box film caps for larger values, and always JST connectors for the footswitch board. It adds a bit of cost (since there's a $3.50 THT setup cost even if you just add one component) but it's worth it to me for time savings. I hate soldering wires to things so much.
I also occasionally add DIP sockets rather than SOIC-8 op-amps in case I want to goof around with swapping out different opamp chips, or if I'm building a chorus or delay that uses PT2399 or BBD chips.
really useful @z2amiller thanks!