Jlcpcb and tariffs

[Robert]

Is the prepay option with JLC effectively cheaper by avoiding brokerage fees?

You don't avoid brokerage fees.

The prepay option is actually more expensive since JLCPCB charges a "tax advance fee" .

(The amount includes the estimated tariff of 170%, plus JLCPCB's 10USD tax advance fee or 5% of the total tax, whichever is higher）

 

[Passinwind]

I mean, I guess there's OSH Park if you don't mind purple solder mask and having to sand pointy spurs off the edges of every board.

I absolutely love the OSH purple and gold look, but yeah, the nubs do suck. For me the other viable US based alternative has been DKRed, who give us a mildly annoying random board ID number instead of the nubs. They also don't do plated slots, which I use occasionally for onboard preamps. Pricing is generally a wash between the two, and DKR throw in a bonus boards or two pretty regularly. Both these options tolerate a few more rework cycles than JLCPCB standard spec, IME.

In any case, I really feel for those of you who depend on JLC, and for good reasons. For me it's just a mild inconvenience at worst.

 

[Robert]

Just noticing that pretty much all of my AliExpress "watched" items have doubled in price since yesterday.

 

[Stickman393]

Boy howdy. Anybody else decide earlier this year to bite the bullet and put a few bigger tool purchases on credit?

Fuckin...I can pay down a 20+% APR far easier than 145% upfront.

 

[KreoPensas]

^ Yes. Last fall, really.

 

[BrooksBlackhawk]

What th #&^$ are we gonna do?? Has anyone in the states found a jlcpcb-ish priced alternative with partial PCBA? (I have resistors, diodes, basic parts pre-soldered)

 

[vigilante398]

I sent files for pcb+assembly over to Pica Manufacturing this morning for a quote, he says he should be able to get that early next week. He did say though that their larger factory in Malaysia is only used for larger orders (qty 500+), and that smaller orders are done in their New Hampshire location.

Regardless of what they come back with, I'm planning to talk to every PCB fabricator at the Design-2-Part trade show in Chicago next week. To speed things up, I just ordered a bulk pack of 50 flash drives, I'm planning to load them up with gerbers and BOMs of a couple of my projects, as well as a "digital business card", so I can just hand them out and say "get me quotes for these" and move on.

 

[bean]

Just wait and ride the storm out. Even with tariffs, JLCPCB is cheaper and it’s not even close.

I think this is my plan at this point. The de minimis is surely gone maybe forever but the current tariff rate is not going to last. We're just a couple months from empty shelves.

 

[bean]

And honestly, I feel a loyalty to JLCPCB. Their customer service is excellent and they’ve never been anything but good to me.

And my process is dialed in.

Old dog and all that.

I'm loyal too due to the convenience, quality and price. I'd happily give that business to an American manufacturer if they could compete, but they simply can't. I don't expect this trade war crap to change that one bit because there is no plan at all to protect and preserve small businesses while it's happening.

I think we will be in a terrible recession by Q3/Q4. I'll happily eat my words if not, but it seems inevitable now.

 

[Locrian99]

random semi related rant.

My mom babysits for us on saturdays, she stayed for dinner last night. We got on the subject of what things cost back in the 60’s (shes 76 born in 48). And she made a comment about working at the toy factory in 1965, and she made 1.15’or whatever. And i was like oh was that good pay, she said no it was minimum wage there was lots of factory jobs theyball oaid minimum wage and were horrible so she got a job at jc pennys.

What exactly are we doing this for ?

 

[Stickman393]

Curtis Yarvin.

Basically.

 

[vigilante398]

I have weekly phone calls with my (conservative) parents, and yesterday I made a particular point to talk about how much the tariffs have been causing me stress headaches and literal lost sleep. I love my parents, but they often have a stance of "everything is fine if it doesn't affect me or my immediate family," so I have to make sure they know that things affect people.

I like JLC, compared to the number of boards I've gotten there I have had very few issues, and their setup is fast and incredibly convenient. I would love to wait and see if things get better, but I'm in the weird position where pedals make up a large part of my income, so I'm in a little bit of a hurry to make sure I can keep doing what I'm doing.

 

[Harry Klippton]

Well now I feel silly for sitting on my designs for the past year. I guess they can wait some more

 

[PedalBuilder]

My last shipment of boards arrived today after making it through customs on April 30. This order cost me $14 including shipping; the same order today would cost $52. I've got enough boards to keep me entertained for a while, so I'll be sitting on the sidelines until things sort themselves out.

 

[vigilante398]

Going through the biggest inconvenience of moving away from JLC: part selection. JLC makes things easier for us by limiting what we're allowed to put on the board, they only allow things in their library which streamlines quoting, ordering and assembly. But if you try to get a quote from a US board house, they'll typically want manufacturer part numbers, not just values and footprints, especially some of the more specialized stuff out there.

JLC makes it easy to get in, they give you loads of options and help you set up your infrastructure around their system, and it makes it really inconvenient to leave.

 

[Nostradoomus]

Tariffs huh?

Alright!


Welp, see ya later!

/Canada

 

[Asdrael]

At that stage, I'm pretty sure I could start up a side business ordering from JLCPCB from Europe and sell to you guys and even with shipping etc on top I would still make a profit and have you save some money.

 

[LukeFRC]

At that stage, I'm pretty sure I could start up a side business ordering from JLCPCB from Europe and sell to you guys and even with shipping etc on top I would still make a profit and have you save some money.

Problem is if you're just selling on the value and place of origin of the product is still china and then theoretically subject to Chinese tariffs. (there is similar issue with EV built in UK using Chinese batteries as more than 50% of the value is Chinese products.

What you could do is build PCB into full pedals and sell into the US - because then the value added is in the build and your time, not the parts ...

 

[Harry Klippton]

 

[vigilante398]

Don’t leave!

I kid of course. Luckily for me I’m going 6-8 weeks between every batch so my hope is that the worst of this will blow over between this batch I’m now shipping out and delivery of the next.

I’ll stay the course because as you pointed out, JLCPCB is part of my process now.

I have enough PCBs in stock that I can sit and wait for a little bit without issue, I'm just worried that if I wait too long and things haven't changed by the time I need to restock that I'll be left with a gap in production, and I would like to avoid that. I would love to get a new supplier all lined up and find out next month that everything is going back to normal and I can keep using JLC, but I am not a gambling man.