We have heard this from you before.
You have tried every single Australian contract manufacturer have you?
Tried enough to know that for volume you are better off going off shore.
I know there are some absolute shockers out there but i have dealt
with companies in the past whose results we were very happy with. It
cuts both ways. If you are dealing with good manufacturers and
expecting them to do all your engineering work for you because you
have given them crap in the form of
I expect nothing from AU manufacturers, because thats what you get. The fact
is, most employ morons that don't know shit about electronics. Some are
incapable of even operating a PC for automated testing.
(a) boards that have not been designed for manufacturability - e.g.
surface mount resistors mounted vertically, boards that aren't
panelled, no fiducial marks... Get guidelines for manufacture from
them and put the effort into giving them stuff that can be
manufactured.
I work to an international standard. I design boards for minimum
manufacturing cost, to manufacturers guidelins. I use plenty of fiducial
marks, even though decent manufacturers only require 3 on the whole panel
these days.
(b) inadequate documentation
I write documents that a primary school student could understand.
Where in AU here, c'mon give me a break.
All my testing is automated
I prefer the manufacturer to do this, but will supply them if need be.
Where in AU can you get decent stencils, in fact, where can you even get
decent PCB's??
(g) some or all of the above
you will probably get crap back. Good manufacturers are out there and
they are happy to give you feedback in order to revise your designs to
make your designs easier and cheaper to produce (and more reliable
and..). But if you expect them to do all the work for you all the time
you will continue to get poor service and a crap product. And if your
designs are crap in the first place then it is quite probable that you
are going to have high failure rates. (e.g components have tolerances.
Design for them)
In TW and China, the manufacturers will take an 80% complete design and
finish it for you at no extra cost. The will do electrical design
verifiction, hardware (ie cases) verifiction. They will provide EMC and
electrical compliance. They will design your looms...the list goes on.
Go to some of the SMCBA conferences. Do a course on Design for
Manufacture. Get feedback from your manufacturers
Garry Allen
I have never dealt with AEMS. I had very good results with Tresmine
and Benetron in Sydney and I was impressed with the information that I
got back from Puzzle Electronics in Newcastle. (talking about moderate
volumes - several hundred boards with fine pitch SMT e.g 208 pin QFPS
and TSSOPs and 0603 capacitors and resistors on both sides) Tresmine
is set up for bigger volumes and they were happy to quote very low
failure rates
Can you give me more specific yield rates? Failure rate per volume??
The point I try to make is that the Australian market is simply just not
geared up for electronics manufacturing. Processes here are to expensive.
What I look for is someone to make the process as least painful as possible.
I want to give someone a design and I want to see the product. I dont want
to be on the phone 50% of the day talking some dipshit uni graduate through
the process of turning on a computer and running a batch file. I dont want
to have to be visiting the manufacturer each week. I dont want to be chasing
them when the product is six months late.
Let me give you a recent example. One particular contract manufacturer in
Sydney rejected a stack of PCB's because they were V-grooved not routed.
Give me a break, why can everyone else manage V-cut PCB's?? This mob is
about 8months late delivering the product. A manufacturer in China has
already turned out the product and they were given their order AFTER the Au
manufacturer. This is the second time this has happened, both different
companies to the first..
Anyway, small runs I have no choice but to do in AU, so I guess I'll have to
continue dealing with the shit.
