23 comments

  • ncrtower 2 hours ago
    I just wanted a quote. But signup was painful it needs a major review. Then I uploaded a zip of my gerbers and it came up with some error that I could not figure out and halted any further movement. I'd love to do my PCBs domestic but the site makes it way too hard.
    • jrexilius 1 hour ago
      I've been using Macrofab for a couple years now and their experience is MUCH smoother. Prices are a bit higher, but for me, that is not an issue.
  • WarmWash 1 hour ago
    I do a fair bit of electronics manufacturing and excited to see this pop up.

    However I have my reservations because China is incredibly cheap, incredibly fast, and incredibly skilled. Our domestic made boards tend to be lower quality with more mistakes than Chinese made ones (while also costing up to 50x more).

    I'll run some designs through this later, and I really hope it is broadly viable (not just unique niches that fit their tooling)

    • red_candle_wax 1 hour ago
      Is all this stuff entirely machines nowadays, or do people do it by hand still?

      I remember documentaries from the 90s/00s showing Chinese factories with people hand soldering stuff onto PCBs, but most components used in electronics seems way too small for that.

      • ejiblabahaba 37 minutes ago
        Depends what you're doing. Most smaller surface-mount components and these days even a lot of standardized through-hole components can be assembled via pick and place machines and reflow ovens, which are largely automated. Larger components may require some extra steps like a small blob of glue to fix them in place - this comes up a lot for edge connectors, switches, or other larger mechanical components where the weight distribution doesn't allow them to rest flat on the board during reflow. Larger through-hole devices might need assistance with initial insertion or may be paired to other mechanical interfaces like a heatsink which requires some manual interaction. In some cases (particularly for boards with through-hole components all on one side) the soldering step can be automated by wave soldering. There's still some constraints on what can be automated, but it's all a lot less manual than the 90s/00s.

        Some components, particularly transformers, might also be constructed by hand for custom/complex structures. That's component assembly rather than board assembly, but it's a consistent source of manual labor involvement in the supply chain.

        Design for manufacturability is one of the important goals being considered in any PCB design. High-volume or low-cost boards will optimize for automated assembly and find ways to substitute or eliminate components with higher assembly costs. Extremely high-volume boards like in smartphones can justify custom tooling if it helps automate assembly.

      • throwup238 49 minutes ago
        The assembly is almost all automated with pick and places machines and the board fabrication is mostly chemistry. The problem is changing tooling between each run: PNPs need their feeders changed to the right parts for each board and there’s limited space for them so they all have to be changed for every design that runs through. Same with the tooling for the board etching. This stuff is precision equipment and has to be properly aligned so it’s not just a simple matter of plugging and unplugging some parts.
        • schobi 8 minutes ago
          Even deeper - go have a look at the huge catalog of basic parts of jlcpcb. There is no procurement process and delay needed, those seem to be already on the shop floor or maybe even on a feeder of a pick and place machine!

          The integration of lcsc is incredible.. let's see how they beat this in practice

      • WarmWash 40 minutes ago
        There is actually still quite a bit of hand work done. For standard surface mount designs it's mostly all automated, but there is still a good amount of through hole out there.

        Through hole can be automated, but it doesn't really make sense until you have pretty good volume. So that leaves it still mostly to hand.

        Then there are also all the unique customizations, like non-standard mounting specs or running jumper wires.

      • lp92 46 minutes ago
        Aseembly is mostly done by machines now, even for low volume its generally done by a pick and place machine setup. But depending on your product, things like thick power terminals may still be hand soldered as not every manufacturer/equipment can handle these.
      • bonzini 53 minutes ago
        The review (design for assembly) is done by hand.
  • phkahler 2 hours ago
    Pretty strict board requirements. They give an example motor controller, but then require your board to be 1oz copper. Motor controllers in particular often use 2oz for high current. No buried vias is an interesting requirement too. I'm not sure how often our guys use them but dense designs probably need them.

    Still, looks super cool and I don't think the price difference is very high for a company doing prototypes.

    • ycui7 36 minutes ago
      like 99% of all prototype fit 1oz copper and within 4 layers. no via-in-pad.
  • seddona 2 days ago
    Hi Andrew founder of CircuitHub here. Happy to answer any questions. Hardware design has been in the news a lot lately as it's going through the same AI revolution as coding. We're happy to make it easy to turn those designs into physical products.
    • kevin42 42 minutes ago
      I'd highly recommend you revisit your protection of customer's IP. Considering that you require source files (not just the industry standard gerbers), your legal terms are very unfavorable to customers. This makes me uncomfortable because it makes my IP much easier to leak. As written, I cannot justify the risks given your agreement.

      Nothing in the legal terms explicitly prevents your employees from using my designs for other purposes. If you leak my IP and I find out 13 months later, your terms prevent me from seeking damages because you only cover 12 months from manufacturing.

      I like that you have an NDA that I can opt in to, but you should be offering the NDA by default when I upload the files. I should not have to go looking for it in your documentation.

      Edit: I realize that there is also limited protection and a lot of risk using a Chinese manufacturer. But requiring source files makes it much, much, easier to look at my design, recognize what it's for, and reproduce it, or at least copy the innovative parts of my design.

    • kevin42 1 hour ago
      I wish you well, domestic electronic production is something we need very badly.

      I won't complain about the price, I understand it's going to be more expensive than China. But it's a tough one for me. I have a budget that I have to work with, and while I have some flexibility 3X prices (your site priced $9k compared to JLC's $2k, even after tariffs and shipping) make the project nonviable for me. I hope you can continue to improve pricing over time as you scale.

      Also your parts selection interface needs a lot of work. I have a very simple board and I had to go through clunky search and select for parts, even when the digikey part number was in the description.

    • Ccecil 1 day ago
      Looks interesting. As a US manufacturer/designer I will be keeping an eye on this closely.

      Currently, all assembly is done in house (in the US) but bare PCBs typically are still made in CN. We used to produce everything overseas and just do the QA/test in the US but during the chip shortage I ended up setting up the production line to attempt to eliminate any possible shortages/tariffs.

      It is a difficult struggle manufacturing commercial products in the US (doubly so with an openhardware project) since the final cost is the major blocker but I decided it was worth it for many reasons. Big issue though is knowing that even if I pay someone 2x the going rate for an employee it still will not be a living wage. Not sure the fix there. I see you are planning to lean heavily on automation/AI for this, will be watching to see how it all progresses.

      There are still some major blockers in the US. Commercial/Industrial real estate being a big one. Costs are not going down...even if employee count is minimized.

      I wish nothing but the best for the project.

      • Aurornis 3 hours ago
        > Big issue though is knowing that even if I pay someone 2x the going rate for an employee it still will not be a living wage.

        Being mindful of wages is great, but eventually you have to accept that creating a job at a less than ideal wage is better than not creating any job at all. If the pay is not enough then you’ll get the signal through being unable to hire because workers are taking better paying jobs.

        An unintuitive feature of the job market is that creating more low paying jobs actually puts upward pressure on wages. Ideally the low end of the job market should be saturated with job opportunities, which creates a situation where employers have to compete with each other to raise wages to find and retain employees, which means pay goes up for everyone.

        So don’t let worries about not being able to pay as much as you’d like get in the way of paying anyone at all. The alternative (less jobs, more outsourcing) is worse in every way.

        • WarmWash 10 minutes ago
          The problem is almost entirely that housing is too expensive.

          "Living wage" is an awful term because it intrinsically holds employers responsible for real estate costs, which are strongly correlated with higher pay (read: as employees get paid more, housing costs rise to match it).

          $20 an hour is not awful pay when you can rent for $600/mo. So the actual fix is to just build more housing, and it will bring back the viability of all these disappearing jobs.

        • ac29 2 hours ago
          > Being mindful of wages is great, but eventually you have to accept that creating a job at a less than ideal wage is better than not creating any job at all.

          For the employee, maybe. For the employer, it depends on how much time/money you have to put into training and what turnover is. Paying non-living wages leads to high(er) turnover because people will leave for anything better.

          • Aurornis 1 hour ago
            Right. That’s exactly what pushes wages up. Employers have to find the wage that retains employees while still being profitable.

            Money is not unlimited though so “just pay everyone a living wage” isn’t a real solution. If you can’t afford to pay ideal “living wage” (which is an undefined target that keeps moving depending on who you ask) then your options are to either not create the job at all, or outsource the work.

            So therefore, creating a job at any wage is better for your economy than not creating the job at all.

      • yhjc2692 1 day ago
        It’s incredible that you set up an in-house PCBA pipeline. I’m curious about what that looks like, and what you are building/manufacturing, if you don’t mind sharing!
        • Ccecil 1 day ago
          I run some used Manncorp/Autotronik equipment. Pnp, oven, bunch of hand tools and such for rework (Metcal irons). If I didn't have this I would likely build a line using an openpnp based machine.

          Making boards for the Smoothieware/Smoothieboard project. [1]

          Mostly small SMT stuff on there. 0402, BGA, etc.

          [1]https://github.com/Smoothieware/Smoothieboard2

      • ericmay 2 hours ago
        > Big issue though is knowing that even if I pay someone 2x the going rate for an employee it still will not be a living wage. Not sure the fix there.

        The fix is you will just have to buy American and pay higher prices for higher "living wages". There's no way around it besides taxes or tariffs on foreign goods to equalize the wage/price difference (which does have some down sides).

        I buy American and western-made products as much as possible, and I pay higher prices (assuming high quality) for those higher wages. If you want low cost, you can't by definition support "living wages".

        There's no "oh if only the CEO makes less" way around it either. Labor is simply more expensive in the west and will remain so and you can vote with your wallet, as I do, or you can pay people less than living wages.

    • Teknomadix 2 days ago
      The site quotes prices for ≥4 layer board production are on the order of 10x JLCPCB. I can pay for DHL overnight from JLC and still come in from uploading my design to holding it in my hand ~7 business days or less.

      A domestic PCB manufacturing pipeline, has been a pipe dream for me an many other Hardware startup EEs for a long time. Until costs are more competitive, CN still gets the business. Hope you can bring costs for small batch prototype PCB manufacturing down further in the future, then you will have our business!

      • seddona 2 days ago
        Thanks for the feedback. For 5 units of 2 or 4 layer turnkey assembled boards, so long as you fit in the Grid Proto spec it's a little bit more expensive (not 10x, more like 1.3x) and much faster - we have benchmarked this quite a bit. 7 days to the US with any consistency is not possible, we have a lot of data points on that, median is about 10 days. To other countries it might be faster?
        • ajw287 29 minutes ago
          If you are doing pool pcb manufacture - think about getting your design rules as a template in KiCAD (you could talk to KiCAD services corporation about how to do that) or Altium. This would help people designing to avoid getting to a finished pcb then discovering that you have a rule about no route through pads or whatever.
        • ac29 2 hours ago
          > For 5 units of 2 or 4 layer turnkey assembled boards, so long as you fit in the Grid Proto spec it's a little bit more expensive (not 10x, more like 1.3x)

          Does that include the cost of parts? One of the issues I had with sourcing prototype PCBA's in the US is parts are much more expensive (not 10x, but also not 1.3x).

    • igleria 19 minutes ago
      Since you have been building for years you must be aware of how tariffs affect the viability. how would a reduction to zero affect the project?
    • ViktorEE 23 minutes ago
      Hey,

      Are you interested in partnerships? I'm running pcbjam.com (web port of KiCad with collab, sharing, git, AI etc.) and I'm looking for a partner to do what EasyEDA is to JLC. Where can I find you?

    • WarmWash 1 hour ago
      Business 101, page 1, line 1:

      "Never put any friction between your customer and giving you money"

      Dude, absolutely get rid of the requirement to make an account to get a quote. Understandable(ish) to need one to check-out, but hell "Check-out as guest" was probably one of the most profitable innovations in e-commerce ever.

      A longer list of accounts is not worth more than a longer list of orders.

      • pcdoodle1 1 hour ago
        I was interested and hit the friction twice, after making an account, It wouldn't accept eagle files or just the raw gerbers. I know it's older but even sparkfun and adafruit designs are in this format.
        • mmmlinux 20 minutes ago
          I got stuck at make an account and didn't progress farther. am i hearing right they don't accept industry standard gerber files?
        • kevin42 55 minutes ago
          I hesitated to even get a quote when it said I have to upload my schematic and pcb source. Their legal terms offer very little protection or reassurances that they will protect my IP. Giving them source files is was more risky than gerbers to me.

          It's industry standard to accept gerbers and BOMs. Now that I've reviewed their legal agreements, using them is a hard no right now.

      • mft_ 1 hour ago
        100%. Let people play and —most importantly— invest time and effort in the platform without friction.
        • netrap 1 hour ago
          For PCB quotes yes, but this kind of thing can be gamed by competitors. I think this is why there isn't great price info for many brick and mortar and online shops now..
        • j16sdiz 1 hour ago
          Most of these work have real person to look and validate the cost. Doing that without account would be too little friction and overwhelm the team.
          • katbyte 1 hour ago
            Most of the ones (for cnc and sheet metal at least) I’ve used do an estimate while you poke around and select options and then you send it for a final validation and quote.
          • ilaksh 1 hour ago
            Right and they already said they have a massive backlog and are trying to increase by 500%.
    • rancar2 2 hours ago
      Andrew, congrats on the launch! Great to see another scaled manufacturer and assembly line here in Massachusetts. I helped scale another startup with personalized for 3D prints for orthodontic braces (https://lf.co/blog/deloitte-fast500-2024), so feel to reach out to exchange tips since the generic mass manufacturing world is not well suited for this new world of “one size fits one” at a global scale.

      Also, one question to pick your team’s brain: What’s your team’s AI PCB workflow and design tips to work with your production line? Any specific tips for ESP32-related integrations?

    • doughecka 1 day ago
      We've had a few batches of mostly assembled (minus through hole parts) prototype boards made with y'all recently, pretty stoked how quick it is. Plus no tarrifs vs the last PCBway order.

      Curious, why are surface mount USB-C connectors not able to be done as part of the surface mount components (treated as a through hole I think)? Too fiddly?

    • venusenvy47 2 hours ago
      Hi. I'm a little confused about how many companies are under your umbrella. Is CircuitLabs the parent company for The Grid and all these other companies on this page? https://www.circuithub.com/case-studies
    • clickok 3 hours ago
      What's the refinement process been like over the last five years? Many small problems or a few larger ones?
    • dukeyukey 3 hours ago
      Are you manufacturing in the UK as well? Saw on your site you are hiring mechanical engineers here.
    • ThrowawayTestr 46 minutes ago
      How much of a concern are environmental regulations?
    • gedy 2 hours ago
      I'd love to see you successful, so wanted to comment:

      The app feels very vibe-coded, and gives impression it's not well tested and polished for a new user/project.

      I appreciate PCBs aren't the usual the consumer-level type of user, but I felt confused by a lot compared to JLCPCB. Hope that helps.

  • ajw287 1 hour ago
    OK, Its a cool video, and wish there was more joined up thinking about keeping sovereign control of designs/manufacture - but the concept isn't new. I know the UK better, but 24 hour pcbs are a thing, we have https://www.pcbtrain.co.uk (which might outsource to china anyway) but I usually prefer https://www.eurocircuits.com/ which builds in Poland. There are plenty more CEMs

    Sadly neither really compete on price with jlcpcb and despite a hemisphere of delivery advantage jlcpcb can be quicker! I once got in a discussion with a Project Manager about whether the design was worth keeping some level of traceability for ~$50... he just wanted it cheaper.

  • realo 2 hours ago
    Faster than Shenzen, fine ... but quite a bit more expensive, even taking into account the USA tariffs, which we do not have in the rest of the world.

    Seems to me that Shenzen still wins at least for the non-USA world.

    • 1970-01-01 2 hours ago
      Costs come down at scale. Vote with your wallet, tell your friends, and we just might have our faster+better+cheaper problem solved.
      • dolkycape 2 hours ago
        I don't see why non-US companies should "vote with their wallet" by over-spending so that they can have a US supply chain instead of a Chinese supply chain. They're both foreign, outside their control and vulnerable to political stunts.
        • mschuster91 0 minutes ago
          I think their point is that non-US regions should set up their own non-China supply chain.

          And here in Europe we're busy divesting from both. The priority for now is getting rid of the US simply because of the erratic President but if you read between the lines, a lot of the plans also aim for getting rid of the dependence on China.

        • bluGill 1 hour ago
          > vulnerable to political stunts.

          They are different political stunts though. If your supply chain is vulnerable to politics then you want options so that any one stunt cannot hurt you.

          Also, while there are political stunts, my current reading is the US stunts are more temporary and the next president won't continue them. While China's are likely longer term - there is a reasonably possibly China will attack Taiwan and Europe will join with the US and defending. Only time will tell, but that is my read on the situation.

          • dukeyukey 1 hour ago
            Trump was elected twice. This time, his vice-president is absolutely someone who would continue the same policies, albeit in a more sober way.

            I am not sure you understand the damage this administration has done.

      • lenerdenator 2 hours ago
        This is HN. Asking people here to consider any long-term geopolitical ramifications associated with their economic activity is futile.
        • InsidiousWombat 1 hour ago
          Well the people chose the clown that doesn't either so live with it
          • lenerdenator 27 minutes ago
            Plenty of those people around here.
    • NovemberPapa 2 hours ago
      I ordered 2 power supplies from China for work, and they power supplies were $60/each, and the tariffs were $45/ea. I am all for manufacturing in the US, but holy hell, give industry time to develop the skills and infrastructure
    • tbrownaw 2 hours ago
      For now.

      I'd imagine that just because they've decided it's good enough to go public with it, doesn't mean it's done getting better. Or that someone else can't do it better, now that it's been shown to work.

      • brudgers 2 hours ago
        The first Circuit Hub link posted to HN was in 2013.
        • dv_dt 2 hours ago
          I could be misremembering, but wasn't it mostly a software offering at that point?
          • brudgers 37 minutes ago
            From TFA

            It's not a prototype. The Grid has been running for customers for five years. It already builds tens of millions of dollars of electronics a year. Across CircuitHub we've shipped more than 2.2 million boards, placed more than 150 million parts and served more than 26,000 engineers.

    • sgt 2 hours ago
      But for prototyping, paying extra for quick turnaround is often very sensible
      • bluGill 2 hours ago
        I'm surprised they don't offer next day turn around (whenever fedex's last pickup plus however long to build). Even same day if you live close to their factory.

        Meanwhile as a hobbyist I'd be glad for the discount "we will get around to it sometime in the next two weeks discount"

      • brudgers 2 hours ago
        Right.

        Plus if you can get someone on the phone there can be value in that.

        And if a sales engineer comes out and sees your operation you might get more than a free lunch…

  • chrissnell 23 minutes ago
    I hope you move your fab to somewhere in the middle of the country. Part of the appeal of your concept to me is speed, but now I'm looking at cross-country FedEx, which is so expensive that it makes your service unpalatable. A plant in, say, Kansas, is a couple of days of UPS Ground from a huge portion of the country.
    • nonethewiser 10 minutes ago
      >A plant in, say, Kansas, is a couple of days of UPS Ground from a huge portion of the country.

      80% of the US population lives east of the 100th meridian, which bisects Kansas.

      It's probably not best to optimize for the lowest maximum ship time in the lower 48, but something more weighted for population. Lowest average transit time. I would have guessed something like Nashville, TN. Claude is telling me Nashville is up there but Dayton, OH is the best. 14% <= 1 day, 46% reached in <= 2 days and 74% reached in <= 3 days. 2.83 average.

      Compared to Kansas City, KS at 5%, 25%, 61%. 3.11 average.

      This fab is in South Deerfield, MA which is 15%, 26%, 52%, 3.32 avg.

      I guess population is also technically not the best measure. It would be better to measure the potential customers. Which is interesting because those are going to be skewed towards the coasts to some degree.

      Maybe your Kansas suggestion is more correct than I thought. I'd still wager its more like the midwest than the plains though.

  • PowerElectronix 37 minutes ago
    Great news, wish you all the best. I just wish the PCB sizes could stretch a bit to 330mm by 330mm.
  • skew-aberration 3 hours ago
    Awesome. Wish I could work on a project like this. I wonder how it scales compared to a long linear assembly line with lots of preloaded pick and place machines. I've been expecting the next stage of electronics automation to look more like an amazon warehouse. Parts distribution and assembly happening under the one roof, fully automated.
  • otekengineering 1 day ago
    How long until you've built the Grid into a shipping container and are selling those?

    Can't wait to see how quickly I can get boards next time I need a batch! The adage 'hardware is hard' is getting less true every day

  • ycui7 37 minutes ago
    rids proto fully booked. so they have no o capacity. we cannot even get a quote to know the pricing of grids proto.
  • cjrp 1 hour ago
    Interesting, kind of reminds me of SendCutSend
  • Voblit 1 hour ago
    Glad to see some homegrown companies competing with the chinese, especially with PCBs.
  • guywithahat 26 minutes ago
    This is great, especially as easypcbusa is being absorbed into a much more expensive conglomerate. Looking forward to seeing if they do just-pcb pricing as well
  • nubinetwork 2 hours ago
    > So you pay about $165 more than the Shenzhen shop and get your boards five days sooner, with no customs and a supply chain you can count on.

    A supply chain that also comes from Shenzhen... last time I checked, North America doesn't make chips or other components either.

    • mchannon 1 hour ago
      North America doesn't make chips or components?

      That's never been true (at least since the first chips or components). A lot of my Shenzhen orders have to wait on international airfreight on US-made chips because the ones I spec'd (basically the only ones that would do the job) are US-manufactured and warehoused.

      Recommend you look at a world map of Intel fabs. Or Micron Fabs.

      • netrap 1 hour ago
        Lets be realistic.. components meaning 0805 capacitors and resistors, small digital ICs. I can almost guarantee those aren't made in the US... and are WAY cheaper on a site like LCSC.
        • guywithahat 15 minutes ago
          While I agree in principle that most chips aren't made in the US, tons of 0805 capacitors and resistors are made in the US. Vishay does a lot of that here, as well as a few other manufacturers. Mouser lists country of origin and you can search that way.
  • barelysapient 1 day ago
    Amazing. Is something like this available now, or in the future, for hobbyists? Happy to pay retail prices.
  • ENadyr 1 day ago
    This is great! Are you able to do IFA for UL certification? That would be a killer for us!
  • robviren 2 hours ago
    The link back to your home page is a dead link. At least on mobile.
  • metalman 1 day ago
    kudos! for solving a hardwares, hardware problem, but especialy for the open, matter of fact demenour devoid of rhetoric. aaaand the web site renders perfectly on my less than standard browser, fast too.
  • Salparvezml 2 hours ago
    [flagged]
  • baybal2 23 minutes ago
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