Not too long ago I tried to raise money for a PCB assembly plant in the US, but couldn't raise the funding and got a "real job". Posts like these really make me wish I didn't give up lol
About a year ago I checked out every US manufacturer I could find. Most don't offer any pricing of any kind, strictly 'call for quote'. The ones that did offer pricing either don't want small prototype runs, or charge 5-10x what China does, and with 2-3x lead time, even counting shipping.
Only one or two I looked at offered an online quote tool, and none of them came even close to the usability and functionality of PCBWay's website. The best one I found was this ridiculously overbuilt system with an embedded 3D engine and one of those shitty 200MB web apps that take 30 seconds to register a click and breaks your back button.
USA is simply not competitive with China on PCBs. For small, cash strapped business, domestic manufacture has never been an option. I expect prices will only go up and up as our entire domestic capacity is absorbed by big corps that can afford the premium. I have no idea how us little guys are supposed to get boards now.
It’s true US isn’t competitive but what you looked at was hobbyist PCB services which is not representative of the industry as a whole. I get the frustration but i don’t see how you can draw any conclusion from it.
It is not just hobbyist. My friend runs a business of smart stove tops and they do have a lot of R&D which needs small runs as they fine-tune the electronics and test them out. All the R&D is now moving out.
Engineering often needs one off PCBs until their design is trusted enough to work. That doesn't look any different from what a hobbyist wants other than the account type. (final manufacturing will likely be done by someone else)
This is something I am personally mixed about, working in electronics and having had boards made both domestically and in China.
The thing is that China is just really damn good at electronics manufacturing. Their tooling is cutting edge, their workers are career electronics manufacturing workers, and their supply chain is insane.
However I do have a feeling of "if you build it, they will come". But I think it would need to rely heavily on automation. And I'm also not sure how you would deal with the waste in the US. In China the volume is high enough to have local companies that deal with all the byproduct. In the US I would imagine you would have to pay through the nose to dispose of it through some small time contractor 6 states away.
I think there are some things where a lot of the silicone actually comes from the US, or the designs are static enough that domestic manufacturing could make a lot of sense. I was specifically pitching consumer GaN power supplies, which are simple enough that you can build them without your supply chain blowing up every 3 months or without having to always get the newest and greatest machinery.
Something like a smartphone would be borderline impossible to do well in the US and keep up with trends.
These are the king of capabilities, like semiconductor manufacturing, that we want to have (at least some) locally for more reasons than just economics though. It seems like a national security issue.
