I run a small assembly house and my best advise to you is to work closely with the board house of your choice. There are general rules to follow to keep costs lower, however if you work with the shop and learn their capabilities, what they like, what they don't like, then you will optimize your pricing that way as well. You will find this especially with smaller shops since they do not have every capability under the sun. ie double sided SMD boards are very expensive from us because we do not have a good method of dispensing glue. Which also makes SMD on the solder side of TH expensive as well. For larger shops with the proper equipment - this is probably nothing, but I am sure they still charge for the extra processing.
Have a clear understanding of the process that your board will go through during the assembly process and you can work towards optimized pricing. TH vs SMD is a big factor, and it does come down to component count however pricing is not solely based on component count. Manufacturability, and volumes are the most important factors.
Hope this helps a little.
Good luck, Gary Allbee Alta Industrial Automation Ltd www.aialtd.com
Adeel Malik wrote:
Does someone possess the contact info of cheap but reliable PCB Component Assembly Houses in North America ?. Also I wanted to know what are the important factors that determine the Assembly cost for PCBs. Is the cost direct proportional to the number of Solder Points/ Component pads ?. If it is, then can I do a rough approximation to evaluate the Assembly Cost, provided I know the Part count, Pad count and Part variety on my board ?.
Thanks, ADEEL MALIK,
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