[HN Gopher] 39c3: In-house electronics manufacturing from scratc...
___________________________________________________________________
39c3: In-house electronics manufacturing from scratch: How hard can
it be? [video]
Author : fried-gluttony
Score : 246 points
Date : 2026-01-09 12:23 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (media.ccc.de)
(TXT) w3m dump (media.ccc.de)
| Animats wrote:
| This is painful. They got a used solder mask holder, a Lumen pick
| and place machine, a bunch of old Siemens feeders, and a small
| automatic reflow oven. All these tools needed major work.
| Everything with firmware needed firmware mods. Everything else
| needed assembly or major cleaning. Everything needed adjustment.
| They had to 3D print their own solder paste squeegee. They're six
| months in and still trying to produce one simple board.
|
| I've been down this road of populating a surface mount board.
| There is a minimum size for a practical board-stuffing operation,
| and they are below it. They are using prototype techniques for
| 100 units or so, not techniques that scale.
|
| Surface mount soldering requires applying hot air in a very
| controlled way, with the temperature ramping up, holding at the
| high temp for a few seconds, and then ramping down. On a small
| scale, you have a programmable oven which tries to do that. Those
| always have heat distribution problems. For production, you have
| a tunnel oven, with about six sections at different temperatures
| and a chain conveyor to take the boards through the tunnel. With
| the tunnel oven, you let the whole thing warm up and stabilize,
| and when all zones are at the right temperature, you can
| repeatably solder boards successfully.
|
| They're using a hobbyist-grade pick and place machine. Slow, but
| cheap. Plus the software isn't ready for prime time. They looked
| at a used production machine. Runs Windows XP and wouldn't fit
| through the door. Rejected that.
|
| They're about EUR 30,000 into this, not counting their own labor.
| This approach is not going to revive electronics in Europe.
| sschueller wrote:
| Hobbyist vapour phase reflow ovens exist although not cheap:
| https://eleshop.eu/vaporflow-275-vapour-phase-reflow-oven.ht...
| Animats wrote:
| The working fluid for that thing costs EUR205/liter. Ouch.
| utopiah wrote:
| Bit pricier https://www.crowdsupply.com/pcb-arts/vapor-phase-
| one
| nubinetwork wrote:
| Ngl, everything on crowd supply is overpriced. I bought an
| sdr through them several months ago, and the antenna I
| bought with it could be found on mouser for at least $10
| cheaper.
| utopiah wrote:
| Eh... well yes CS is not cheap but also... CS is Mouser.
| They got acquired 7 years ago
| https://www.crowdsupply.com/announcements/crowd-supply-
| has-b... .
|
| You can buy the exact same products if they have enough
| in stock on either platform so price should be about the
| same e.g. https://www.crowdsupply.com/mouser-electronics
| and the opposite
| https://eu.mouser.com/manufacturer/crowd-supply/
|
| They might have big margins on generic products but
| nothing obvious to me. FWIW bought uSDR with antennas
| just last month.
| nubinetwork wrote:
| Ah... good to know... I don't have anything to shop for
| right now, but if they're the same, I'll just go to the
| source.
| abielefeld wrote:
| Hi! Augustin here, one of the presenters of the talk: Alex
| actually built a vapour phase soldering oven from scratch a
| few years ago! Indeed they are not exactly practical for
| series production, though they are amazing for small runs of
| very challenging to solder board though.
|
| Main issues is solvent recovery: as another commenter pointed
| out, Galden is very expensive, and it is also extremely
| greenhouse inducing and we were not confident in our ability
| to recover it completely, especially at "scale" (100 boards
| per month or so).
|
| In our case, we picked a hot-air convection oven, which,
| while not as good as VPS, is still a lot better than IR at
| not burning components. Our main challenge is always space,
| so we went for a production batch oven which already has more
| throughput than we need for us to get to profitability.
|
| The plan is to upgrade to a long and big conveyor oven once
| we move to a bigger facility, these are quite cheap and they
| are compatible with a fully automated production line.
| napkinartist wrote:
| You are saying the same thing they said -- it doesn't scale.
| It's not how you build a large factory. They acknowledge this
| and pretty quickly move on to say that they are aiming for
| smaller and sustainable.
|
| They even specifically call out why they chose not to use a
| conveyor based oven in the video.
|
| Basically they believe they can be price reasonable at small
| scales, small batches. Build process knowledge and expertise
| over time, and then incrementally scale up after assessing
| bottlenecks.
|
| I think the route of local sustainable, grow as needed or
| collaborate to expand capacity is pretty reasonable.
| Animats wrote:
| It's not possible to make a competitively priced product that
| way. What are you going to do, sell artisanal circuit boards
| on Etsy?
|
| Here's a small US-based PCB board and assembly facility in
| the US, in Hesperia, California.[1] Looks like it might have
| 20 to 30 employees from the building picture. This is
| probably about as small as a viable business of this type
| gets. It doesn't have to be done in a huge plant like JLCPCB
| in Shenzhen.
|
| Here's a company in India, Invariance, which makes low-cost
| semi-automatic machines to do exactly the same operations
| 39c3 is doing.[2] They have three machines - a solder paste
| spreader, a pick and place machine, and a mini tunnel reflow
| oven. They make all three machines. These machines intended
| for small companies who want to assemble their own boards in
| house. The solder paste spreader is just automated enough to
| do a consistent job, with pressure and timing controlled. The
| pick and place machine uses their own feeder design which
| runs off strips of component tape. The tunnel oven is small,
| only about a meter long.
|
| That's close to a viable minimum production solution.
|
| [1] https://mermarinc.com/
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_VCJyeqa-A
| crote wrote:
| That depends on your definition of "competitive", doesn't
| it?
|
| Being 3x as expensive as China but 0.1x as expensive as
| current small-scale EU manufacturing can be _extremely_
| competitive. Plenty of people looking for <1000 unit runs
| would be willing to pay extra for a "made in EU" label.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| If the only service a CM brings to the table is cost
| reduction, than its a doomed business model.
|
| Rule #23: Don't compete to be at the bottom, as you just
| might actually win.
|
| Have a great day =3
| nebula8804 wrote:
| Technically the differentiation isn't cost reduction its
| in shored manufacturer. That can become an important
| requirement as firms become more wary of IP theft and
| other issues.
|
| Besides other than that what can you really differentiate
| in this field that isn't cost? Its a service that is
| standardized regardless of country. Maybe you can provide
| different "styles" of boards (ie. different specs) or
| improve the entire submit to production pipeline but
| thats about it.
| crote wrote:
| The pipeline is a _massive_ one - especially for PCBA.
| Being able to get an instant quote and order in 5 minutes
| is worth a _lot_. Nobody wants a 2-week-long back-and-
| forth with sales and engineering for a basic prototype
| run.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| Consumer hardware like the iPhone would not do well when
| the next model is 20% slower with a 35% retail price
| reduction.
|
| >what can you really differentiate in this field that
| isn't cost?
|
| Don't worry about it... =3
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| The schtick for Capitalism is that it is supposed to push
| all companies to the top of optimal resource production,
| the place you call the bottom.
|
| Was it always the case that Western Capitalism was about
| optimising profits for an over-class, the optimising of
| resources was always just propaganda, or did it once have
| ethics?
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| Brands shifted away from garnering customer goodwill, and
| prioritized shareholder value by siphoning intangible
| assets accrued over decades of prior works.
|
| There was little utility in judging if it was ethical,
| but merely to profit by the shortsighted stewards. =3
| graemep wrote:
| > Was it always the case that Western Capitalism was
| about optimising profits for an over-class, the
| optimising of resources was always just propaganda, or
| did it once have ethics?
|
| Adam Smith wrote a whole book about ethics.
|
| I actually think the ethical corruption has been very
| recent and driven by multiple factors, but the most
| important is the myth that people are rich because they
| deserve to be, and if they are poor it is because they
| are stupid or lazy. The rich therefore tend to feel far
| less noblesse oblige.
| lefra wrote:
| For that, there's a company named eurocircuits. Slightly
| more expensive than JLCPCB, but not 30x.
| megous wrote:
| 5pcs 2 layer default settings 80x100mm boards ($4 vs EUR
| 124) is pretty much 30x.
| lefra wrote:
| I double checked because these were not the prices I had
| in mind.
|
| After looking through the options, I think that's because
| the designs I did quotations for had 0.2mm holes. This is
| standard for Eurocircuits, but high precision for JLCPCB.
|
| Note that to get the price you quoted, you'll get lead in
| your PCB, and vias that are not plated, but plugged with
| conductive epoxy. Changing that gets you to $14 for 5
| boards, which is still way cheaper than Eurocircuits.
|
| I'll keep that in mind for the next PCB I design: keep
| holes bigger than 0.3mm if possible.
| mapt wrote:
| COVID and the supply chain crisis made apparent just how
| over-reliant we are on Shenzhen and Taiwan for the most
| basic components. There are several hundred ICs on dozens
| of circuitboards in every car now that are dumber,
| slower, and less efficient than a 1990s calculator, that
| we have lost the ability to produce domestically. These
| are now bottlenecks to manufacturing in any disruption to
| world trade.
|
| It doesn't need to be cutting edge, if you have a few
| board assembly shops and some fabs pumping out small
| chips in 20-30 year old process nodes it helps the
| resilience of the economy and geopolitical situation a
| great deal.
| snovv_crash wrote:
| 39c3 is the conference it is being presented at, not the
| presenter. 39th Chaos Communication Congress, the annual
| conference of the Chaos Computer Club.
|
| This is a hacker messing around who is presenting to
| inspire others and get feedback. Many things presented at
| Xc3 are wildly impractical, potentially illegal, or not
| even technical at all and more on the side of activism and
| policy. Most are interesting and fun, which is the main
| goal.
| abielefeld wrote:
| Hey, I'm one of the two speakers :)
|
| The commenter above you phrased it well: "Price-
| reasonable", to us, it's first about breaking even.
|
| I will look into the companies you linked, looks
| interesting!
|
| Though to give you food for though, I will tell you about a
| french drone manufacturing company, they manufacture in
| house, they turn over probably around 10 million EUR a
| year.
|
| I know first hand they stencil print around 10k boards a
| year using a "machine" that is 2x4's from the hardware
| store, and a credit card :)
| joe_mamba wrote:
| _> I will tell you about a french drone manufacturing
| company [...]_
|
| Can you also tell us the name?
| abielefeld wrote:
| Sadly I cannot disclose it
| smeeagain2 wrote:
| > It's not possible to make a competitively priced product
| that way.
|
| Now do "It's World War 3 and making this circuit board in
| the remains of your dilapidated workshop with no supply
| chain is the difference between beating back the enemy and
| being conquered."
| wasmperson wrote:
| > It's not possible to make a competitively priced product
| that way. What are you going to do, sell artisanal circuit
| boards on Etsy?
|
| 10 years ago in the US I met someone who owned a company of
| about 5 people that he largely built off of the acquisition
| of a single broken pick-and-place machine which he repaired
| himself. They applied the solder paste manually and
| finished the boards in what looked like a toaster-oven.
| Each production run consisted of around 100 units which
| were sold at $50 apiece. The company is still in business
| today, as far as I'm aware.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| Design for manufacturability means you leave tolerance within
| Factory limits, and your own prototyping process limits.
|
| While an inexpensive PnP machine will do 50k to 80k
| components/hour. If you have someone doing _any_ task, than
| add $3 USD * number of operations per unit.
|
| Tech is a low-margin business with a lot of regulations, and
| should be contracted to a proper facility if making over a
| few thousand units a month. Tooling up for a production line
| is almost always a bad idea, as it usually adds additional
| barriers to a product launch as people get sidetracked. =3
| lnsru wrote:
| Electronics in Europe is so dead. It is past the point where
| where it can be revived. One thing is sick overregulation to
| spin hardware product. Last nail in the coffin today is Cyber
| Resilience Act. It dwarfs all the regulations before it.
|
| Second thing is talent. People can't hardware anymore. I mean
| putting a 0402 capacitor on the printed circuit board is not
| hard. But doing that in meaningful way gets hard. As a
| contractor I designed few boards and optimized for production
| in China. In my dayjob colleagues are stuck in the last
| century. No recent knowledge about parts, design rules, testing
| principles... No willingness to learn and talk to Chinese
| manufacturers about optimization. Just copy paste bad decisions
| from old boards to new designs.
|
| Honestly I wouldn't even try to revive anything in Europe.
| Chinese electronics factories are way too far in the future.
| The suppliers for my workplace are all stuck in the past. Even
| the ones with new equipment struggle to use full potential due
| to worker's shortage. Which is probably a problem in whole
| western world. Who wants to be manufacturing technician when
| you can be lifestyle influencer!?
| PinguTS wrote:
| Funfact: If you are working in the industry, you know that
| there are many companies who produce electronics in Europe in
| general and some even in Germany.
|
| Bosch, Continental, Siemens, Palfinger, FAUN, Webasto,
| Phoenix Contact, Beckhoff, ...
| crote wrote:
| The problem is the gap between hobbyist project and
| hundred-thousand-unit production run.
|
| You can't easily and cheaply get 10, 100, or 1000 units
| manufactured in the EU the way you can in China. This
| pretty much kills hardware startups and scaleups wanting to
| do local manufacturing.
|
| If you're not a multinational or have an essentially-
| unlimited budget for your small-scale run, you _have_ to
| outsource it to China.
| PinguTS wrote:
| I work with companies, which have a more like small scale
| production. They are about 100 or so workers. Yes, this
| is also possible. They grew their business in the last 25
| years, when it was even harder to produce something than
| these days. At least one of these business have PCB
| suppliers in the EU, which helped them in the post COVID
| crises where everybody struggled with supply.
|
| I just named some big name brands. I also know mid-size
| and smaller brands.
|
| Building your business and getting your stuff together is
| hard for any startup in any business field.
| gmueckl wrote:
| I can second that there are relatively small electronics
| manufacturers in Germany. I know a few myself, although
| I'm not working in that field.
| Slartie wrote:
| I can third this observation. I've even had my flat above
| one of these for 10 years. Small company, privately-
| owned, five employees or so. They have a few pick-and-
| place machines (SIMATICs as far as I have seen) located
| in a small factory building and manufacture small
| production runs with them.
|
| They don't have a real website advertising their
| services, but they seem to do well, probably their
| customers know them. They've run their business
| continuously for at least those 10 years I've lived at
| that spot. I could smell the soldering oven running
| constantly.
| abielefeld wrote:
| For an example with a website, see Waterott, it's run by
| one person who has a single Siplace SMT machine and
| stencils manually, and he has no issues earning money.
| crote wrote:
| Could you perhaps share those PCBA businesses with us?
|
| I tried quite hard to find them when I was still in the
| hardware world, and I never managed to find anything even
| _remotely_ close to what China offers at less than 10x
| the price.
|
| I'd _love_ to give it another shot for some hobby
| projects if the industry has indeed changed in the last
| few years!
| PinguTS wrote:
| I can't share the name. I don't know their prices. I know
| that they are in Eastern Europe.
|
| From my knowledge, the last time (2022ish) we talked
| about that was, that they don't take new customers for
| now. They are working at capacity.
| fock wrote:
| probably the likes of Enics and GPV - nowadays this is
| likely a field overrun by military demand and private
| equity squeezing the supply side... Also I doubt that
| they can/want to compete with jlcpcb et al.
| abielefeld wrote:
| I think the original commenter means companies that
| manufacture their own products but do not offer
| manufacturing services.
|
| You can't beat JLC because the model from JLC is that
| they lose money on all order less than 100 boards, so
| that they win order of 10 to 100k+
|
| If you work in germany in engineering, you know a lot of
| mittelstand (SMEs) actually have some production
| machinery, as said, usually they have between 50 and 200
| employees, and they manufacture pretty niche products up
| to 10k units a year or so.
|
| They do not advertise this, as their business model is
| not manufacturing, it's selling their own products.
|
| I am actually the speaker of the talk, and for us,
| manufacturing is not a business model either, it's just
| the capability we want to develop. Our business model
| would be to sell products. We shared our knowledge and
| results because we were curious about people's thoughts,
| and because if we fail and disapear we want this stuff to
| be online where other can find it.
| m4rtink wrote:
| >We shared our knowledge and results because we were
| curious about people's thoughts, and because if we fail
| and disapear we want this stuff to be online where other
| can find it.
|
| For those who come after. ;-)
| monegator wrote:
| Disagree. The main reason we use chinese fabs is because
| we can actually get the goods in less than three weeks,
| so if we have a surge in sales we are covered pretty
| quickly.
|
| The other reason is that we do some low complexity boards
| all specified with chinese parts, JLCPCB for the win, and
| our contractor agrees with us. They are not interested in
| those jobs because they can't possibly compete.
|
| However, for our batch size/complexity our local
| contractor beats the chinese, by a good margin, and they
| keep growing the business. In Italy. The only problem we
| have with them is lead time, because there is always some
| hiccup, some missing part, some email that gets answered
| a day too late. I've been asking them for years to just
| provide their catalog with their partnumbers so i can
| just specify them in the BOM, and we won't waste all that
| time back and forth, but it's never been a true priority,
| but they do need to streamline the process. All european
| manufacturers need to streamline their process.
|
| Another comment here lamented that the issue is that the
| fabs may try to treat every board as unique, whereas is
| should be us designers that adapt to them. I agree.
| That's a general issue in our attitude to designing a
| product, in many areas.
| abielefeld wrote:
| Yes, it's all about fast turnaround without pain.
|
| Manufacturers in china just do it fast, and avoid all the
| pains, they actually care about customer experience above
| all, something we have to learn from ourselves obviously!
|
| As I said in another comment, I fully expect things to
| change for the better: Some manufacturers will go out of
| business, but yet others will turn around in time.
|
| All these people that were laid off will find jobs again,
| revitalizing moribund companies. Some will create their
| own companies, I view myself as part of this group.
| consp wrote:
| I'd add Infineon to that list, formerly Siemens.
| friendzis wrote:
| As far as I am aware the European plants survive mostly on
| decent QA and regulated industries. When the cost of a
| defect slipping QA is high, it can be cheaper to operate
| European plant with intra-step quality controls than
| manufacture in China and slap thorough QA on top.
| sandos wrote:
| Hitachi Energy as well, afaik anyway.
| f1shy wrote:
| Fun fact: some of those companies are shutting down
| productions sites as we read this forum...
| joe_mamba wrote:
| I feel like HN posters simply know the names of these
| companies because they're big, but don't actually work at
| those companies, otherwise they would know about the
| massive waves of layoffs and offshoring happening there
| lately.
| PinguTS wrote:
| I feel like some HN posters simply read news and don't
| work in the industry and have actual insights on what's
| happening.
|
| Like Hydac moved some of there assembly from China to
| Germany.
|
| A company in the district nearby, just moved their whole
| production from Thailand back to here. Yes, production
| costs are higher. But there is not transportation costs.
| They don't have long lead times anymore and can react
| more better to demand. So the overall costs assessment
| lead to the decision it is better to have production here
| locally.
|
| I recommend to go to SPS, Agritechnica, and so and talk
| to actual people.
|
| BTW: Even as Continental has layoff. There are other
| companies around that happily absorb those people.
| Because 2 years back, that had problems employing people.
| joe_mamba wrote:
| _> that had problems employing people_
|
| Who is "that" in this context? Can you be more specific.
|
| _> Even as Continental has layoff_
|
| Not just Conti, but all major automotive suppliers,
| semiconductor, embedded companies spread across Europe
| had mass layoffs.
|
| And not everyone was quickly absorbed. I have EE friends
| almost a year unemployed after the layoffs. They apply
| but only get rejections, not sure why. It's a bloodbath
| right now in industries in high-CoL regions.
| f1shy wrote:
| And is not only automotive. Other sectors are also
| suffering a lot. As you said, finding a new job is not
| very easy, even if you are ok with 1hs commute. As far as
| I know, all big companies are moving work outside the EU
| in a hurry.
| f1shy wrote:
| I'm sure there is one or another company generating
| employment. I didn't stated something different. Did I?
|
| I just named a fact. I know people in at least 3
| different companies in the list that lost their job last
| year, and many others which are in the list until 2030.
| The people that lost their jobs are/were more than 1 year
| searching. I'm talking with many "actual people" in
| different industries, and it is not looking very
| bright...
|
| Most of the open positions is management of projects in
| other parts of the world. I see almost no development in
| SW or electronics going on here, much less production.
| f1shy wrote:
| > that had problems employing people.
|
| If possible I would like to know what positions and how
| much they were offering.
|
| I had offerings for a manager position, 15 people,
| responsibility for the 15, including in house training of
| them, and part responsibility in the 5 different projects
| these people were working on. They wanted somebody with
| background in HW development, 10 years experience in
| FPGA, experience of at least 5 years Linux driver
| development, cryptography, at least 5 years managing
| people.
|
| Wait for it... they offered 80k/year. I don't know...
| seems little bit low somebody with like 20 years
| experience.
| abielefeld wrote:
| That's the dirty secret of "the employment shortage".
|
| Under pay, no one takes the job, so justify off-shoring.
|
| The truth, having talked to employees at big firms, is
| that in the past, entire factories were off shored to
| save 10 cents from one single part in a product.
|
| Today, most jobs are not just under-paid, they are
| undignified. Because any job can be gratifying in the
| right circumstances, even a job on a factory line, it
| just has to:
|
| 1. Pay a fair wage 2. Be designed to be gratifying
|
| Companies dont even care about their customers anymore,
| we all know it's been more than 15 years since they've
| cared about their employees. That's how entshittification
| goes.
| f1shy wrote:
| Exactly. And sometimes even very strange things happen.
| Currently I know of a company taking lots of positions
| from Germany to China, people in China are having more
| money in the pocket per year. The cost to the company are
| basically the same, but people is more motivated. Mind
| you, that people are not working crazy hs! Mostly 8 to 9
| hs per day 5 days a week.
| joe_mamba wrote:
| _> Under pay, no one takes the job, so justify off-
| shoring._
|
| You mean to justify easy rubber stamping work visas on
| candidates from abroad.
|
| Offshoring is usually last resort when costs other than
| labor are also much cheaper abroad like energy, or
| there's other incentives like government handouts or tax
| exemptions that high-CoL EU countries like France or
| Germany can't compete with.
|
| _> Companies dont even care about their customers
| anymore, we all know it's been more than 15 years since
| they've cared about their employees. That's how
| entshittification goes._
|
| What solution would you suggest?
| joe_mamba wrote:
| _> Wait for it... they offered 80k/year. I don't know...
| seems little bit low somebody with like 20 years
| experience._
|
| In which country?
|
| The sad thing is the state of supply and demand in the
| economy, doesn't really care how many years of experience
| you have, or how hard you worked, or how difficult the
| job is. It'll pay as little as they can get away with.
|
| Sucks, but welcome to being a tax cattle in Europe, where
| someone on the dole with welfare and credits takes home
| nearly as much as you do. Thank our politicians for
| outsourcing everything that wasn't nailed to the ground
| for 20+ years in the name of shareholder growth.
| crote wrote:
| The regulations argument is a red herring: those mostly apply
| to electronics products _sold_ in the EU, not _manufactured_
| in the EU. You have exactly the same burden trying to sell
| CN-manufactured hardware in the EU.
|
| Worker's shortage is a real problem in China as well. Their
| approach? Automate _everything_. Focus on manufacturing 1000s
| of designs using a handful of standard formulas, instead of
| treating every design as bespoke. There 's no reason this
| couldn't be done in the EU.
|
| It's going to require a serious cultural shift, but given the
| right incentive I see no reason why it would be impossible.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > You have exactly the same burden trying to sell CN-
| manufactured hardware in the EU.
|
| Not if you're a Chinese OEM: you just mail it in, and
| thanks to the arcane operation of international postage
| it's cheaper to post to Germany from China than from
| Germany. CE is such a European type of regulation, there's
| almost no enforcement, while at the same time it's so vague
| that simply working out what directives you might need to
| comply with is time-consuming.
|
| Mind you as others have pointed out, there is still EU
| electronics. It's just not massive production runs for
| consumer electronics, much more of it is for defence,
| aerospace, and medical. And a bit of automotive, although
| that is definitely going to fall to Chinese car OEMs.
| crote wrote:
| Europe is starting crack down on individual CN import -
| for _exactly_ this reason. But that 's still not going to
| solve the real problems EU-based hardware companies run
| into.
|
| The whole _problem_ is that the EU electronics industy is
| laser-focused on those defence and aerospace runs. They
| expect everything to be bespoke and complicated, so their
| entire business model is built around it.
|
| But the vast majority of hardware isn't that complicated.
| I don't _want_ a two-month ordering process with a "call
| for pricing" and a EUR1500 "engineering fee" - I want a
| JLCPCB-like instant quote and click-to-order for my dime-
| a-dozen 4-layer 10x10cm prototype!
|
| The fact that a handful of industy giant are still doing
| production in Europe while moving at a glacial pace is
| not that relevant when China is rapidly out-innovating
| the West. If it continues like this, they will eventually
| die too.
| abielefeld wrote:
| Hey, original talk speaker here. I agree with this
| sentiment, we are very geared for high-quality, high-spec
| industrial designs in Europe.
|
| CE for simple consumer products is actually not so pricy,
| and things are moving very quickly there in the right
| direction. We work with Smander.com for compliance, but
| there are others who offer it for cheap. The more
| expensive measurements are EMI, but in Germany
| universities will let you use their chamber at low cost
| or even for free if you are a small business or single
| person.
|
| Honestly the problem with CE is misinformation most of
| all. It does not need to be complicated: Cheap standards
| can be bought from evs.ee for 30EUR, a couple of hours of
| a CE consultant cost is only a couple hundred, getting
| close to a university costs only time...
|
| The goals of the EU is also to simplify these
| regulations, and things are also moving very fast there.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| Not sure why your post was buried. As the EU does have a lot
| of rules, but if a product is reasonably made its almost the
| same cost as the US market entry. Robert Feranec covers a lot
| of the more obscure EU rules:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTPb7etzOmA
|
| Designs that contain China parts are often immediately
| disqualified from most trade exemptions. The landed cost can
| bump gadget retail prices too high in some countries. YMMV =3
| throwaway132448 wrote:
| You sound like you're stuck in a rut. I don't see any of
| this.
| joe_mamba wrote:
| Where do you live/work that you don't see any of this?
|
| I heard Poland is doing amazing right now, but where I live
| half my friend group including me has been through layoffs
| in the past 2-3 years and every day when I open the news,
| large companies in my country are announcing layoffs or
| hiring freezes, and small to medium sized ones are
| announcing insolvencies.
| rcxdude wrote:
| Really? Most of the electronics I work on get made in the EU.
| There are a few decent options, even. It's not dead, even if
| China is much bigger.
| bratwurst3000 wrote:
| i was looking it up and the 12th biggest pcb manufacture is
| in austria. which is europa afaik. Its not that dead
|
| "In Leoben befindet sich das weltweite Headquarter von AT&S.
| Derzeit gibt es drei Produktionslinien, die eine Reihe von
| verschiedenen ML/HDI Highend-Leiterplatten, Embedded Losungen
| fur Power Applikationen vor allem im Server Bereich und Cores
| fur die IC-Substratwerke herstellen. Weiteres werden
| spezielle Technologien fur Aviation & Satellites, Industrie,
| Automotive und den IC-Markt entwickelt und gefertigt.
|
| Mitarbeiter: 1.759 Eroffnung: 1982 Fokus: Automotive,
| Aviation, Industrial, Medical, Communication, Consumer,
| Computer, Semicon Ein neues Werk, das derzeit gebaut wird,
| wird auch die Produktion von IC-Substraten nach Leoben
| bringen, einschliesslich bedeutsamer Kapazitaten fur
| Forschung und Entwicklung. Mit dem neuen Werk werden rund 700
| neue Arbeitsplatze geschaffen, wodurch sich die Zahl der
| Mitarbeiter:innen nahezu verdoppeln wird.
|
| Fabriksgasse 13, 8700 Leoben, Osterreich"
|
| https://ats.net/
| nebula8804 wrote:
| >Who wants to be manufacturing technician when you can be
| lifestyle influencer!?
|
| Before influencers people wanted to be actors. It predates
| the time before Electronics was 'lost' in Europe so thats not
| a convincing argument.
|
| What you are saying really is that the world enjoys what we
| have on the backs of inadequately paid production engineers
| in China. As their demographic crisis does not produce a
| similar sized replacement generation, that benefit will go
| away as experts retire and no one replaces them. So one way
| or another wages will go up meaning inflation will go up and
| some of those 'lifestyle influencers' will now consider the
| field because it is a viable career path in terms of pay.
| abielefeld wrote:
| What is really interesting is that worker pay in tier 1
| cities in China (e.g. Shenzen) actually is higher than in
| EU countries such as Slovenia, Bulgaria or Czech republic.
| Incidentally these countries have a large number of EMS,
| and we know of quite a few startups that quickly grew
| production capability to be able to provide electronics
| assembly.
| rangestransform wrote:
| Kids in china also want to be lifestyle influencers instead
| of manufacturing technicians
| abielefeld wrote:
| Hi, Augustin here, one of the presenters.
|
| As other commenters pointed out, the electronics industry is
| quite big in Europe, on paper it generates a lot of money and
| sustains a lot of jobs. The issue is a bit more complex, and
| you point it out when you say people around you are old and
| old-fashioned.
|
| Like I said in the talk: We used to laugh at the chinese
| products for how low quality they were 20 years ago, who's
| laughing now?
|
| I don't believe europeans are unable to turn around this
| situation in as many years as a matter of fact, it's my core
| beliefs: That together with other young motivated people
| we'll build our own little electronics industry for
| ourselves, among ourselves and people who believe we can one
| day have theye crazy future factories in Europe.
|
| Yes it's crazy hard, but like you I believe things will get
| sufficiently bad that more will see that the effort is worth
| it.
|
| You should check out the 39c3 talk from Kliment, he
| understands this issue so well, and I'll paraphrase him here:
| Electronics is dominated by old dudes, the industry is
| hostile to newcomers, self-taught people, women, and more.
| But by making an effort to give people who are starting a
| good experience, we can turn this around.
|
| Honestly there is no worker shortage, in my immediate
| contacts, I already know 2 or 3 people who are ready to work
| my production line: They have the smarts, skills, and time.
| They are unemployed because no one would respect them, and
| give them a meaningful mission like we would, and it's quite
| clear this is quite a widespread feeling among people.
| lnsru wrote:
| I am afraid, that when it gets too bad and too obvious it
| will be too late.
|
| For me first steps would be turning bureaucratic ship
| around and making regulatory framework simpler and cheaper.
| With some exceptions for startups/small companies during
| very first months or years. The industry would be more
| attractive and with more demand for European electronics
| manufacturing. With more demand it would slowly start
| growing domestically. It's insane that the rules for my 1
| person company are the same as for Bosch or Siemens. I can
| praise good lobbyists work. There are two engineers at my
| dayjob that are writing mandatory documents about cadmium
| amount in screws or calculating sustainability
| parameters...
| abielefeld wrote:
| This is happening already! The 28th regime
| (https://www.europarl.europa.eu/committees/en/the-28th-
| regime...) will simplify the framework to register and
| operate companies in the EU, also the push by the EU
| commission to implement the Draghi report (https://commis
| sion.europa.eu/topics/competitiveness/draghi-r...) is one
| of deregularization of the industry.
|
| Of course quasi monopolies of European industry are
| hoping to lobby these measures to suit them more than
| small players, but I am hopeful, as we have some very
| good legislators and politicians who are on our side.
|
| Also Eurostack (of which Eilbek Research is a member) is
| a lobbyist group pushing for Draghi-adjacent policies,
| most of all: Relocating the entire cloud stack to Europe.
| And while for the bigger members of this organization it
| means having our own Google or Facebook (including their
| harms), it cannot help but inadvertently push the EU to
| pass laws that will further the agenda of eroding the
| USA-Tech monopolies.
|
| Cory Doctorow pushes this narrative
| (https://pluralistic.net/2025/10/15/freedom-of-movement/)
| that this can only be a benefit in the medium term.
|
| Things are moving in the right direction, not many are
| talking about it, but when things hit mainstream news,
| they're already old by the reality's standard.
| raverbashing wrote:
| > Electronics is dominated by old dudes, the industry is
| hostile to newcomers, self-taught people, women, and more.
| But by making an effort to give people who are starting a
| good experience, we can turn this around.
|
| Completely agree.
|
| Then the Semi industry wonders why they're running out of
| people
| joe_mamba wrote:
| _> Then the Semi industry wonders why they're running out
| of people_
|
| Yes but they make up with via immigration of candidates
| on visa. Last time I worked in semi, about 30% of
| colleagues were on visa from abroad. Today from former
| collogues still there, I hear it's close to 50%.
| joe_mamba wrote:
| _> I don't believe europeans are unable to turn around this
| situation in as many years as a matter of fact, it's my
| core beliefs_
|
| Actually, I DO believe we are unable to turn it around.
| I've done EE work both in Europe and in China for over a
| span of 10 years, and what sets China apart from Europe
| that enabled them to overtake us is the mindset, both at
| government support level AND at individual level.
|
| Chinese operated a lot closer in mentality of the US
| compared to Europeans, as in very cutthroat move fast and
| break things, wanting to ship a new product every 6
| months(!). This mentality is lacking in Europe who mostly
| stick to slow paced industries where there's a national
| security, regulatory or bureaucratic moat like aerospace,
| defense, telco, industrial automation or automotive, but
| nothing cutting edge in consumer space that's dominated by
| China, Korea, Japan and US.
|
| Then there's the massive investments and support from the
| Chinese state that's missing in European electronics
| industry. To get an idea compare to the massive sums Europe
| invests in pharma(or life sciences) versus pitiful
| investments in electronics for example, and you'll get what
| I mean.
|
| Until those change, we have no chance, we're just dreaming
| and huffing copium that somehow things will magically
| improve out of the blue.
|
| _> the industry is hostile to newcomers, self-taught
| people, women, and more._
|
| Pretty much this, minus the hostility towards women part.
| I've had few women colleagues everywhere I worked in EE,
| there's no gender hostility or discrimination, just that
| young girls looking for a career, aren't really into
| sitting hunched down over a table and soldering and probing
| PCB's in a lab somewhere in a techo-park in the outskirts
| of town as a career, when stuff like HR, marketing, brand
| design in the city center, is way more hip and appealing to
| young urbanites. You can't force people to be attracted to
| a specific industry or line of work. Similarly how there's
| not much women in construction, welding, oil industry, fire
| fighters, LEO, etc and it's also not due to hostility, or
| how there's not too many men in nursing, HR or childcare.
|
| _> They are unemployed because no one would respect them,
| and give them a meaningful mission like we would_
|
| I hope you realize, you're not really selling the European
| electronics industry optimism here with this example of
| skilled people being passed on for employment.
| graemep wrote:
| > There's no gender hostility or discrimination
|
| I disagree. There is a great deal of variation between
| countries and companies. My daughter is in automotive
| electronics (in R & D rather than manufacturing) and her
| employer and country are at the better end of the
| spectrum, but there are definitely places where it is
| very difficult for women.
|
| > You can't force people to be attracted to a specific
| industry or line of work.
|
| That depends on culture and upbringing. If you bring
| girls up to think that electronics or software or
| whatever is a male pursuit they will avoid it. A lot of
| this is set in early childhood and subtly so. Have you
| seen the difference in the toys little girls and boys
| get? Or who helps dad (and its almost always dad!) with
| the DIY or setting up a new gadget or similar tasks? I
| was my kids primary parent, so they picked up I liked and
| I just assumed my kids were likely to be interested in
| things I found interesting.
| joe_mamba wrote:
| _> There is a great deal of variation between countries
| and companies._
|
| Well yes, that was also part of my point. I travelled and
| worked all over the world in my youth and what I noticed
| is that women typically choose engineering careers only
| for the money, stability and benefits of working at
| engineering corporation if the alternatives like
| humanities, soft sciences or social/government work pay
| like shit and the welfare state is lackluster like it's
| the case is North-/Latin- America, Asia or South/Eastern
| Europe, not because they're really passionate about
| engineering.
|
| But if you're in a wealthy welfare state, with high
| taxes, low income disparity and and well funded
| government services where a women working as a school
| teacher for example can take home nearly the same as an
| engineer while having great government benefits, like
| Nordic or German speaking countries for instance, then
| women are more likely to choose those types of humanities
| careers or other such careers that revolve more around
| interacting with people over working in engineering.
|
| It is literally that simple. There's no 4D chess
| psychology to dissect. If you have easy access to easy
| money, most people will choose the path of least
| resistance. It's all transactional following Maslow's
| pyramid of needs. SW dev would also have far fewer people
| in it if it weren't so well paid.
|
| _> but there are definitely places where it is very
| difficult for women._
|
| Can you explain in detail how exactly those places make
| it difficult for women and it's not just the correlation
| I explained above?
|
| Like I'm sure there's some toxic workplaces out there,
| but that's the case for everyone in a lot of jobs,
| including(or maybe even especially) those where women are
| majority, like HR.
|
| In fact, from what I saw in engineering they tend to
| prioritize attracting female candidates in order to try
| to break up the massive sausage fest of this profession
| even if that part is never said out loud.
| Fnoord wrote:
| Learning by mistake isn't painful; it is how you learn best. I
| keep iterating on that point to my children. But that isn't
| merely what these guys were doing. They were doing more, since
| they were documenting their (expensive!) learning process.
| Documenting your learning process and sharing it freely is
| allowing others to not make the very same mistakes, but to do
| better instead. It lowers the barrier of entry for competition,
| taunting competition who hopefully also share back. Like many
| talks on 39c3 (esp. the lightning talks), it is an invitation
| to collaboration.
|
| Sharing the documentation is also an act of compassion, and
| very much in the spirit of FOSS & OSHW.
|
| This talk was hands down my favourite talk (and not even in a
| subject I am familiar with!). These two guys shared a lot of
| info in little time, and were very humble. It was also a
| presentation which contains a political component (Europe's
| lack of independence, specifically hardware-wise), but it
| managed to avoid that discussion. Why, because it is assumed
| the attending public shares the same value. Instead, it
| maintains focus on the _taking action_ part. I am not sure
| everyone here shares said value, but I do, and for whatever it
| is worth: USA is in a similar boat.
| abielefeld wrote:
| Hey! Talk speaker here, thank you so much for these words.
|
| This is exactly what we wanted to convey: Let's act, our way
| isnt the best way, but it is the path we're on, and there is
| little we can do on our own to get to another path.
|
| We don't want to build the european JLCPCB, we don't even
| know what our company will be in 20 years if it still exists.
|
| What we want is to give knowledge and see more people get
| into the business of electronics. We also want to give
| meaningfull jobs to engineers and factory workers which will
| eventually join us.
|
| We are not going to change the world, I would settle for
| selling 1 unit of 1 well made product to 1 customer. I would
| settle for giving one person a job that they love working
| with cool guys to make electronics. I would settle for the
| ability to pay my rent from this, from bringing value in the
| world.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| Just curious, is it possible to get some basic production
| "kit" from China and go from there? I'd assume it's going
| to be new and cheaper and more "modular", and you only rely
| them on these basic items. I have never been into
| electronics manufacturing so not sure if it makes sense.
| bloggie wrote:
| Yes this makes CCC look bad. You can tell they were not serious
| because they used OpenPNP. From the video - "most importantly,
| it is open, hackable, and extensible." not mentioned: able to
| assemble electronics!
| abielefeld wrote:
| Hi, talk speaker here, we are hoping to assemble our first
| products this year.
|
| OpenPnP is currently more than able to assemble electronics,
| Opulo and LumenPnP are used by many profitable companies
| (many I know first hand).
|
| Our opinion (shared in the talk) is that there is a little
| bit of work to bring it from "able to assemble electronics"
| to "entreprise-ready" in the sense of adding features like
| access rights (operators and admins shoudl have different
| rights) and integration to Inventree, our inventory and parts
| management software.
|
| Investing in even new production devices is a dead end, and
| our vision is that owning 100% of the software is owning 100%
| of the capability. China essentially developed their
| solutions themselves, and I believe that is the reason why
| they are so advanced.
|
| Entire business needs are locked behind aging software,
| licensing hell, an junk fees, both in europe and the US.
| zettabomb wrote:
| Given the context (CCC) I would find it far less interesting
| if they did NOT use OpenPNP. It is also, coincidentally, able
| to assemble PCBs, even if it's perhaps not the best software
| out there.
| ipdashc wrote:
| Given it's CCC, a hobbyist hacker con, OpenPNP and especially
| those three things you mentioned seem perfect, I'm not sure
| why you'd think it makes the con look bad. I've heard this
| talk mentioned repeatedly as one of the coolest ones there,
| and I certainly enjoyed it myself.
|
| It's not an industry seminar on how to start a board house,
| it's two guys explaining how they automated the basics of
| production on a low budget and with space constraints, etc.
| micw wrote:
| What I really would love is a JLCPCB equivalent in Europe.
| Slightly higher prices are OK, but I want to have the the Same
| amount of process automation and flexibility. Should be good for
| a scale of a few thousend per year.
| rcxdude wrote:
| Have you looked at Eurocircuits? Not quite as big, but similar
| kind of thing.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| Similar in how you order, not similar in price at all. Order
| of magnitude more expensive for hobby-grade boards.
| abielefeld wrote:
| Hi! Have you every checked out aisler.net? In my opinion they
| do an amazing job, it's not quite JLCPCB prices, but maybe only
| 20% higher depending on what service you take, and they deliver
| faster since they are based in europe.
|
| Their business model is pooling small orders and sending them
| to board fabs in europe, mainly germany and some in the east.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| > maybe only 20% higher depending on what service you take
|
| For higher-end board that seems likely. For cheap hobby-grade
| boards just the job fee[1] is more than 10 boards delivered
| is from JLCPCB.
|
| That said, thanks for reminding me. Will definitely compare
| next time I need boards.
|
| [1]: https://community.aisler.net/t/our-simple-
| pricing/102#p-124-...
| bArray wrote:
| > For higher-end board that seems likely. For cheap hobby-
| grade boards just the job fee[1] is more than 10 boards
| delivered is from JLCPCB.
|
| Just checked myself using a board I already had
| manufactured, and can confirm it's a lot higher than JLCPCB
| or PCBWay.
|
| Maybe for rapid prototyping it is okay, but at scale, to
| make one board is more than the entire selling point of the
| whole device.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| The job fee seems to include shipping, which makes it more
| reasonable. But Aisler's "estimated dispatch" for the
| budget service is Jan 26. That's 10 business days +
| shipping, making it not very competitive with JLCPCB's
| 10-15 business days including the slowest/cheapest
| shipping.
|
| Express service adds ~20 EUR, roughly the same cost as
| picking DHL express delivery on JLCPCB.
| crote wrote:
| Aisler is decent for bare boards, but their PCBA is several
| orders of magnitude more expensive due to the setup &
| handling fees. JLCPCB has this down to a science, with their
| preloaded (and therefore dirt-cheap) "basic parts" and pre-
| approved "extended parts" pulled directly from LCSC for a
| small fee.
|
| On top of that they also offer 3D printing, CNC machining,
| sheet metal bending, and even a McMaster-Carr-like parts
| store. It is literally a one-stop-shop for all your hardware
| prototype needs.
| clacktronics wrote:
| Eurocircuits does the same kind of service (bar the parts
| library) but has the DRC - but you aren't going to get slightly
| higher from anyone in Europe
| crote wrote:
| The parts library has a _massive_ value.
|
| For a lot of parts the exact details aren't crucial. If I'm
| using 4k7 0603 I2C pullup resistors I'm more than happy to
| swap them for 5k6 0402 if they just so happen to have a reel
| of those lying around and it means not having to wait two
| days for a restock.
|
| Same with plenty of other parts. Maybe 10% is crucial, the
| rest can relatively easily be swapped out with whatever
| happens to be available. Transistor from a different
| manufacturer, generic level converter with two extra
| channels, LDO in a different package? If I know what is
| _available_ , for a proto run I'm more than happy to make a
| few small changes!
| varispeed wrote:
| I have been using them in the past, when I needed a board
| overnight. Problem is that they are prohibitively expensive.
| For the price of a couple of bare unpopulated boards I could
| get dozen boards populated (with parts priced in) from China
| and they would arrive at the same time. Once Brexit was fully
| implemented their shipping was slower than from China, so
| they lost all edges to me.
| alextousss wrote:
| Reminds me that comma.ai has its own line. While their setup is
| quite expensive they do run production for a smartphone-level of
| difficulty in-house. They detail it incredibly well at commacon
| [0].
|
| [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iiBSN224w4
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LE-QlIWMHxM
| rkagerer wrote:
| I used a Voltera V-One for a few small projects that otherwise
| would have been breadboarded, and it wasn't bad.
| atwrk wrote:
| The comments here seem to show a typical US-EU divide in
| perspectives, people talk past each other. Yes, mass-market low-
| margin consumer products (the US view) probably won't be produced
| much in the EU in the next few years.
|
| But much of the electronics industry in the EU is B2B and centers
| around producing high-margin products where 10.000 units of a
| product would be huge.
|
| The company I work for, for example, usually produces a few
| hundred units of a product before the next revision replaces it.
| Whether or not the PCB costs 20EUR more or not really isn't
| _that_ important if you only plan to sell 100 devices of it per
| year for 10kEUR each. Aspects like quality and regulatory
| conformity are way more important here.
| grumbelbart2 wrote:
| That is an excellent point. The development costs of such low-
| volume projects are often way higher than the production costs.
| Having production in house or close often allows tighter, thus
| faster, prototyping and feedback during development, which in
| turn saves money.
|
| The whole "But how can this be scaled and monetized" crowd here
| also does not seem to understand the point of such projects and
| Germany's Hacker community. It is about learning and just doing
| it, much less about building a high-revenue business.
| abielefeld wrote:
| I think so too, because the bar to economic sustainability is
| not incredibly high. I know a lot of one-man businesses
| operating with one Siplace pick and place machine and making
| a good living out of it.
|
| Many people don't have the desire to expand forever. In my
| case I hope the company grows o 20 or 30 employees, and then
| I would work stabilizing it so it can last 50+ years. e.g.
| setting up a trust to oversee the well being of employees,
| the quality of the products, etc.
|
| This is completely alien to most american founders and
| businessmen, in the words of Larry Elison: "it's not enough
| for me to win, it's about everybody else losing"
| abielefeld wrote:
| Hey, talk speaker here, that's a great point!
|
| A discussion that got cut from the talk at the early draft
| process was defining what "small-series" and "large-series"
| mean.
|
| To me, at a human scale and without dystopian monopolies, a
| small series is anything under 1k, a medium series around 50k
| and a large series 100-500k.
|
| I wanted to define a special class of series, because to an
| american a small series is probably more like 100k, and a large
| one 1 million or more, last year something like 230 million
| iphones were sold globally and that's an absurd number imo.
|
| Because my vision of a healthy electronics industry is 200
| companies each selling competing runs of 1 million units,
| rather than apple selling all 230 million.
|
| In my ideal world then, the only way for apps to be distributed
| is a marketplace that is regulated and prevents apple from
| imposing their 30% tax on every dollar spent on the app store.
| pikkoloassembly wrote:
| This is the approach we're taking at Pikkolo!
| (pikkoloassembly.com).
|
| Heavy focus on low-capex and machines we can easily scale and
| hack up specifically for high-mix/low-volume work.
| abielefeld wrote:
| Hey! Don't hesitate to get in touch with us, I read your
| website but there isnt so much information yet, but Alex and I
| would love to hear more :)
| dwa3592 wrote:
| This was a wonderful talk. Thank you for sharing.
| jcjn wrote:
| Everything John Nagle said is true. But to have a meaningful
| discussion about it on HN is futile because we need to come
| together and first admit and agree that exporting everything to
| China has ruined the economy and culture in the West. That isn't
| happening. The best we can do is remind ourselves to follow the
| guidelines while we get downvoted by brigades.
|
| I watched the video and sent it to family members who are deeply
| involved and ve$ted in manufacturing in the West. These two boys
| are unlikely to see anything like this at scale in Europe. That
| ship has sailed while no one was looking, and it's not coming
| back.
|
| Major multi-decade fuckup.
| belval wrote:
| It's impressive how JLCPCB somehow made this process seem so
| seamless and easy for PCBs but also for other random components
| one might want.
|
| Recently needed an 4 adapters in sheet metal for a project, two
| fabrication shops near me quoted >100$. Got JLCPCB to do them all
| for 12$ with 20$ of shipping. Got them in less than 2 weeks.
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