Reducing the Costs of PCB Design

The quality of your Printed Circuit Board matters to the overall success of your project. However, high quality design can be costly. Fortunately, there are a few things that you can do to keep costs low without sacrificing the quality of your PCB design.

Use Premade Design Specifications

When designing PC Boards, it’s important to think through the entire process to determine how much time, effort and money your design will take to manufacture. If you find a problem with your PCB design, you can look to see if anyone else has come across the same issue and figure out how they solved it. This can save a considerable amount of time and money over having to start again from scratch. Another benefit of using premade design specifications is that they can be automated in assembly instead of being placed and soldered by hand, which can cost quite a bit more.

Panelize

Panelization places multiple PCBs on a single panel, allowing for bulk manufacturing and quicker processing. Panelization also ensures that boards are secured throughout manufacturing, shipping and assembly. Since PCBs are generally priced per panel, you can save a lot of money by fabricating multiples on a single panel.

Get an Outside Opinion

Having someone else take a look at your project can help you catch errors that you might have missed. There’s nothing more costly or time-consuming than discovering a problem too late. Get an outside opinion from someone that you trust that isn’t part of your team.

Use the Same Company for Prototyping and Production

It’s a smart idea to use the same assembly house for both your prototyping and production of your PC Boards. Doing so makes it possible to begin mass production as soon as possible.

The material costs for PCBs are fairly low. Most of the assembly costs come from the time it takes to figure out how to assemble a brand new PCB. If your assembly house has already put together your prototype, they will be comfortable with its assembly, saving you time and money.

Get Your Manufacturer Involved in the Design Process

Your manufacturer can provide you with valuable insight for your PCB design. When involved in the process, they can make suggestions for solving issues and point out problems that you might have missed.

Means Engineering, Inc. can help you with PCB design, prototyping and assembly. We work directly with our clients, from concept to completion. Please contact us for details.