The questions we answer on calls every week, written up properly: what files a quote needs; where small-batch cost goes; how lead time is calculated; how a board is tested; how to pick a surface finish; which component packages your design should use; what a workmanship class requires; which certification your product needs; what it costs to change supplier; what to do when a part goes obsolete; and what a power board demands of its copper, its thermal path and its spacings. Where a different supplier is the better answer, we say so.
Each guide takes one question and answers it with the things a buyer can check — prices, dates, standards, failure modes. Pick the group your project is in.
What a quote actually needs, where the weeks go, and why a hundred boards cost more per unit than a thousand.
The three files a quote cannot be made without, the four that turn an estimate into a price, and what you get back within 24 hours.
Guide 02Where the weeks actually go, why the clock starts when you approve the files, and what shortens a date without changing it.
Guide 03Why 100 boards cost so much per unit — stencils, setup, component minimums and test fixtures — and eight ways to bring the price down.
Guide 04What changes between a prototype run and a production run, and what re-qualifying a new supplier really costs.
Workmanship classes, inspection methods, surface finishes and the certificates behind them — and when the strictest one is wasted money.
The difference between Class I, II and III — and how to tell whether your product genuinely needs the strictest one.
Guide 06AOI, 3D X-ray, ICT and functional test — what each inspection catches, and what each one is blind to.
Guide 07IATF 16949, ISO 9001 and ISO 13485 compared — what each one actually requires, and how to check a supplier’s certificate in ten minutes.
Guide 08ENIG, HASL, OSP, immersion silver, immersion tin and ENEPIG — cost, shelf life and failure modes, side by side.
Which packages a line can place, and what to do when a part reaches end-of-life halfway through a build.
NRND, last-time buy, end-of-life and allocation — what each one still lets you do, and why broker stock is the answer people regret.
Guide 10The passive package spectrum, what the small end demands of a line, and why mixing the extremes on one board is hardest.
Longer pieces on what a particular kind of board demands. The rest of the field notes live in the blog.
Send us the BOM and what the product is for. We will tell you which certifications and which workmanship class actually apply to it — and which ones you do not need to pay for.
