Help Center
PCB Assembly FAQs
1. What does your quoted price include?
The PCB assembly price includes:
- Setup fee: $8.00
- Stencil: $1.50
- SMT Assembly: $0.0017 per joint
- Hand-soldering labor fee: $3.5
- Manual Assembly: $0.0173 per joint
- Components cost: Based on the components you choose for assembly
Our online quotes will show the exact assembly fee and components cost after you select the parts for assembly.
2. What's your wave soldering service?
Now GLinkCPCB can support through-hole components by offering wave soldering services, like connectors. The part's assembly type marked with "wave soldering" in our assembly parts library will be assembled manually.
Cost: $3.5 hand-soldering labor fee + $0.0173 manual assembly fee per joint
Build time: SMT assembly service time + 1 more day
Ordering process: The same as SMT assembly.
3. Do you accept the components supplied by customers themselves?
Yes. Customers have the option to consign their own parts to our stock and use them when placing PCBA orders.
4. Will all parts be populated on my board?
It depends. The PCB system will try to search and match the parts in your BOM against our library, only the matched parts will be populated.
5. How many kinds of components are available now?
Currently, about 40k+ kinds of components are available, including 698 kinds of basic components and 300k+ extended components.for more details, please contact our sales staff..
6. What are "Basic components" and "Extended components"?
Basic components are those frequently used parts like chip resistors, chip capacitors etc. They have already been loaded on P&P machines and occupy the same feeder, so the operator don't need to keep swapping them in and out, thus there's no labor cost.
When a part from the Extended Components Library is used, the operator needs to mount the feeders manually, which increases the labor cost, we charge $3 per extended component.
7. What are "Preferred Extended Parts"?
"Preferred Extended Parts" refers to some of the components that are manually loaded onto the P&P (Pick and Place) machines for assembly.
These parts were previously classified as Basic parts, but they have now been categorized as Extended (Preferred) parts. The advantage of Preferred Extended Parts is that they are exempt from the Feeders Loading fee for Economic PCB assembly.
8. What files are required for a PCB assembly order?
- Gerber file, it is used for PCB production.
- BOM file (Bill of Materials).
- CPL file (Component Placement List / Pick & Place File (PNP) file), it is used by our automated SMT Assembly machines to determine where each part should be located on the board.
9. How do I place a PCB assembly order?
Upload Gerber files --> Upload BOM/CPL files --> Select the parts you want to assemble --> Get a quote.
10. I want to order more than 30 pieces boards, what can I do?
You can panelize your boards to realize a quantity of more than 30 pieces, please note there is a panel size limit of not bigger than 250x250mm. Besides, you can select Standard PCB Assembly, where there is no restriction on quantity.
11. What are your requirements for the panelized board?
Mouse-bites and V-cut are available, for Economic assembly, please panelize your boards with mouse-bites. For Standard assembly, you can panelize with mouse-bites or V-cut.
12. Do I need to add fiducial marks myself?
No, you don't have to. We'll add fiducial marks for SMT assembly.
13. How do you determine the turn-time?
Assembly turn-time begins immediately after the PCB turn-time and 90% of PCB assembly orders can be finished within 24 hours, 48 hours at most. We prepare all necessary materials for PCB assembly like PCBA engineering data, components and solder paste stencil while PCB production, so assembly can begin immediately after completing the PCB fabrication.
Below is a gantt chart that illustrates our project schedule.
14. Do you offer assembly on boards fabricated by another company?
Unfortunately, we do not. To maintain our quality standards, we only assemble PCB's that we fabricate.
15. Do you support BGA components assembly?
Yes
16. Does the red dot mean pin 1 in the placement previewer?
Generally, we do not call the red dot pin 1, but a marking only, which is used to indicate the orientation of the components. As shown below, basically, there will be a dot on the component itself, and there will also be a dot on the PCB (silkscreen), when they match, that means the component is placed correctly.
Figure 1. The dots on PCB and components
Figure 2. The red dots
17. What if the orientation for the component shows wrong in the placement preview?
The 0 degree that you defined for your design may be different from the one that we defined, but we both use the same rotation. So, sometimes you will find that there are some components in the wrong orientation. In this case, you can modify the rotation in your pick & place file and get it corrected. If you don’t know how to change the file, please just place your order, our engineers will review and fix the rotation and polarity of the components based on the silkscreen markings before assembly.
18. About the "0" degree for the package
There is only one simple rule: Zero orientation for PCB library should match the component orientation in the packaging (tape/reel).
In most datasheets, how components are placed in the package is described. Please also note that some manufacturers put this information in a separate file, just google the manufacturer name with "tape and reel" you can find the PDF. For example, if you search "on semiconductor tape and reel", you can find Tape & Reel Packaging Standards. Some examples are listed here.
Figure 3. Zero degree of SOT23-3 (ON-Semi)
Figure 4. Zero degree of SOT23-5 (ON-Semi)
Figure 5. Zero degree of SOIC-8
Even for the same package from the same manufacturer, they may have different orientations in the tape for different components, please pay attention to the part number and refer to the tape & reel packaging standards provided by the manufacturer.
19. The reasons for different prices for the component
For most of the SMD components, it requires a minimum quantity to process PCB assembly, or extra parts to cover possible attrition during the assembly process, so there is a minimum order quantity required. When the quantity of the components you required does not reach the minimum quantity, it will charge the fixed fee as the minimum Qty required. Please note that unused parts will not be sent because they are discarded directly in the production process.
20. When will the components be restocked?
Usually, our purchasing department will have their own purchasing plan, they will evaluate the purchase time based on the remaining inventory. However, since the delivery date is unpredictable, we don’t know the specific arrival time either, but you can check it on the website regularly. If you are in a hurry to place an order, it is recommended that you first check whether the component is in stock or not.
21. What components will we assemble?
Generally, we only assemble those components which you have confirmed when ordering. If you haven’t clicked the “confirm” button for the components, even if they occur in the BOM file, we will not assemble them for you. Please kindly check and make sure you have not missed any components when placing the order.
22. About the +/- symbol in the DFM
There is always a marking in the components which is very important in the DFM ANALYSE. For diodes, '+' indicates the anode and '-' indicates the cathode. For polarized capacitors, '+' indicates the anode. Also, the red dot indicates the marking on IC.
23. Why does PCBA order not support Review Before Payment?
Usually, when you place a PCB assembly order, the system will occupy the components first, and other customers can no longer use the components you occupied. Due to various problems such as jet lag, once the order cannot be paid in time, the components will be occupied continuously, which will hold up the resources and other people will not be able to use them. So the assembly order needs to be paid first.
24. How do we judge the polarity for the components?
There are 2 situations:
- Basically, we will judge them according to your silk layer. If there is no silk layer or no points for us to judge how the components should be on your PCB, we cannot recognize the correct polarity. Then we will confirm with you via email. Due to the time difference and other uncontrolled issues, it will cause production delays. Therefore, we recommend you add silkscreen layer to your PCB so that we can confirm them easier and faster to avoid production delay.
- When there is a mark point in the silkscreen layer, but it is inconsistent with your CPL file. In this case, we will make the placement according to the silkscreen layer by default. Thus please make sure your file is correct to avoid misunderstanding.
Generally speaking, for Diodes components, we recommend that customers design the silkscreen according to the following image to indicate polarity. There are two kinds of silkscreen indication. One is adding a triangle to point to the cathode, the other is to add a band to the side of the cathode.
25. Why is the component price different from the last order?
As you know. Since we have different purchasing channels, times, and quantities, in some cases, the price of PCBs and components may vary. Meanwhile, we have our own parts warehouse, each time we restock the components, the price will be different as well due to the three conditions mentioned above. Please refer to the price quoted by the business at the time of ordering. And considering the drop rate during production, we will prepare some spare components for assembly. Usually, the spare components fees will be included in the total components' fee too.
26. Reflow soldering component
Components cannot be put into the SMT machine directly and shall be manually placed, such as rough surface of components/high height of components/failure of nozzle to suck components, etc.
27. Can you program the components?
We support programming some parts. If it is needed, please provide us with part information, the board image, and specific programming methods. We will provide a detailed quotation after verifying the feasibility with the engineering team.
28. Reminder for economic assembly design
For economic assembly, as boards will be panelized and put into production at one time, so we need to separate the boards after assembly. There will be a tolerance of about 0.2mm when routing the boards for depanelizing. Therefore, we suggest that when choosing Economy assembly, please take the tolerance of depaneling into consideration in your design. We suggest that the edges of the traces and components must be more than 0.3mm away from the edge of the board.
29. Reminder for unpopulated components
Due to Customs regulation requirements, we do not support the unassembled components to be sent with the completed PCBA order. GLinkPCB suggests customers check alternatives and contact our customer service to work with, please note that there will be a supplement due to the additional labor costs.
30. About 01005 footprint component
01005 footprint: Due to capacity, we are temporarily unable to support processing the orders for components in the 01005 footprint, thank you for your support and understanding. GLinkPCB team has been working hard to solve these, please pay attention to our notifications or contact our customer service for recovery time.
31. Soldering issue about vias on the pads
If there are vias on the pads in the customer's design, the solder flows into the vias and may cause weak soldering after reflowing. To avoid delays in delivery, we will continue to proceed with the order and arrange for delivery by default. If we notice the design issue in production, we will try to email and inform our customers to consider optimizing design in future orders. Customers can also try choosing more suitable vias covering options for PCB production to avoid the soldering issue.
