Hand stuffing a board with about 100 through-hole components, around 300 solder joints, ends up costing about $80 per board for a small 100 quantity run in a US assembly house. This is around $0.25 per pin. It's vastly cheaper in Asia (I've seen $0.01 to $0.05 per pin), and a reasonable middle ground can be found in Mexico. It's unlikely that you will make minimum wage and still be competitive with every these expensive services. But if you have more time than money, it can still be lucrative, especially if you work up a system where you can make your own assembly line of sorts. The majority if your time will be spent finding the right component. You can spread this out by building up 20-40 boards at once so that you only have to find the component and all the places it goes in each board once, insert it into all the boards, then go through with the soldering iron and clippers very quickly before moving on to the next component. But there are many variables that depend on the design, BOM, and other factors, so the advice to build up a sample for a nominal fee (1-2 hours at an hourly rate) and then provide a quote is reasonable. Keep in mind that if you make a mistake, though, the customer is going to expect you to fix it for free. Most assembly houses know their defect rate, and build that into the cost up front. Since you don't have a lot of experience you will want to increase your rate by at least 10% to 50% to account for your guarantee that the job is done well. Be sure you understand whether he wants you to program and/or test them, and find out the testing process (it can be involved, and he might not even realize how long it takes to test his design) so you can account for that appropriately as well. -Adam On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 9:46 AM, Vic Fraenckel wrote: > I have been asked by an acquaintance if I would be interested in doing > some PCB board stuffing/soldering on a piecework basis. I said that I > would be interested and of course the question of costing came up. The > boards he wants done range in size from approximately 4"X3" up to 6"X8". > They are all of the ThruHole type. The components will be supplied with > the boards so all I have to do is stuff them and solder them. A run will > be all of one size, only two sided and will never be greater than 30 > boards. The component count will be reasonable for the board size. There > is a possibility that the boards will already contain a few SMT components. > > I am at a loss to know how to price a job like this out. I consider > myself competent to do the work satisfactorily and am confident that I > can do the work in a timely manner. I would appreciate any comments as > to how to quote a job like this. > > Any enlightenment will be appreciated. > > Vic Fraenckel > KC2GUI > windswaytoo ATSIGN gmail DOT com > > -- > http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive > View/change your membership options at > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist > -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist