How to use our, PCB Assembly prototype service?

Our Assembly for prototypes is based on a 5 working day delivery term. If the quantity of boards and/or the number of components is above a certain level, then this may change to 7 or 10 working days. The actual terms offered are completely transparent and available on completion of our online ‘Price calculator’.

The Purchase and Logistics of the components happens during the lead time of the PCB production. Only when the PCB’s are ready and components available does the population service and Delivery terms start.

This guide is for customers who are already signed in to their Eurocircuits account.

To Sign In or Register for an account please click here.

How does it work?

Select the PCB calculator from the Eurocircuits Home Page or within your registered account then select option “Include assembly”. This option is also available through the PCB Configurator within the Eurocircuits PCB Visualizer.

Select the PCB delivery term if different from our standard 5 days

Note – If the ‘Include assembly’ option is not visible –  please be assured we are working on the logistics of delivering Assembled PCB’s to your country.

Introduction movie for PCB Assembly Visualizer

Below the Advanced options you will find the ‘New – Assembly services’ section. Complete this to the best of your knowledge and it will provide an estimate (not binding) of the assembly cost, this excludes the cost of the components and any other special requirement.

Seminar explaining PCB Assembly Visualizer in detail

In the summary you will see an estimated price for the assembly service based on your input.

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Click ‘Add to basket”. This will open a popup window, here you are able to continue and ‘Add to basket’ or ‘Launch assembly inquiry’ if you have any questions or are unsure how to continue.

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Next you have the option to upload your BOM and CPL data, we need this to calculate the actual online price offer, by clicking on continue your job is now added to your online basket.

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It is also possible to add BOM and CPL information later from ‘BOM & CPL analysis’ link in your shopping basket. It is important to check that the option ‘Include Assembly’ is selected in the PCB Configurator (within of PCB Visualizer) before you upload your BOM and CPL data.

Your job is now in your basket and the processing starts with your PCB data first.

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After the processing is finished, select Shopping basket and then the PCB Visualizer in the same row as the Basket number of your job. Once open you are able to view your PCB and all its details using the PCB Visualizer. Here you are also able to modify the non-Gerber parameters such as Soldermask colour etc… You are also able to make small corrections to the data if necessary.

…… Remember to save your changes……

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After you have saved your work to the basket you can open PCBA Visualizer, it is possible to do directly from within PCB Visualizer. However, when many changes are made to the PCB parameters/data we recommend to open the PCBA visualizer from the Shopping basket after the save is complete.

Opening up PCBA Visualizer for the first time will give the message that no BOM has been loaded.

Whilst the BOM list data attached to the Basket number it has not yet been loaded into the PCBA Visualizer. By loading we mean instructing the PCBA Visualizer about the form of the BOM list data and the content.

After instructing the form we now define the content of the columns.

The BOM editor will now process and analyse the data and present the result. This means that the BOM editor will look for the components in the eC-verified data base and show the result found.

Any components not found can be manually add or omitted from the list by defining them as ‘not placed’ for example. This explained in detail in the movies at the beginning of the page.

We now have to do the same procedure for the CPL data or Component Placement List, this defines were which component should to be placed on the board.

Define the type of file.

The scope of the data.

The content of the columns.

On completion your components will be shown on the PCB in the position defined in CPL.   You are now able inspect and correct features such as the footprint, the coordinates, the rotation and the position of pin one etc.

All of the above is explained in our two videos which can be found on the top of this page.

PCBA Visualizer and PCBA Services

The functionality of the PCBA Visualizer and how to order the PCBA service is  explained in the videos above, it is also explained in the PCBA user guidelines and the PCBA Services section of website.  You can find another brief overview to the left of this page.

Launch assembly inquiry

An alternative way to proceed is to launch an Assembly inquiry. This corresponds largely to what is explained to the left but instead of selecting “Add to basket” you now select: “Launch assembly inquiry”.

Our engineers will process your project and include any components that may not have been available in our eC-verified database. These components originally marked as not verified will then be marked with a green ‘verified’ check mark.

Ordering our PCBA Services

You do not need to wait for this process to complete to place your order. However the physical production of the PCB order will only start after analysis of your complete project data and with your approval. Once approved you will receive an order confirmation for the boards.

We will send you a request for the approval of your complete project once all components have been identified, the placement is checked along with the prices and availability of components are received from our component suppliers. Only after approval we will start with any physical production.

Prices shown before the approval request are an indication and are provisional only, these may change (mainly the price for the components) whilst the BOM analysis is progressing.

This is an example based on 2 PCBs, 100 SMD comps 2 sided placement as indicated in the assembly calculator above.

Please note that our PCBA service is only available in conjunction with our PCB service and is aimed towards prototype and small volume quantities, we do not offer a subcontract assembly only service. Price requests and orders can only be processed as described here in this document. Our goal to reduce overheads and offer you our customers the best prices available, this is only achievable by making use of PCB Visualizer and PCBA Visualizer. E-mail requests will not be handled.

Our PCBA Services – capabilities overview is available here.

Our PCBA Visualizer user guide will show you how to work with the PCBA Visualizer.

Follow these steps to place your PCB + Assembly prototype order

  1. Upload your PCB order and PCB data to your shopping basket, make sure you select ‘Include assembly’
  2. Upload your BOM and CPL information under the previous action or to the shopping basket item created under point 1
  3. Check the BOM and placement information in PCBA Visualizer
  4. Checkout your order to confirm the PCB order
  5. Wait for a “request for approval” on the Assembly order
  6. Approve to confirm your Assembly order
  7. Both PCB and PCBA will go into production.
  8. In your online Eurocircuits’ customer account this is presented under “running orders” where you will see two order lines: one for the PCB and one for the PCBA

Please contact us with any questions you may have with this or any of our other services. Try our online chat service.