> Hi all,
>
> I have a few boards that I am starting to make as both kits and
> finished products.
>
> As you can imagine, I do not want to be an assembly line worker and
> spend all my time stuffing boards.
>
> Does anyone know of any board houses that will surface mount chips
> and make boards ?
>
I have 95% of my assemble prototypes built at Auscon.
http://www.ausconinc.com/ They don't seem to complain about building as few
as two boards, although its cheaper if you do multiples. Normally it takes a
day or two to build prototypes if you provide a kit of parts and good
documentation. If its a consistent build, then they can probably manage the
inventory as well. If the documentation is not correct, they will call,
unlike some outfits that just build blindly.
They are a cable assembly house primarily, but have 3 top notch surface
mount assemblers. One fellow I think used to be a trainer for IBM. I think
most of their people are IPC trained and certified.
The last board I had them build had about 20 SMD ic's including a QFP, and
probably another 100 or so passives. The quality was amazing, no shorts on
the SOT23-5's or QFP44, and the board powered right up. If only I were so
fortunate on the software side.
The other thing I like about this outfit is they are tied in with a volume
CM, so if something takes off, its a simple transistion.
I used to hate building protos, my soldering skills are not that great for
SMD parts. This outfit has been a real help to me.
The guy that runs is pretty cool. His name is Larry, he used to be a CEO of
a larger CM years ago and saw the need for quick turn low volume and
prototype board assembly.
I think your need for 10-20 units at a time would be a good fit for them.
Ron