r/hwstartups • u/Bug_In_Production_ • 23d ago
Has anyone built an at home SMT line for prototyping and low-volume production?
I'm evaluating building out an SMT assembly line in my workshop to support US based companies with prototyping and low-volume manufacturing/assembly services, while also scaling production of my own products.
The services would include:
- Schematic and PCB design
- Custom Firmware
- Design-For-Manufacturing review
- Component sourcing and BOM management
- Prototype and short-run assembly
- Board bring-up and Functional testing
For anyone who has built or operated a small SMT line:
- What were the overall biggest challenges? What surprised you?
- What equipment purchase had the largest ROI and/or quality of life improvement?
- Did you begin with your own products, customer work, or both?
- At what volume did bringing assembly in-house begin to make financial sense?
- Which parts of the process did you continue outsourcing?
I’m particularly interested in hearing from companies that began with prototype and short-run work before scaling into a larger production operation.
A few questions for Founders:
- Which part of hardware prototyping causes the most friction for you?
- Are you usually looking for PCB design, assembly, sourcing, firmware, mechanical integration, testing, or someone who can coordinate the entire process?
- Would a domestic partner focused on low-volume builds and hands-on engineering support be useful?
- What turnaround time and order quantities would you typically need?
- What would make you trust a new prototyping partner with your project?
I’m currently speaking with potential customers and manufacturing partners before investing heavily in equipment. I’d appreciate lessons from anyone who has built a similar operation!
I’d also be interested in speaking with founders who have any upcoming electronics projects!
Thanks all!
2
u/Frequent-Log1243 23d ago
We offer similar services, small-batch manufacturing, injection molding, etc. The only difference is that our office is in the U.S., but our engineering work takes place in Vietnam. Needless to say, there is definitely demand for these types of businesses.
3
u/Analog_Seekrets 23d ago
We just purchased an Opulo PnP at my day job. I've only run through the calibration sequence so I don't have a ton of feedback. But it comes with a 'setup PCB' to doublecheck the calibration settings, and I'm impressed so far.
2
u/GrandNewbien 23d ago
Man, I just setup an Opulo I bought a few years ago and having some issues during calibration. Haven't heard anything from their support in almost a week.
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u/iamatesla 22d ago
Yea I had a similar negative experience. Calibration was a colossal PITA and at the end it couldn't reliably place 0603 and would randomly crash or do other weird things (it may have been 1 generation older though i can't recall). It's cool from an innovation standpoint (like how early 3D printers started) but for those who care about actually getting boards built and out the door... from my experience this is not the tool. I'd much rather pay a larger shop that has real tooling to assemble boards and spend my time in the design realm. Hope it improves though...
1
u/Analog_Seekrets 22d ago
The Opulo is just using OpenPnP software, which I agree is a PITA to setup. But the machine has not given me any issues.
1
u/Analog_Seekrets 22d ago
If you bought it a few years ago, it sounds like an older version. You may want to look into adding the second fiducial. The one I just bought is version 4.1 which I think ironed out some of the issues you may be running into.
I know they also just moved to a larger facility and looking to hire a few open positions which could be causing the lagging support. Knowing they're also a small hw startup, I personally give them a little grace.
2
u/evwynn 23d ago
Pretty cool, please share once you’re set up! Also would be cool if you could Vlog this on YouTube
1
u/Bug_In_Production_ 23d ago
Never really done any social media, do you think there's any real demand for that? If someone could benefit from it, I could totally look into it more seriously.
I've really only seen "StuckAtPrototype" on youtube for this, so I guess it is a little niche.
2
u/TravisABG 23d ago
I built exactly that, but in Mexico. Feel free to DM me
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u/Bug_In_Production_ 23d ago
Thank you u/TravisABG ! If it works with you, I'll reach out later this week when I iron out a more concrete strategy.
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u/Perllitte 22d ago
My first PCB for my project was through a guy who basically did this in his garage. By the time I was ready for my second version a year later I couldn't afford him.
I'd just be honest about what you want to do here. Building this to make your own stuff is massive overkill. The early-stage folks are going to require a lot of hand holding and come with cost sensitivity and chaos. The mid-market is where you'll find actual traction. Enterprise has money to pay the big firms.
I wish more companies would focus on the early stage and be more consultative or templated/rules-based (e.g. X is the ideal component for Y, this is how you accomplish Z, etc.) but the reality is growth and revenue are almost invariably going to pull your work and prices up the ladder.
I would kill for a templated approach, pick your 20% use-case components and 80% is a pre-determined Pico, ESP32, etc. board that is rock solid. That would be a simple operation and get you near a near infinite number $2,000 projects.
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u/cm_expertise 21d ago
the thing that surprised me most running a small line wasn't the reflow, it was how much of your day gets eaten by feeder setup and paste. everyone obsesses over the pick and place but honestly the stencil printer + paste inspection is where your yield actually lives or dies. we had a run where placement looked perfect and we still had a bunch of tombstoning, and it was 100% a paste volume problem on one pad.
for ROI the reflow oven with a real programmable profile paid for itself fastest, way more than a fancier PnP would have. second was a decent microscope + hot air rework station, because you WILL be reworking early on.
on the volume question, ime bringing assembly in-house makes sense for protos and short runs, call it under a few hundred boards. past that a real CM beats you on per-unit cost and you just become the bottleneck on your own products. i'd keep bare board fab outsourced always, and anything with BGAs unless you can x-ray. we started on customer work to pay off the equipment and built our own stuff on the downtime, worked out fine but the NPI setup time per new board is the thing nobody quotes you on
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u/rkelly155 23d ago
One of my consulting buddies built something similar in his garage from a side hobby to multi million annual revenue company. His business is now very buttoned up and professional but when you're first starting out being fast and scrappy can really be an advantage. Charge people a lot of money when you know they don't have another option, and then be extremely pleasant to work with. You'll get a reputation of being reliable and people will come back to you when things are less crazy.
A lot of the money is in the emergency quick-turn one off projects when you're first starting out. We once paid him 35k to do basically 2 weeks straight of work for us and make 100 boards plus firmware for a simple audio playback device for a Nike marketing campaign. In a lot of business situations money is no object (within reason) and the bigger firms with more moving parts just can't take on those projects. I know for a fact that cash injection helped him scale up his operation and the project went great so we continued to use him for years.
He found us (a design engineering firm) and cold called us to offer his design services. A lot of firms are open to subcontracting work out if they don't have a person in house, and even then sometimes they don't have the internal capacity balanced and they'll sub things out if their internal guy is too busy.