Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Launch HN: ProvenMetal (YC S26) delivers circuit boards in days instead of weeks

provenmetal.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 161 posts

Re: Launch HN: ProvenMetal (YC S26) delivers circuit boards in days instead of weeks

#11

Post by willcarkner »

throwaway672312 wrote: post #5

I work in a building with a board assembly line that sits idle most of the time. They have tried securing outside contract work to fill in the gaps. No takers yet. The only domestic drivers for board fab and assembly are autmotive and defense. They already have their supply chains running.

Makes sense. Is it that most of the time is spent switching jobs or that there's just not enough jobs going through it?

You're right that automotive and defense make up most of the demand. We also see demand from teams who can't use JLC/PCBway due to the difficulty of cosigning parts outside their catalogue.

Re: Launch HN: ProvenMetal (YC S26) delivers circuit boards in days instead of weeks

#12

Post by montyanne »

> Suddenly we were spending 90% of our time assembling circuit boards instead of growing the business

> When you look at the full process, you realize that assembly is not the bottleneck.

I’m confused, which one is it?

I assume the growth story isn’t great when you factor in the non-automatable tasks and big capital outlays, so your product leaves that to existing CMs and scales the software stack instead?

Do you see this product as being beneficial to subcontractors (presumably still doing the 90% manual work), or does this legitimately reduce the actual workload/costs at the production level?

Re: Launch HN: ProvenMetal (YC S26) delivers circuit boards in days instead of weeks

#13

Post by pelorat »

realo wrote: post #4

Nice but the USA are not our global friends anymore. Anything available in the EU?

I've only found B2B oriented companies in the EU.

Edit: https://aisler.net/en/partners/librepcb

https://www.eurocircuits.com

https://beta-layout.com

LibrePCB from Aisler seems to be most like jlcpcb.

You do pay a lot more though due to industrial regulations. Only lead free solder is allowed in the EU, and chemical regulations and waste disposal laws will drive up the price a lot compared to similar services in China and the USA.

Re: Launch HN: ProvenMetal (YC S26) delivers circuit boards in days instead of weeks

#14

Post by willcarkner »

ac29 wrote: post #9

Any idea what pricing will be like? The fact that you call out Drone and Defense industries on your page suggests to me this is extremely expensive. I recently priced out getting a PCB done in China and its insanely cheap. My design isnt complicated, a few ICs, a few connectors, an a dozen or so passives. PCB manufacturing, parts, and soldering/assembly is on the order of $10-20 total per board and that is with zero…

Yes, pricing is much higher than China over here, mainly due to the non-existent support for high-mix low-volume work. NRE adds a lot, and so the prices are high right now. This is why we need to own the stack, optimize for high-mix, and drive down costs over time. It will take a lot of work.

Re: Launch HN: ProvenMetal (YC S26) delivers circuit boards in days instead of weeks

#15

Post by willcarkner »

montyanne wrote: post #12

> Suddenly we were spending 90% of our time assembling circuit boards instead of growing the business > When you look at the full process, you realize that assembly is not the bottleneck. I’m confused, which one is it? I assume the growth story isn’t great when you factor in the non-automatable tasks and big capital outlays, so your product leaves that to existing CMs and scales the software stack instead? Do you see…

Sorry for the confusion, our time was spent doing manual work because we didn't have much automation at all. For the industry, assembly is not the biggest immediate bottleneck, with it being quite commodotized. However, we plan to open an automated assembly facility in the next few months to take stronger advantage of our front-of-house automations.

Re: Launch HN: ProvenMetal (YC S26) delivers circuit boards in days instead of weeks

#16

Post by tonyarkles »

Onavo wrote: post #7

I hate to ask this..but how exactly do you plan to turn this into a scalable business beyond being yet another Oshkosh? Sure it's profitable but there's a reason hardware manufacturing is generally outsourced to the lowest bidder. Outside of targeting specific sectors e.g. defence, how else do you plan to remain competitive globally? Manufacturing hardware (especially if you are not Apple) is generally a capital inte…

I think you’re actually asking good questions!

> scalable business beyond being yet another Oshkosh

OSH Park is fabulous for what they do, but they don’t do PCBA.

I’m not OP, but I think I can provide some insight anyway:

> Outside of targeting specific sectors e.g. defence, how else do you plan to remain competitive globally

I think that trying to be competitive globally would be a dumb play for these folks, they’re optimizing for something different.

Defence is one sector where this model works, no doubt. But there’s a bigger market that doesn’t have a great domestic story yet (I’m in Canada and work with a variety of CA and US PCB/PCBA houses): fast-turn low-volume PCBA, either for prototype iteration or for industrial one-offs. While I work on a specific “sort of defence adjacent” project right now, my past consulting work would’ve benefitted quite a bit from being able to turn around full PCBA work in 7 days. Macrofab end-to-end was usually 3-4 weeks and cutting that iteration time down would’ve had a solid effect on reducing project timelines if it could’ve happened for a reasonable price. There are domestic manufacturers who have optimized for that… but the price was not something my clients were willing to pay to accelerate their projects. If this hits a sweet spot there… that’ll be really exciting for me.

(I’ve already sent it to my team to start looking at)

Re: Launch HN: ProvenMetal (YC S26) delivers circuit boards in days instead of weeks

#17

Post by willcarkner »

tonyarkles wrote: post #8

I love to see new players in this space! We’ve done a ton of PCBA through Macrofab. My relationship with them goes back far enough to have been a beta customer and I’ve chatted on the phone with the CEO a few times. It’s interesting comparing what you’re offering and what they offer. When I started using them, the fact that you could just upload Eagle or KiCAD files, get an instant quote, and verify MPN/BOM and parts…

Thanks for the feedback. We can ship to Canada, haven't done it yet, but open to it!

Re: Launch HN: ProvenMetal (YC S26) delivers circuit boards in days instead of weeks

#18

Post by walrus01 »

ac29 wrote: post #9

Any idea what pricing will be like? The fact that you call out Drone and Defense industries on your page suggests to me this is extremely expensive. I recently priced out getting a PCB done in China and its insanely cheap. My design isnt complicated, a few ICs, a few connectors, an a dozen or so passives. PCB manufacturing, parts, and soldering/assembly is on the order of $10-20 total per board and that is with zero…

Think of this service basically for the same purpose as why Crye pants and stuff are manufactured domestically in the USA. But applied to circuit boards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berry_Amendment

More specifically there are a number of new wide-spanning bans on import of mainland china made drone components such as flight controller boards, ESCs, power distribution boards, motors.

The definition of "Blue UAS" pre-dates recent more aggressive changes made by the current US executive branch of the government, but is still relevant:

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=blue+UAS+...

Re: Launch HN: ProvenMetal (YC S26) delivers circuit boards in days instead of weeks

#19

Post by willcarkner »

tonyarkles wrote: post #16
Onavo wrote: post #7

I hate to ask this..but how exactly do you plan to turn this into a scalable business beyond being yet another Oshkosh? Sure it's profitable but there's a reason hardware manufacturing is generally outsourced to the lowest bidder. Outside of targeting specific sectors e.g. defence, how else do you plan to remain competitive globally? Manufacturing hardware (especially if you are not Apple) is generally a capital inte…

I think you’re actually asking good questions! > scalable business beyond being yet another Oshkosh OSH Park is fabulous for what they do, but they don’t do PCBA. I’m not OP, but I think I can provide some insight anyway: > Outside of targeting specific sectors e.g. defence, how else do you plan to remain competitive globally I think that trying to be competitive globally would be a dumb play for these folks, they’re…

Defense adjacent work is another place where we're seeing some strong pull.

> scalable business beyond being yet another Oshkosh

Yes, OSH Park is awesome. They could add PCBA, but we see the long-term value in owning the full stack (from design to testing of finished boards). Stops us from having a knife fight all the way down.

Re: Launch HN: ProvenMetal (YC S26) delivers circuit boards in days instead of weeks

#20

Post by [deleted] »

Onavo wrote: post #7

I hate to ask this..but how exactly do you plan to turn this into a scalable business beyond being yet another Oshkosh? Sure it's profitable but there's a reason hardware manufacturing is generally outsourced to the lowest bidder. Outside of targeting specific sectors e.g. defence, how else do you plan to remain competitive globally? Manufacturing hardware (especially if you are not Apple) is generally a capital inte…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN