This is an exciting project! My main feedback: you can definitely tell the website content is AI-generated. It's okay to vibe code the design, but I really hesitate when I see vibed writing.
Launch HN: ProvenMetal (YC S26) delivers circuit boards in days instead of weeks
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Re: Launch HN: ProvenMetal (YC S26) delivers circuit boards in days instead of weeks
#22Nice 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…
China mostly produces ROHS compliant PCBA anyways. This is a non-issue
Re: Launch HN: ProvenMetal (YC S26) delivers circuit boards in days instead of weeks
#23HN allows ads now?
Re: Launch HN: ProvenMetal (YC S26) delivers circuit boards in days instead of weeks
#24This is an exciting project! My main feedback: you can definitely tell the website content is AI-generated. It's okay to vibe code the design, but I really hesitate when I see vibed writing.
You're right, putting more attention to that now.
Re: Launch HN: ProvenMetal (YC S26) delivers circuit boards in days instead of weeks
#25I 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 hate to ask this..but how exactly do you plan to turn this into a scalable business beyond being yet another Oshkosh?
There are a number of small but very specialized US based defense sub-component manufacturers that support 15 to 20 people with very good paying jobs, building stuff exactly like NDAA compliant UAS flight controllers. Not everything needs to become gargantuan to be a success.
There can also be very good money in manufacturing specialized things that require the work to be done by US citizens with a TS or TS/SCI clearance if you can get into that market.
Re: Launch HN: ProvenMetal (YC S26) delivers circuit boards in days instead of weeks
#26Any 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…
This is exactly our initial market. We realized you can't beat China for a long time, so what do you do in that time? Service demand where you have a structural advantage.
Re: Launch HN: ProvenMetal (YC S26) delivers circuit boards in days instead of weeks
#27I ran a hardware startup for about a decade. We ended up doing all PCB assembly in China. We did try to find this in the USA, but it was indeed too slow and expensive.
The bottleneck in assembling a PCB is usually component sourcing. My product was not the most complicated, and even then, to assemble in Shenzhen, China, it often took a few weeks to get all the components.
The core issue here is that latency is determined by the outliers. Assembly can't start until you have all units, and the hardest to source one is the bottleneck!
To me, the core innovation here is to plug into the design software to source these long tail items ahead of time.
It's pretty interesting that usually when the PCB is being designed, the designer has no awareness of supply chain. They'll bake in a chip that has a 4 week lead time without even realizing it, when a similar component might be one cent more expensive with much faster lead time.
Re: Launch HN: ProvenMetal (YC S26) delivers circuit boards in days instead of weeks
#28[dead]
Re: Launch HN: ProvenMetal (YC S26) delivers circuit boards in days instead of weeks
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Re: Launch HN: ProvenMetal (YC S26) delivers circuit boards in days instead of weeks
#30I think this is a huge opportunity — speed, domestic production _and_ overall usability of the process - i do think appearing serious business matters a lot in this space, i found your site a little lacking in terms of prose, details, etc. Really great idea though.