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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

#81

Post by willcarkner »

jrexilius wrote: post #78

I'm super excited to try your service and the KiCad plug-in to move supply-chain dialogue closer to point-of-creation makes a TON of sense. That and the speed seem to be the two points of differentiation from Macrofab, who is my current supplier. They will be stiff competition for you as they are a great shop and have a good software interface and a lot of capabilities. I imagine using you guys for quick turn-around…

Yes macrofab has a great service. We are best for quick turn, but long term we aim to cater for production as well. All in good time.

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

#82

Post by willcarkner »

amirhirsch wrote: post #79

Good luck! One valuable differentiation you could provide is a line of credit. If you can’t win on price, you can help your customers win on cash-conversion cycle. I’ve been making hardware for 20 years. My highest-volume product was Flybrix, a LEGO drone kit manufactured by Seeed and UniPrecision in China and by Sparqtron in Fremont, California. I’d be happy to work with you on a v2 reboot: Flybrix Swarmz, because e…

Wow. Sounds like a super interesting product. Hadn't considered lines of credit yet, but definitely would be valuable to some higher ticket customers.

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

#84

Post by otekengineering »

willcarkner wrote: post #74
otekengineering wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what do you mean by in the works? i've used them for years and they were in YC over a decade ago sounds like your goal is to be an embedded systems job shop based on AI instead of engineers? What's your value over existing AI-accelerated job shops that leverage existing quick-turn domestic PCBA suppliers? as a not-so-random example, https://otekengineer.com/

Yes, though it was only somewhat recently that they transitioned to building their own automated facility. We don't plan to do the design ourselves, we realize that our users will be using AI design tools that need to be integrated with the factory. We will build that link.

what's your vision for that link?

it's not clear to me what the interface to the user is, or who the user is

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

#85

Post by ford »

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…

I'll hijack this point to talk about robotics - I think we agree 1) It's not ideal for China to control production for _all_ of the things we use here.

2) What they already are good at they'll continue to improve at, because of domain knowledge & ecosystem

3) The reason they are ahead in the first place is labor cost & the QOL workers will tolerate (and intentional government investment)

4) The only way around this is for the US to invest into robotics (labor) & subsidize american manufacturing (ecosystem)

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

#86

Post by willcarkner »

ford wrote: post #85
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…

I'll hijack this point to talk about robotics - I think we agree 1) It's not ideal for China to control production for _all_ of the things we use here. 2) What they already are good at they'll continue to improve at, because of domain knowledge & ecosystem 3) The reason they are ahead in the first place is labor cost & the QOL workers will tolerate (and intentional government investment) 4) The only way around this i…

Agreed completely. The recent bans are one way of doing this but not the most sustainable long term at all.

We have two options, give up and allow China to control all production, or start the hard battle to improve manufacturing here.

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

#87

Post by willcarkner »

crtified wrote: post #77
willcarkner wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's important to focus on where real innovation in the space is happening, and to me that's in drones. Some of the hype is overstated but drones are the new additions to conflict, and they're clearly not going away.

One of your major choices is how much you want to specialise, vs be a general service. I expect you're in the phase of discovering that. Now, with the disclaimer I'm just a random guy who knows not-much about business - and is just a small hobbyist electronics guy - it seems clear that your stiffest headwinds are at General Service. I would be leery of how much success you'd have there, because general PCB service is…

Yes I agree. If it turns out that there is not enough demand to service in defense, we can use the optimizations found from the defense market to take a stab at the general market. It doesn't make sense to start with that off the bat.

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

#89

Post by veqq »

ford wrote: post #85
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…

I'll hijack this point to talk about robotics - I think we agree 1) It's not ideal for China to control production for _all_ of the things we use here. 2) What they already are good at they'll continue to improve at, because of domain knowledge & ecosystem 3) The reason they are ahead in the first place is labor cost & the QOL workers will tolerate (and intentional government investment) 4) The only way around this i…

> The reason they are ahead in the first place is labor cost & the QOL workers will tolerate

That hasn't been accurate in a decade. Chinese labor costs have been higher than Mexico since before Covid. They have more efficient firms, business processes and so much more. The parenthesized "(and intentional government investment)" is related to how they developed nimbler systems, but ignores the totality of industrial policy.

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

#90

Post by apercu »

ford wrote: post #85
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…

I'll hijack this point to talk about robotics - I think we agree 1) It's not ideal for China to control production for _all_ of the things we use here. 2) What they already are good at they'll continue to improve at, because of domain knowledge & ecosystem 3) The reason they are ahead in the first place is labor cost & the QOL workers will tolerate (and intentional government investment) 4) The only way around this i…

I totally agree that we need to reinvigorate manufacturing in the US and that it’s going to take the government (federal level) to make this happen. But for some reason we’d rather give those tax dollars to billionaires and elect incompetents like the current president.
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