@Dennis LaGrua posted:Its funny John but PC boards are manufactured using automatic insertion equipment and wave soldering. The only labor is the setting and loading of the machines. There is no reason that US manufacturing cannot do it for only slightly more, except that the Chinese may be state subsidized.
There's also the labor in having the raw PC boards manufactured, maintaining parts inventory, pulling parts from stock, shipping and receiving, programming the pick and place machines.
Wave soldering is only good for through hole parts. If there's only one or two through hole parts, it's not worth the set-up time for automation and the process is manual, particularly for small runs.
Surface mount components use a reflow oven.
Every step of manufacturing has a cost assigned to it, some may only be fractions of a cent, but it's there and factored in. That also includes a profit for the manufacturer.
Rusty
