Comment by realo
11 hours ago
Faster than Shenzen, fine ... but quite a bit more expensive, even taking into account the USA tariffs, which we do not have in the rest of the world.
Seems to me that Shenzen still wins at least for the non-USA world.
11 hours ago
Faster than Shenzen, fine ... but quite a bit more expensive, even taking into account the USA tariffs, which we do not have in the rest of the world.
Seems to me that Shenzen still wins at least for the non-USA world.
Costs come down at scale. Vote with your wallet, tell your friends, and we just might have our faster+better+cheaper problem solved.
I don't see why non-US companies should "vote with their wallet" by over-spending so that they can have a US supply chain instead of a Chinese supply chain. They're both foreign, outside their control and vulnerable to political stunts.
I think their point is that non-US regions should set up their own non-China supply chain.
And here in Europe we're busy divesting from both. The priority for now is getting rid of the US simply because of the erratic President but if you read between the lines, a lot of the plans also aim for getting rid of the dependence on China.
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> vulnerable to political stunts.
They are different political stunts though. If your supply chain is vulnerable to politics then you want options so that any one stunt cannot hurt you.
Also, while there are political stunts, my current reading is the US stunts are more temporary and the next president won't continue them. While China's are likely longer term - there is a reasonably possibly China will attack Taiwan and Europe will join with the US and defending. Only time will tell, but that is my read on the situation.
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This is HN. Asking people here to consider any long-term geopolitical ramifications associated with their economic activity is futile.
Well the people chose the clown that doesn't either so live with it
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I ordered 2 power supplies from China for work, and they power supplies were $60/each, and the tariffs were $45/ea. I am all for manufacturing in the US, but holy hell, give industry time to develop the skills and infrastructure
For now.
I'd imagine that just because they've decided it's good enough to go public with it, doesn't mean it's done getting better. Or that someone else can't do it better, now that it's been shown to work.
The first Circuit Hub link posted to HN was in 2013.
I could be misremembering, but wasn't it mostly a software offering at that point?
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But for prototyping, paying extra for quick turnaround is often very sensible
I'm surprised they don't offer next day turn around (whenever fedex's last pickup plus however long to build). Even same day if you live close to their factory.
Meanwhile as a hobbyist I'd be glad for the discount "we will get around to it sometime in the next two weeks discount"
Because the US doesn't have the supply lines for that. You simply can't compete with a Shenzhen where there are a dozen PCB factories and a warehouse for virtually every part you can imagine within a 30-minute drive.
In Shenzhen you can have Some Guy in a truck doing a parts pickup round around town a couple of times a day. In the US you're waiting for overnight Fedex from Digikey. And sure, there's a lot you can stock in advance, but virtually every board will have this one weird part you don't stock yet.
Right.
Plus if you can get someone on the phone there can be value in that.
And if a sales engineer comes out and sees your operation you might get more than a free lunch…