When you’re looking to purchase from a company what’s your most important requirement? Price (most likely)? Quality? Reliability? Knowledge?  How about the PCB manufacturer history? If you’re buying from an established source that means you should have the quality, reliability & knowledge already covered, and if they’ve been running for a long time then they must have their pricing well structured too!?

We may have been around the block a few times but to me, I have always found that with loads of experience you can’t go wrong. Standing the test of time over these many years show that we are here to stay, dinosaurs we may be but we are definitely not going extinct!

With this modern automated technology now used for making PCB’s I still remember the old process of making a conventional PCB . . . . for the tracking it was a liquid resist that was dipped and dried, your film went on and then you needed UV to expose it, even the sunlight did it! Then out came the bucket of ferric chloride and let’s not mention the roller tinner that could spray you with molton tin! Drilling holes, well you needed a deep throat drill for that one…

This is really showing our age, anyone else out there remembers the good old days?

The photo shows our UK manufacturing factory back in 1958. We didn’t move in until the mid 1980’s (but we’d been making pcbs in South Wigston since 1969), so it was still occupied by Premier Drums back then. The train line, sidings and the large chimney have long gone but our experience, knowledge and skills have all grown.

So next time your sourcing a PCB, ask yourself, what really is the most important factor?