PCBasic

PCBasic is a PCB assembly house in Shenzhen that grew the way lots of local electronics factories do: one SMT line at a time. They started in 2010 with a 500 m² workshop and a single placement line. By 2024 they had over 500 people and about 20,000 m² of factory space in Shajing (Bao'an) and Huizhou, plus an R&D centre in Shanghai and a sales office in Querétaro, Mexico.

What's interesting is how much of that growth came from software. They built their own online quoting system and CRM in 2016. In 2018 they set up an IT team and wrote their own MES, the system that tracks every board as it moves down the line. A year later they moved into a 3,000 m² plant in Shajing with seven SMT lines. They were shipping over 1,000 orders a month by 2020 and became a national high-tech enterprise in 2021. Today they handle around 1,500 orders a day for customers in 170+ countries, with 98.3% on-time delivery.

The factory is set up for small and mid-sized batches with lots of changeovers. There are JUKI and Fuji NXT lines, flying-probe testers (they were one of the first small-batch shops to buy them), X-ray, selective wave soldering and conformal coating. They hold ISO 9001, IATF 16949 (the automotive quality standard) and ISO 13485 (the one for medical devices). Their blog is full of wearables, smart meters, EV chargers and robot controllers.

Ordering is online with no minimum. Upload Gerbers and a BOM, pick turnkey or consigned parts, and you're off. They also have 30+ PCB designers if you need layout help. Customers on their site rave about the unglamorous steps. "PCBASIC's selective soldering is the most precise I've ever seen," John Peterson wrote. Jason Reynolds credits the conformal coating with "fewer failures and longer product life".

PCBasic is a good fit if you want one online portal for boards, parts and assembly, from a handful of prototypes to steady production. It's especially handy for automotive-adjacent or medical electronics, where those certifications matter. If you need full enclosure design or a complex box build, check the scope with them before you order.