Get an electronics prototype built: from layout to sample

Your layout is done. The DRC is clean, the 3D view looks right, and in three weeks there is an EMC test or a customer pilot. Now you want to get an electronics prototype built, and you have never outsourced assembly before. Or you have, to an EMS, and they quoted seven weeks plus setup.

This is what happens between "I have a layout" and "I have a tested board", in the order it happens. Each step says what you do and what we do. It describes how prototype PCB assembly works at DeltaProto in the Netherlands, from 2 boards.

Step 1: what do you export from KiCad, Altium or Eagle?

Three files: the PCB data, the BOM and the centroid. That is all we need.

Send them as they come out. Mapping columns, converting units and repairing a broken CSV is our job.

Two things go wrong regularly with the Gerber and drill set: the drill files are forgotten, and the outline sits on the wrong layer. ODB++ alongside is welcome but not needed. IPC-2581 we do not support.

The BOM has one line per part, with all designators in one column and an MPN or a value we can order on, such as 100nF 10% 25V X7R 0603. Parts that are not placed go in a DNP column. In the centroid, X and Y are the centre of the part, not pin 1, with a column for the side and a rotation in degrees. Mil or millimetre does not matter, as long as the file says which unit it uses.

Want an NDA first? Ours is on the downloads page.

Step 2: how do you get a price before you order?

Upload the three files in the calculator and read a price in seconds. It is about 95% accurate. Then an engineer reads your files. If a footprint does not match the BOM or a layer is missing, he asks you before you order. The offer follows within hours. You do not need an account, and nobody calls unless you want them to.

The price in the calculator is the price you pay, ex VAT. No setup or NRE line appears afterwards; the bare PCB with its stencil and the components come on top at cost.

An example, for anyone wondering whether this is an 800 or a 3,000 euro conversation. Five boards with about 120 placements: today the calculator gives 840 euro of assembly at 10 working days, ex VAT. The parts and the bare PCB are added at cost. Two boards of the same design come to 580 euro.

The bare PCB is the item that varies most. For a 4-layer FR4 board of 100 x 80 mm with ENIG, 10 pieces, JLCPCB charges $32.40 and Eurocircuits 327 euro, measured in October 2026.

Step 3: who buys the parts, and what if one is out of stock?

We do. We buy at Digi-Key, Mouser, LCSC, Farnell, TME, RS, Arrow, Verical and Würth Elektronik, only what is in stock there, and we add no markup: you pay what the supplier charges that day. Reel, cut tape, tube or loose makes no difference to us.

If a part is in stock nowhere, you hear it before you order. You pick an alternative, or you send the part yourself: the three ADCs already in your lab are welcome next to the rest that we buy. If it is still on an old board of yours, we desolder it free of charge.

Your own parts go one type per bag, labelled with designator and quantity, with the project code on the outer box. The quantities and the address are on the consignment page: DeltaProto B.V. You may also supply the bare PCB yourself. If you do not, we buy it per board from a fab in Europe or Asia, in whatever stackup your design needs: 6 layers with controlled impedance and ENIG is an ordinary option there.

Step 4: how long does it take to get an electronics prototype built?

From 5 working days. They count from your order until the first sample leaves the lab, and the bare PCB and the purchasing of parts are inside that number. Order on a Monday with 5 working days and the sample ships the following Monday and is on your desk on Tuesday. That holds for Belgium and Germany too: shipped from the Netherlands, so no customs and no import duties.

We build one sample first, the First Proto, not the whole order at once. SMD and THT, by machine and by hand. 0201, QFN with exposed pad at 0.5 mm pitch, BGA and connectors are daily work, with no asterisk.

If you want to see your own board being populated, come over. We have two labs, in Amsterdam and Enschede, and you are welcome to visit during the build.

Step 5: test and change, what happens after the first sample?

You test the sample. More than 90% of our customers change something afterwards: a mirrored connector, a regulator that runs hot. That is fine, it is what the first sample is for. Why the second sample is often the real goal of the first is in Sample 2 is not a failure.

The changes go on the List of Change, per designator. We build the next sample from it, within the same order, with its own revision. Three samples per order are included, and if you need more, we build more. If it is a swapped component or a bodge wire, you send the sample back with the free return voucher and we modify it instead of building a new one.

So revision B is not a new order. New files on the list, and on we go. The order moves with what you find: pause for a while, or end up with 8 boards instead of 10. And if the First Proto is right the first time, we send a cake. It happens. Not often.

Step 6: when do you move from the prototype shop to an EMS?

Electronics development does not end at the first working sample. After the protos come a 0-series or a field test, the first 20 to 200 boards for pilot customers. In that middle ground an EMS mainly charges you setup, because the line is built for thousands of identical boards. Up to a few hundred pieces we stay faster, and you can keep changing.

From a few hundred boards an EMS is the better choice, and we will tell you so. How the routes compare, Dutch EMS companies, Eurocircuits, Aisler, JLCPCB and us, with the measured bare-PCB prices, is in the comparison of PCB assembly in the Netherlands.

Have your three files? Upload them in the calculator, read the price and order. Then you know on Monday what it costs, and you have a sample on your desk the week after.