Hi guys

Say I have a board that need to connect to a couple of LEDs, is it cheaper to get the assembling house to just solder those two LEDs to the board with wires, or design a simple male header pins to the board and assembler just plug in the LEDs with leads and female header.

Say in a volume of 100sor 1000s

I am talking about the total cost, eg including labor + components cost etc

Thanks

 

you could just ask the assembly house.....

 

Few things I will mention, but realize board packers have their department that will figure these kinds of things out.

A.) If the rest of your board is surface mount and you need ONLY this through hole part, it will add to the cost dramatically regardless (an extra few steps in the assembly process).

B.) The assembly house is going to markup all parts they order for you. This will include an extra header and female interconnect.

I suppose, just guessing at the details of your design, soldering a through-hole header and using interconnects is going to be a worse case scenario cost wise, but if you already have through hole components, worse case shouldn't be much of a cost difference.

Remember, the board house is going to charge on time, whatever streamlines this process is going to be the best deal.

 

Generally any operation done by hand is far more expensive then a process that can be automated. People collect wages, machines get amortized.

The cost of the LEDs is constant. The parts the cost of some wire, some heat shrink tubing, against a PCB, 2 headers, 2 plugs, and the wire. Parts cost less in the first case, but the labor is higher.

So some detailed costing needs be done. Parts are simple, the labor needs an assembly house to price out the labor.