What’s the difference?
Hi Felix!
We briefly covered this topic in our PCBA Quick Questions FAQ. I have included the answer to your specific question below:
Q. What is the difference between the Seeed and Shenzhen Open Parts Libraries?
A. The Seeed OPL is part of Seeed’s internal stock of components. We buy these in bulk quantities and maintain the stock in our own warehouse so we can just pick and solder the parts once the PCB boards are ready. But the variety is limited since we are unable to maintain so much stock in our warehouse.
The Shenzhen OPL is a new addition to the PCBA OPLs that expands the variety of components to over 10,000 options. The stock is maintained by our partner, Shenzhen’s leading and internationally recognized parts distributor who sources directly from mainland Chinese factories and other distributors. Parts from the Shenzhen OPL can be procured in just a few days, faster than the production times for most PCB orders. So by using parts from the Shenzhen OPL (so long as all parts are from the PCBA OPLs), the PCBA production time can also be reduced to 7 working days. For more details, please refer to this post.
Also, please note that the Shenzhen OPL has higher minimum order requirements for certain components. Even if you only need one component for your order, if the minimum order quantity is 50 pieces, then we will have to buy 50 pieces and 49 pieces will go to waste.
Just to add, from a lead-time point of view, there isn’t much difference since both can make the 7 working days lead time,
Hope that helps!
I try to use the “Free assembly for 5 PCBs” offer with available components on “ShenZhen OPL”, and the calculated price in not the price displayed on ShenZhen OPL.
My test design uses only one component: STM32L071KBU6
It is available for 1 unit, at $1.7084 on ShenZhen OPL.
When I upload my BOM on PCBA, the price is now $3.29 for 1 unit, means $16.45 for my 5 units. It seems to be the public price, but not the ShenZhen OPL price. Also, the SKU displayed is 508000001, looks like that the component is not found inside the OPL with my BOM.
How can I have the ShenZhen OPL price for my design ?
Thank you,
Hi Cokreyan,
Whoops, thanks for letting us know. It seems this component is currently out of stock in the Shenzhen OPL and so the pricing is coming from Digikey. But the Stock value is not updating for some reason. The IT guys are looking into it. In the meantime, I don’t think we are going to get new stock in before the 5 piece offer ends. I hope that is alright!