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I am surprised with finding this question here today because I have looked at materials on the internet all day looking for a PCB supplier for a specific board for a specific client. There is no single “right” board supplier for fabricating PCBs, regardless of what country you are looking in. Each board shop has strengths and weaknesses and only some of those will be relevant to your needs for a specific board. I purchase many prototype boards of typically very high complexity and have been doing it off and on for much of my career as a consultant.For my specific board today, I am supporting a startup company and this is their first board ever. Funds are limited so low price is very important on this design. Unfortunately, this design is a 4-layer RF design with controlled impedances which generally means that no one is going to build it cheaply. I have already reduced the requirements to the bare minimum and made the board as easy to fabricate as possible.This board still fails the requirements of every low cost “bare board” instant quote type prototype shop (roughly what I call “tier 3”) that I have looked at, so now I am broadening my search to include low cost, but full service providers more in the tier 2 category. The difference in cost is $116 for 25 boards in 3 weeks (round trip) in China at the lowest end with no impedance controls and no specification for what layer stackup or materials will be used so that is out because the impedance could be anywhere from acceptable to totally unworkable and may even vary board by board. At the high end, I know that I will have no trouble finding board houses at the tier 2 or 3 level that can build this board in prototype quantities for under $1200.In looking for low cost board shops in China, the most important question to ask is to ask yourself “What is it that I really need?”. Saying that you want to purchase a board in China is like saying that you want to purchase a car. There are orders of magnitude of price differences in car models, regardless of what part of the world you are looking in. If you don’t know what you need (or want), then you are completely unprepared to issue a purchase order.The finest board shops in the world are located in China because China chose to invest in very high performance, very high volume equipment (nearly all made in western countries) when no other country invested this heavily in technology. This doesn’t mean, however, that all board shops in China are of this caliber.If you look at the very large industrial manufacturing districts such as Shenzhen or many others in China, you will find these companies readily. Most of them report the number of employees and even proudly list the model numbers of the equipment that they have invested in. Any of the larger companies from this group will be able to meet very high quality standards, extremely rigorous controls, and any level of technology that you can specify. They will also tell you if you are asking for something that they can’t deliver.If, like I find myself today, you are looking for very low cost provided that a minimum of quality is delivered, then you start looking at the smaller board shops in smaller towns away from the largest cities. These shops will have older equipment, unwritten (if any) quality control plans, and may not be there next year to build more for you. They will charge less because they can’t compete with the large companies in the largest of the manufacturing districts in China so they will accept whatever sales they can get. They will use whatever materials that they can get and it will likely be from a company nearby or across the street that is trying to enter the market themselves.You must state what you want very carefully, but villagers in a small country town may never have traveled far from their home and what they consider to be excellent quality may not pass even the most basic tests in the western world. They definitely won’t have more than a passing familiarity with IPC standards. If you try to drive the cost down so low that no one can produce it at that price, then you will rightly get what you paid for.I have not found Chinese suppliers to be dishonest or uncaring. There are some cultural differences that you must be mindful of. If you simply call out FR-4 and don’t call out that you need Tg=170, then you will get Tg=130 which will never stand up to the lead-free soldering process expected in the west. If you cite a general IPC standard, you may or may not get a board that meets _all_ of the many requirements of that standard.It is better to cite what is important to you unless you are using one of the tier 1 suppliers in China (who will indeed meet all of the specifications). If you call out Isola 370HR cores and prepreg materials, you may or may not get the Isola brand name unless you state something like “no brand substitutions”. The culture in China, as I have experienced it, is that substitutions are ok unless specifically stated otherwise.Personally, I call out an example core material and state “or very close equivalent” if the risk is acceptable to me. Yes, it is a degree of risk, but it permits the factory to use the materials available to them and I get a better price. Believe it or not, there are excellent material fabricators in China and they closely match the European name brands and in some materials, may actually outperform the European equivalents.One way to obtain lower cost prototypes is to use certain U.S. based companies that process your files to produce final form CAM files tailored to specific factories, both U.S. based and China based. They will send the final form CAM files to the lowest cost factory that is capable of meeting your stated quality and time expectations. They become a type of export/import agent that bridges the gap between western expectations and eastern capabilities and culture. The U.S. based company will repackage your data files into suitable files for the Chinese company that they have selected and possibly even supply appropriate Chinese language annotations where they think that confusion could exist.Back to my original problem, have I found the lowest cost Chinese supplier for my RF board that is very cost sensitive today? Not yet, unfortunately, but perhaps later tonight I will be more successful. I am willing to pay up to $375 for 25 prototypes (these are very small boards), provided that I get what I actually need for this board.In summary, know what you actually need and then ask for it. It is no one’s fault but your own if you are either uninformed or expect to receive something that you are paying too little for.

Writing articles!Do you have talents in writing articles? But above all, you would like to make ends meet in an original way and by writing on subjects that fascinate you? Writing articles on the Internet is for you. Easy, flexible with your schedule. And, sometimes can be very well paid – if you can justify sharp know-how.SummaryWhat skills to write an article?Where to write on the Internet?What subjects for my articles?What format for my articles?How long per day?How much does it make?Should we train?In summary✓The job of a web writer is open to everyone, you just need to know how to write on a subject that you know, or that you are passionate about sites specialized in these fields. But to justify higher prices, we advise you to follow a training course to demonstrate your specific know-how to write articles adapted to the Internet media.✓ One site in three (e-commerce or blog) is looking for web copywriters. There is, therefore, a reason to find work easily in this sector. Many sites, such as 5$.com, allow you to find customers.✓ In addition to writing articles, you can also offer social media, animation for the sites for which you write. The demand in this area is even greater. To do this, taking a training course will strengthen your chances of success.What skills to write an article?Web writer skills:Anyone can write an article. Of course, you shouldn’t make a spelling mistake per word, but everyone has already written essays in school, and it looks a lot like that. And then if you write in Word or in any other text editor, you will at least avoid spelling mistakes thanks to the automatic corrector.These articles are advice to Internet users, as in feminine and masculine magazines. It’s never poetry or novels.Where to write on the Internet?The most glorious method to write on the internet is to be spotted on a forum by a large portal and to be paid freelance. It’s well paid, but it only happens very rarely.Otherwise, you just need to use the following technique which works 100% of the time:Step 1Think about the subjects that interest you: cars, romantic relationships, tips, … This step is important because writing on a subject that you are passionate about is much easier than taking a random subject.Step 2Once your subject is found, type it in Google. You get 10 responses per page. Consult the sites of the first 3 response pages only. The sites on the following pages do not earn money in this area. Forget directories, definition sites (Wikipedia) and forums, target blogs, and portals above all and write them down. Only contact sites (or blogs) that do business, because they can afford to pay you. Those who do this on an amateur basis and who do not sell anything will not have a euro to spend.Step 3Visit each of these sites and find the “contact us” button. If you can find the first name of the publisher of the site, it’s better, because start his email for example, in the following way (try to be more original for the catchphrase, to show that you have your own “Plume”: “Hello Etienne, I particularly like the content of your site, which I find both serious and different from what we can usually read. Lovers of the sea (we will assume that the site is linked navigation) since my childhood, myself a sailor and has participated in many regattas, etc … “. Decide whether or not to entrust you with freelancers. The worst mistake: send a standard message to all sites, without any personalization. Effect guaranteed: you will not even receive a response.Step 4Offer them your services to writing articles, explaining what makes you going to be particularly good in their field and that you will be able to bring them real added value. If you are a motorcycle specialist, do not pretend that you can write original articles on horses: all you can do is go to reproduce what you find elsewhere on the net. This is of no interest to publishers.You will discover that one site in three searches for authors. Easy, right? If you already have experience do not hesitate to highlight it in your contact email.What subjects for my articles?What topics for my articles?In general, the site will give you topics and you just have to write the text. If the site does not give you a specific subject, go to the big American portals for inspiration.The most successful article topics are those that contain the number 10 and give a goal. For example “10 methods are there to earn money on the internet” or “10 foolproof methods to set up your own business at home”.What format for my articles?Articles on the internet have a slightly different format than those in press magazines. Below are the guidelines that can be found in most cases. Ask the webmaster if he has a particular preference for the format of his articles. If in doubt, you can go and consult those who are already online on its site.What format for my articles?Size: they are between 500 and 1200 words maximum. Beyond that, it is too long and the reader will not read it entirely. The word number is displayed in each text editor.Introduction: Short it summarizes the entire content of the article.Paragraphs: from 5 to 10 paragraphs, each of which has a bold title (as in this article). They are the same size. This makes it easier for the user to read.The conclusion: short, it can possibly give bonus advice.How long per day?Working time per dayIf you write quickly, one hour will be more than enough to writing articles. Start by writing the title and the big ideas for your paragraphs and then write them down. With practice, you can cut your writing time in half.How much does it make?Write articles, how much it paysTricky question! The big portals offer 200 $ gross per article, which must be within 150 $ net for 800 words.Smaller sites pay between 1.5 and 3 $ per 100 words, often paid “black” by bank transfer. So this brings in an average of 15 $ an hour, it is well paid! To locate, an engineer does not touch more.Should we train?Contrary to popular belief, writing for the Web requires specific know-how to meet the requirements of this medium: content optimization to “please” search engines, concise sentences for reading on mobile, short paragraphs, etc. In other words, Marcel Proust would have been a very bad web editorFrom this point of view, even if you already know how to write perfectly, taking a training course could be of immense use to you, because you will be able to perfectly meet the requirements of the online publishers who will order the articles.We have found for you a course (Esecad) which takes place on the Internet and which will allow you to display a recognized diploma on your own web page: click here to access this course, or fill out the form below.

I would love to answer your question however before I start I would like to clear up what seems to be a very fundamental misconception in your question.This is going to take a lot of explaining so I hope you are comfy and have your beverage of choice in front of you.The hours are much longer than you think....The "shooting" time of an average wedding in the UK is somewhere between 10-12 hours, often with a fair bit of travel time in between. And I agree, if what I got paid for was just to shoot 12 hours, go home and count my money - it would be a fantastic proposition.However, that is far from the amount of time spent on a photography commission. All-in, the average photography workflow runs around 50 hours. This divides up a little something like this:5-10 hours of work before the wedding. This will include a preliminary consultation of between 1-2 hours, drawing up a contract, administrating payments, answering questions via email, doing a pre-wedding consultation to run-down important information about timings and sometimes a pre-wedding venue recce.10-15 hours on-the day shooting (including an average travel time). Not that it matters for the nuts and bolts of the money side, but this is a non-stop work day. During the meal I am preparing a night time slideshow (and others may use this time to back up, check files, etc.). I literally do not stop. I eat with one hand and edit slideshow with the other.30-50 hours (depending on the workflow, number of images supplied and the complexity of the edit) for editing, culling and image delivery. Sure there will be the outliers - the "Uncle Bobs" "Weekend Warriors" "Shoot and Burners" who will spend 2 hours slapping unedited or barely edited images onto a disk. They do not represent the professional wedding photography industry any more than your local dodgy mechanic represents the qualified car repair trade.Keep in mind that this is all without taking into account an album package. Albums can take many hours of creation/revision to complete. My biggest "loss" album had a bride who took over 30 hours of my time to make endless strings of changes. (This was early years before I limited my revisions because I was not as good at drawing professional limits).Now all of this might not even seem that bad - until you remember that running a business doesn't just involve the day-to-day work. It also involves all of the marketing, bookeeping and general management. As wedding photography is easily the most competitive area of the wedding market, a LOT of time (and money - but we will get to that) is spent on marketing. This includes countless hours of blog maintenance (for that all important SEO), website maintenance, social media work, networking, wedding fayres, answering questions on bridal forums (and Quora!) - the list goes on. This doesn't even cover the hours spent on continued training. Learning to shoot better, use my equipment better, keep up with changing trends, keep up with changing technology and client needs takes a lot of time, dedication and money.I would say the average amount of time spent on these areas is 10-20 hours per week.It is no wonder that during the wedding season photographers are easily working 60-70 hours a week if they have only 1 wedding on per weekend. However as weddings in the UK are seasonal - we regularly have to take on 2-3 weddings per weekend (Fri, Sat, Sun) on popular dates. This can create weeks and weeks of queued work.The money is not as good as you think......The "average" cost of professional wedding photography in the UK is about £1200 for full day coverage. Yes you can pay more and less. But this is the average figure when you adjust for (remove from the data set) people not having any photographer at all.The "average" wedding photographer will shoot 30 weddings a year. Again, you can shoot more (I do about 35-38 and know some photographers who do 45) and many shoot less (many entering the market around full time jobs only take about 5-15).If we go with the average cost and the average number of weddings that is a gross turnover of £36,000 which might be a good salary (although not great for the hours) if businesses operated without overhead. But that is not reality in the slightest.Here is a breakdown of some "typical" yearly expenses:Camera repair / maintenance (we will assume this is after the startup phase where you dropped about £15K on equipment) - £1000 per year (One of my lenses which got knocked by a drunk guest last year was £600 alone to be recalibrated and have the filter ring fixed)Traditional advertising online/print/ venue brochures etc - £3000 (sure - you can do without paying a penny. But that is not a viable model for most people. I am giving the realistic sums - not the outliers). PS- yes, in many cases it is the vendors who pay for that glossy brochure the venue hands you - not the venue.Travel costs - £1500 (Again, you can work only right next to your house - but this isn't a strategy that is viable for most photographers. Most will have to travel an average minimum of 100 miles on the wedding day)Computers / software/ harddrives / misc technical equipment - Technology changes at a breakneck speed and keeping up is essential when you require super fast processor speed and high end graphics abilities. My need for external storage is HUGE as file sizes are already getting bigger and bigger. Looking at the last 8 years I have spent an average of £1500 if divided over the years.Investing in new photography equipment - To be sure I don't buy new lenses and bodies every year. However it would be silly to think that a reinvestment in equipment which is so heavily used (and with technology which is changing exponentially) is unnecessary. If I average over the last 8 years - we are looking at about £1500 per year.General office supplies. Those paper, toner, pens sticky notes, postage, envelopes, etc. don't buy themselves. - £300 per year.Office space. My office is built into my house which means I can only charge about £10 per week towards the business despite the fact that it likely costs me more than that (running powerful computers for 15 hours a day with a super crazy fast internet connection, lights on, heating during the winters, etc....it all adds up). This £10 per week is pretty standard so deduct another £520 from that great big £36,000 there. God help you if you have outside premises - you will likely have to take on additional portrait or studio work to pay for it.Misc Marketing - This is things like wedding fayres (which frequently double or triple stand costs for photographers), those lovely expensive brochures brides mothers take from you at wedding fayres before promptly telling you that a cousin is shooting the wedding....all whilst smiling and dropping that 10 page, full colour, £1.50 brochure into their goody bag. business cards, etc. £1000. Please note you can definitely spend more. The national wedding show costs £3K just for the stand without even talking about all the decorations, printables, etc.Client Deliverables- The current market expects both online delivery (in a gallery with easy download) and a USB keepsake. Sure you can do download only or just a USB- but again we are going to talk about what is typical. My wooden keepsake USBs cost about £7 per unit (38x7 = £266) . Then my online gallery hosting company costs £200 per year. Then there are the fancy boxes, branded return labels, etc. -£200. All in, about £666 per year.Business Insurance - I have to have public liability & professional indemnity worldwide (in case my kit is nicked from the boot of my car or goes walkabout during baggage handling at the airport). I also work at National Trust venues and have additional insurance coverage required for those jobs which costs about £30 for the year. Just renewed at £450 for the year.Accountancy - again, you can go DIY. However once you get into the realm of being a ltd company - this isn't realistic and not a great practise due to the likelihood of very costly errors. £600 per year.Professional memberships. In order to get good legal advice, audit coverage, a qualification structure, etc.... I need to belong to at least 1 professional body. I belong to the Guild of wedding Photographers. This costs me £160 a year. I know people who belong to 3 or more organisations as they each have different benefits.Continued training - This would be things like workshops, one day classes, college classes, university extension classes, books, online training with companies such as CreativeLive. Again, you could probably just choose not to continue your training. But you would become obsolete pretty quickly whilst all your contemporaries (and all those newbies coming in behind you) are getting better and better every day through continued training. Good companies continually train and improve their employees because it is good business. £500 per year.Can you do it for less? YES.Is it common to do it for less? NO.How do I know this? I do business mentoring for wedding photographers (as well as running my own wedding photography business for many years). I mentor about 15 photographers per year (for a total of about 45 over the years) and look over their books, workflow, procedures, etc. to help them find ways to streamline and become more profitable. I have a very good working knowledge of what is common practise. Just because someone can do it for less doesn't make that representative of the industry as a whole.Let's break this down...£36,000 (Gross Turnover)£12,696 (Representative average business overheads)£23,304 incomeAveraging 50 hours per week x 50 weeks* = 2500 hours£9.32 per hour before taxes*We do work 50 weeks a year... not just the weekends and/or summers like everyone thinks. Remember all that chat about accountancy, training and marketing? That happens in those down months.I don't know about you..... but I don't feel that approximately £9.50 per hour before tax income is a great wage. Or constitutes easy money. It is also nowhere NEAR the highest amount of money for the least amount of work. I have friends who shoot fashion who average an income of £1000 per day of work.... an INCOME. Not turnover. INCOME.Of course that all assumes you can break into the most competitive area of photography and live in very specific locations.I am not saying it isn't possible to make more money in wedding photography by working more (if you can get the work), spending less, charging more (if the market in your area will bear it), etc.But that just wouldn't be representative of the average truth.Most people I know making a lot more money than what I have listed are working like mad fools 80-90 hours a week to do it. I also notice that people who are not wedding photographers (who like to wax lyrical about how much money we must be making) also don't think much about the fact that there are people making much less than the numbers I am quoting. Much much much less.I see very significant number of photographers leaving weddings every year because they thought it was going to be much easier than it is - and they thought the money was going to be much better. They run a few hopeful figures, quit the "day job" and found themselves ready for eviction at the end of 2 years because their hopeful numbers were made more of fantasy than reality.So on to your question..... Why the hell do we do it if the pay is nowhere near what people think it is and the hours are much longer than people think they are?Well because we love it. It is absolutely amazing and joyous to be a part of capturing memories for people on one of the happiest days of their lives. It is a crazy, exciting, exhilarating experience which is second to none. Watching brides flood with tears when they see that moment where there dad was watching them at the alter.... that moment they never saw on the day....Well, that is everything I live for.I shoot portraits and food (www.tribeandtable.co.uk) as well as weddings and whilst I love the other work for different reasons - it is nothing like weddings. Every wedding is different. Every wedding is just packed with irreplaceable moments that can be shared again and again with generations to come.Every bunny ear photobomb.Every Laugh.Every Smile.Every Tear.Every imperfect moment that makes their love special.I absolutely love my clients (because they are awesome) and I do what I do because I love them.