Basically it takes the PCB BOM, extracts and correlates all the information, such as grouping together all of the same parts. As I only have the LCSC part number for each part, there is no price or further information present. So the script (ah-hem) "extracts" data from LCSC's site, obtains part descriptions and prices and formats the whole thing in a simple table and gives me the running total at the bottom.
I was going to factor in price breaks, but generally I don't think it's worth the hassle as its not going to vary the bottom line price much anyway. Also JLC's prices do vary slightly as well but is not worth factoring in. I also need to add approximately 3% for "nonsterling transaction charges" on my credit card.. Again adding all this up individually takes forever, so prices are just going to be generalise a little bit. It's probably only going to be accurate to like £1 each board.. but who cares ? It literally takes me an entire day to go through every part one by one workout all the prices.. Not good things when you have RSI !
The place it may fail is when I have to order in parts especially as they may not even be a actual LCSC number to calculate. But there is not really that many I would have to manually add up anyway.. Its why other columns such as mouser are in my table because I can just look those parts up and add them up manually.. Still going to be like a 95% time saver in any case.. Time saved is in many hours I should point out!
I've also tweaked my BOM scripts to correctly process top and bottom assembly. As previously everything was only assembled "Top Side" and I was having to go through the BOM and check every part to see if it was actually on the bottom or not and change it in the CPL files.. Doing this pretty much every board revision is very time-consuming and tedious... So that has all been fixed now as well. Again GPT4 assisted fixes..
It would have taken me a lot of time to even figure out how my previous scripts worked, nevermind updating all the relevant sections. Now I just explain the problem to GPT and it worked it all out by itself and worked first time! It's really impressive GPT is actually capable of when used correctly !
So all these scripts will significantly reduce my workload and the sheer boredom of working out prices for everything every time!
