Advanced 1mm excellent quality electronic Cover Glass Sample Cost Details

Why electronic cover glass’ sample cost should be charged?

The electronic cover glass to the customer who first time to purchase cover glass lenses, the sample charge often comes as a surprise or even out of expectation. A repeatedly question we heard is “Why can’t samples be offered as free?” From an outsider’s view, it seems like all it takes is to cut a large sheet of glass into smaller pieces and print some colors on it will be enough. But once you step into the actual production processes, you quickly realize there’s a lot more going on behind the scenes.

To produce a piece of finished electronic cover glass, it will need raw material purchase, design(files for cutting, CNC processing and silk screen print), cutting, CNC processing(grinding, drilling, slotting), tempering(chemical strengthening and thermally tempering), silk screen printing, coatings(anti reflection, anti glare, anti fingerprint), bonding(3M tape, OCA tape), cleaning and lamination.

Now, I’s like to tell you the various cost items that go into making an electronic cover glass sample, so you can find exactly where the charges come from.

Material costs: Not all glass substrate is the same, which depends on the project. We may use soda lime glass, high-alumina silicate glass or branded materials like Corning gorilla glass, AGC dragon Tail, CSG or Panda. If the design needs for AG (anti-glare, see below) treatment, it also adds to the material expense. Since sample quantities are small, we typically put in 200% of the required material upfront to ensure both yield and final quantity are met.

CNC fixture costs: After cutting, the edges are sharp. To make the electronic cover glass safe and meet design specs, we run them through CNC for edge chamfering, rounding or custom shaping like holes or odd contours. This requires dedicated 1:1 fixtures and grinding tools for each unique design, which means fixture costs needed.

Chemical strengthening: This step takes about 8 hours per cycle base on different glass materials and thicknesses demand separate parameters, so we can’t batch process them together. On top of that, there are utility costs and consumables like potassium nitrate to factor in.

Printing costs: Every color and every printing layer requires its own individual screen and film, each of which comes with its own cost. The more colors or layers, the higher the expense needed. If specific color needed, the charge from ink supplier also needed.

Surface treatment costs: If you need AR (anti-reflective) coating or AF (anti-fingerprint) coating or AG(anti-glare), there are setup and oven-startup fees involved for each run.

Bonding costs: 3M tape and OCA tape, the mold should be developed to cut the tape into shapes for bond to electronic cover glass.

Labor costs: From design and machine setup to operation and quality inspection, real people are involved at every stage and their time adds up.

Setup and debugging time: Before any real production can begin, each process needs to be dialed in. To complex products, setup alone can take half a day while the actual machining might only take 10 minutes.

Cleaning: It takes around half an hour for cleaning including post CNC machining, post chemical strengthening and post finish electronic cover glass.

Packaging and shipping: Finally, samples are carefully protected with double-sided lamination, vacuum-sealed bags and either carton or wooden crates, then shipped safely to your door.

These are the main visible cost components that go into every electronic cover glass sample. So many OEM wish to return the sample charge when order place instead of free samples.

The above information can cover most of the processes and costs in electronic cover glass process industry, I hope this breakdown helps make the quote feel a little more transparent, and if you have any questions, feel free to reach us anytime.