Circuit Board Design For a Small Startup? 262
Patrick Bowman writes "I'm with a small (okay, it's just me) startup planning a camera-related USB device for the mass market. It's probably patentable so I can't give details. I can handle the software but have no hardware design or manufacturing experience. Does anyone have any recommendations for a company to handle the PCB design and manufacture? Instead of starting from scratch I've also considered approaching one of the companies (mostly in China) that make similar devices and asking them to modify their hardware for my requirements, and to provide their source for me to modify. Has anyone taken this route before? How did it work for you?"
Re:Try Express PCB (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, ExpressPCB or PCB123 is nice. Do not go the China route. You will only wind up banging your head against the wall unless you speak fluent Chinese.
Re:Try Express PCB (Score:3, Interesting)
AC speaks the truth. Do not seek any manufacturing in China unless you're planning on high volume production.
If you're still in prototyping phase, you have no reason to try. You will just end up frustrated.
Re:Good luck with IP if working with the Chinese (Score:5, Interesting)
Some truth in that, but if your market has already been hugely cannibalised, (before you even get to it) then it's small comfort to say, "look, my product is better".
Also, I was in China recently with the boss of a major multinational which develops and sells complex electromechanical industrial products. He showed me two products; one made in their 'state of the art' factory in Europe, the other a Chinese copy. He asked me to spot the difference. I could not.
His reply; "It's easy. Hook 'em up and the Chinese one works". Ouch.
don't go to china, your IP *will* be stolen (Score:3, Interesting)
its sad but true.
I almost went thru this myself. I'm a software guy but do a decent amount of hw design and building. I once designed a camera RF remote control (it was semi popular on the dpreview website where I posted the design) and I even started talking to a china business guy (I met on ebay as a seller for some of my raw parts) and we started to talk about what it would take to custom make the boards and the plastic boxes for it.
upfront tooling costs and all that would have been covered by me, not him. I'd have to take essentially all the risk.
and what would I get for it? my production run would be done but then, once done, they'd run 10x or 100x of their own from MY design! they'd screw me. I got that feeling loud and clear.
I didn't go any further. sad, isn't it? but I can't 'police' across the ocean and I do NOT want to spend my effort only to be robbed of my design so blatantely. I was told 'this is how it is' either deal with it or don't do it.
so I didn't do it.
if you can, do it locally. you have more control over things and the ethics, well, they may match yours a bit better.
(I also have learned a lot by hanging out on various DIY audio forums; there are a lot of folks who have experience with 'kit building', meaning they make/design their circuit and board (usually using Eagle) and then sell partial or full kits. its a good exercise to go thru and there's lot of info about it for people starting out, just check the web based audio forums or any other 'DIY' style forum).
Eagle isn't too bad and even a sw guy like me came up to speed on it in less than a week and had a board designed (on paper, at least; then I did the toner transfer method to get my first copper board made).
anyway, avoid china. unless you KNOW how to manage such a thing, most likely you will be taken to the cleaners ;(
Do it in your local country, or better yet, area (Score:5, Interesting)
Do yourself a favor and do it local. Once you have the product selling, if you still feel like you can increase the margins by getting it done overseas, then and only then do it. Just keep in mind that Asia does not have the same laws and know it. Basically they will nickle and dime you to death. And for the states, I suggest knowing EXACTLY upfront what you need done. Shop around. They all have specialties of items that are one offs. There are a number of chips out there that will allow you to try various ideas.
One last thing. If you get your company going, if I may suggest, keep your engineers local. If you go over to Asia, any ideas you have will likely end up in some other product before yours is out the door.
Re:Where are you? (Score:4, Interesting)
And some plants just don't meet their tolerances.
A refund on a $50 component isn't comforting when all of a sudden your latest units start failing infant mortality tests.
Actually, now that someone posted a comment about some of the Chinese factories... I think this is exactly what happened with our components.
These components were manufactured to a tolerance, and sold in lots of 50-100k. I have no doubt that as production continued, the factory stripped out what it could from the components in terms of structural support gradually. They kept removing it while it continued to work, and we kept using the components over the course of 20 years.
Now, 20 years later, the components that worked for us so long ago, have now been stripped down to eggshell thickness. We began a new production that required some specific qualification tests. Quite literally we ended up with the Rattle in our Shake, Rattle, and Roll tests. The component had snapped off during vibration tests.
Pulling out the microscopes, we found that the newer components used less glue at their adhesion points than the previous components, or components manufactured in the company's flagship plant. The glue was just enough so that the components would survive safety qualification tests, but when exposed to HALT, they were the first things to go.
$3k? Try $80! (Score:3, Interesting)
A provisional patent doesn't need a lawyer, and is all of $80. Go to the uspto.gov website.
Re:shameless plug: www.plexus.com (Score:2, Interesting)
Well I can help with his shameless plug. Our company uses Plexus for manufacturing and product testing and they are quite professional, timely and flexible.
I'm a PCB hardware engineer by trade.
Re:Try Express PCB (Score:2, Interesting)
Indeed, there is a story of a toy developer that had a Chinese company design a motorized toy that had some simple microcontroller logic on it. The toy was designed for young children and would basically move around in a preset pattern and respond to some simple stimulus.
The company chopped apart the design so much they ended up running the motor straight from the stamp with no flyback diode...
needless to say, when little kiddies on Christmas morning started rolling the toy with a little force, the back emf fried the stamps...
ouch
the lesson here is, if you pay to have that work done, at least hire a known contractor to check the circuit for design defects.
Re:shameless plug: www.plexus.com (Score:3, Interesting)
The case against Patents (by Don Lancaster) (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:As I've often said before... (Score:2, Interesting)
Here is one more, I did several boards with them when I was in college, their customer service was very helpful with my first board.
http://www.4pcb.com/ [4pcb.com]