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Circuit Board Design For a Small Startup?
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?"
Express PCB will do prototype PCBs for as little as $50 for three units. Free software to get started with (no autorouting but hey).
Depends on where you are - I recommend working with someone local. This is the kind of project where you would want to work very closely with the manufacturer. If you happen to be in Colorado - I highly recommend Premier Manufacturing (pmscs.com). They're really good at working with specific customers.
In my direct experience, they are highly-skilled in copying/ripping off and even building on/improving on original ideas. Note: This is for stuff which is often already trademarked, registered and patented.
So, I'd suggest getting some VC/angel financing and professional help, and patent your idea to hell and back in major markets before doing anything else. OK, they'll take a huge chunk of the eventual gain, but 50% of something is a lot better than 100% of nothing.
It's nice and all to think you can be the next Richard Branson by doing it all yourself, but in reality very few businesses go from zero to IPO with a single guy pulling all the strings.
[FUCK BETA]
Think twice. If you request a vendor modifying his product, and it's easy enough he can do it right away -- how do you think you can ensure he won't run his product line to make more devices than you have requested?
By contract perhaps? Go and sue a chinese vendor in China, then...
First, build a prototype yourself so you know it will work. Or find someone at your location with the appropriate knowledge. Short distances speed up development. The one will then very probably be able to design a custom PCB out of the prototype. And the appropriate software (e.g. Eagle) isn't expensive.
But if you shouldn't know how to build the prototype yourself, I wonder how you know your invention will work at all...
However, good luck.
The slighly overweight penguin.
many many sources for this - look in trade journals such as EDN and Electronic Design and Embedded Systems Design.
To a lesser degree, some wisdom can be gleaned from Circuit Cellar Ink.
I have some (limited) experience with Asian contract mfrs, and would not recommend this for a startup.
GOOD LUCK
http://www.pad2pad.com/
A printed circuit board manufacturer providing all your custom printed circuit board
http://www.olimex.com/
Electronic design and PCB sub-contract assembly
http://www.eurocircuits.com/ ...also...
PCB manufacturing; verified a la carte on demand specifications
http://www.emachineshop.com/
Machine shop to create custom parts, products and prototypes
http://www.tapplastics.com/
TAP Plastics specialize in fiberglass resins and fabrics for fiberglass repair, plastic containers, and custom fabrication
(non-affiliation yadda yadda goes here)
"Good news, everyone!"
There is a cottage industry of small engineering firms that could suit your needs in the US (assuming your in the US). Generally they are run by senior engineers who have done many projects of similar size to what you're sort of talking about. Generally the firms in China do not do their own design work, and unless you speak Chinese, the language barriers will be an extra challenge to overcome, not to mention the difference in time zones. Also don't forget you will have to gain certain regulatory approvals depending on the nature of your product, and I doubt anyone in China has much background designing the product around these requirements. Personally I think it is best to stick with a local company, or at least one in the same country as you.
He has no hardware design experience, he needs someone else to design and layout the circuit. gEDA will not work for him.
That said, gEDA is ok for many things, but it lacks in features compared to the free Mentor Graphics PADS version that is probably good enough for his needs. It is also way too hard to create custom schematic symbols in gEDA. FOSS is way behind when it comes to this, unfortunately- I wish it were different.
The first hurdle is prototyping the device. If push comes to shove find a near-broke college student to do the hardware design for you, a better choice would be an outfit with experience such as Parallax, Systronix, or Digilent. But before you can go 'mass-market', you will need to test your device and not just to make sure it works. Does it meet all government requirements (FCC part 15)? Is it safe (UL certification)? Are there going to be any manufacturability issues (just because you made one does not mean someone can make 100,000 for you reliability and cheaply).
Something I don't think you will get from others is the suggestion that before you talk to anyone you get a copy of an excellent non-disclosure agreement (NDA).
With a good NDA you can talk freely about your project with little risk of the second party being able to talk to a third party without significant financial repercussions. I have worked in procurement* for the last sixteen years and I could talk for hours on the value of a good NDA. Try using Google for an example of a good NDA. They need not be complex, but they do need to spell out the repercussions if the second party talks about your idea with a third party. Get them to sign before you share any critical details.
*I hate that we stopped being purchasing and became procurement for one simple reason; one of the accepted definitions of someone who procures is pimp! I really don't think that is the impression a Fortune 500 company wants to make, but then they did not ask me. :)
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
Good luck getting source code from Chinese companies. I've tried a few times, and even with a company that I already buy tens of thousands of dollars of equipment from, the answer has always been an emphatic 'no'.
In some cases, the problem may be that the source code isn't theirs. Take two way radios, for example. There are many, many different models on the market that all share the same basic firmware. Each of the companies licenses it from one design house, probably along with some of the hardware designs, too.
It's often hard to tell who's even a manufacturer and who's just a trading company, unless you go and personally tour the factory. Even then they can make it difficult to figure out who's who.
Where I HAVE had a measure of success is in buying partial products. For example, if you look on SparkFun Electronics' website, you'll see a weather sensor assembly. I bought those from a weather station manufacturer in China, and since their usual wireless interface wasn't FCC approved and wasn't needed for my application anyway, I negotiated a deal to buy the bare sensors at a significantly reduced price that still gives them enough extra profit margin to make it worth the hassle (the unneeded touch screen display is the expensive part), while still being far cheaper than designing and producing my own hardware. The reason they're at SparkFun now is that I'm way behind schedule on designing my own electronics package and I got tired of them taking up warehouse space, and sold part of the lot at wholesale.
The good news is that lots of Chinese companies are basically family-owned, and you CAN sometimes get through to the people who make the decisions, where with US companies you might not. But again, I've never had any success getting firmware source (even relatively simple stuff that I could recreate myself in a week) from any of them. Cable assemblies, housings, and so forth, sure. But not a single line of code.
If you're serious about making it happen, consider catching a flight to Hong Kong next month. The Hong Kong Electronics Fair, electronicAsia, and the China Sourcing Fair are all there at the same time around the 12-16th, and the massive Canton Fair (this will be my first year there) is right after that in Guangzhou, but that takes a little more planning.
Just showing up in person and leaving business cards (bring a few hundred, seriously) will get you much better responses later in email. They know you're serious enough to make the trip, at least. That was a benefit I hadn't foreseen my first trip. Also, allow a couple of days extra after the fairs for meetings with vendors if you do make some good contacts.
Also, one book I've found particularly useful in understanding the business culture in China is "The Essential Guide for Buying from China's Manufacturers" by James Lord, ISBN 1419628461. Wish I'd read that before my first trip there. (Tip: Beware the phrase "no problem". =])
If you do make it to Hong Kong, drop me a note and I'll meet you for a beer some time.
scott@argentdata.com
I work at Plexus, a global Electronic Manufacturing Services company, in the engineering services division. We do hardware, PCB layout, software, mechanical, test, project management, etc. Whatever piece or pieces you are looking for, we can do. If you want to use us for manufacturing eventually, great. You pay for the development, so you own the IP and can take it wherever you want. We work with multi-billion dollar companies but also have worked with 1-man startups before.
http://www.plexus.com/contactus.php
I've had nothing but success with EZPCB. They charged around 150$ for 36 boards... They design, routing and assembly services too.
The way I coordinated with them, because they are in china, is by MSN instant messenger when I was about to go to bed.
They are courteous, they make a good product, and are inexpensive.
expect a 2 week delay from order to reception.
Lotsa good and horrible advice above.
If you're going to make a commercial product, and you want it to be manufacturable and have high yield and work reliably for more than a week, you need a lot of expert help.
You need an EE to design the circuit.
Then you need a manufacturing EE to redesign the circuit so it does not use any rare or known unreliable or hard to surface mount or single sourced parts.
Then you need a quality engineer who will redesign things so the hot voltage regulator is not right next to the electrolytic capacitors, and shuffle the pcb traces so they're less likely to short out from tin whiskers, and rearrange them for better ESD protection, and they will test it in an environmental chamber for performance over a wide temperature range.
Then you'll need a standards EE who will make sure it meets EU and US standards for safety and toxicity and flammability and electromagnetic emissions.
Then you need someone on site at the manufacturing facility to do QA and make sure they don't divert your product into the black or grey market.
Then you need enough extra time and money to do the whole thing over again if the original design still turns out to be unmanufacturable or have poor yield or reliability.
Don't feel too bad, when Apple set up their own disk drive manufacturing facility, the yield even after extensive tweaking was only about 40%. And that's with huge amounts of money and lots of experienced engineers in the area.
You need a whole lot more than a PCB house.
You want to target the mass-market, yet your firm consists of only you? You need to think about how you are going to get mass-market retailers to actually sell the thing, how you are going to get press coverage to publicize it, where you are going to get funding for the production runs, etc.
There are certainly ways to go about this for software (i.e. a game developer producing a little gem for XBox Live), but because of manufacturing costs, this is harder to do for hardware.
I think your best hope is to get a crude hardware prototype with your software running on it, and let an actual mass-market company buy it off of you (or hire you.) The alternative would be to somehow get funding, but if you have no experience in the industry, you won't find anybody willing to hand you money.
SirWired
You can get some short-term IP protection by filing a PPA. Filing fee was $100 last I knew (small entity). Go to nolo.com and buy "Patent It Yourself" for about $30. Read, understand, and follow all safety instructions. Then you can talk to potential partners, investors, vendors, etc. more confidently.
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 ;(
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
back in 1994-95, I had an idea of converting tv signal to a video stream (ala sling media). Contacted a firm in Atlanta, and they were going to charge some 20K (guarenteed 3 boards, etc), but found a firm in HK that would do it for 5K. We opted to go with the 5K. Had issue after issue after issue with them. In the end, after spending 20K and still not having SQUAT from them, I called it quits. That is why Sling has a product and we did not. Otherwise, the unit would be different and it would have come from Colorado.
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.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Just a thought
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
If it's "probably patentable", it's probably already been patented. Companies that take their IP seriously and engage in electronic development are very good at writing broad patents to protect their market from minor advancements. Unless your idea is already in the patent process and you have a competent patent attorney who's already helped you write the application, your idea is unlikely to be patented, and you are very likely to be robbed. Look at the history of the Microsoft Mouse patent lawsuits for examples of big companies ripping off small developers for clever improvement ideas, and _NEVER_ rely on an NDA with a big company to prevent them from rebranding and profiting from work you discussed in a closed meeting with them, looking for investment funds.
A provisional patent doesn't need a lawyer, and is all of $80. Go to the uspto.gov website.
I can't give details
Get over it. The whole secretiveness about our product thing is a fast track to failure in a startup company.
You need customers, first adopters, partners and venture capitalists. Until you're ready to talk freely, they won't even return your phone call. Worry about the patents when you actually have a revenue stream.
Seriously. How many hardware geeks here on slashdot who might have been interested in your project chose not to contact you because it isn't worth their time to chase a secret of dubious quality?
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
http://kicad.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
Great schematic capture, auto-router, parts list, etc.. all open source!
-Marko
http://www.tinaja.com/glib/casagpat.pdf is a good read by Don Lancaster (writer of the "TTL Cookbook" - yeah, that Don Lancaster) and why he considers the patent system to be a games that is stacked against the small player.