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?"

Comments

Try Express PCB

[pcjunky]

Express PCB will do prototype PCBs for as little as $50 for three units. Free software to get started with (no autorouting but hey).

Re:Try Express PCB

[odin84gk]

He is asking someone to design the board, including the schematic design. ExpressPCB, PCB123, and all other PCB houses fabricate the printed wiring board. They do not design and populate a circuit board for a non-technical person.

Yes, there are a LOT of companies who do this. I would compare it to asking Slashdot for a recommendation on a website designer. If you want a professional product, expect to spend well over $50,000 for a decent company.

On a side note, my experience with Chinese contractors is that they focus on making things as cheaply as possible, to a fault. You will hear stories about contract manufacturers in China who will take a design and remove components until it fails functional testing, keeping the savings for themselves. (This is a very, very bad thing since they can remove safety and quality features, such as a snubber circuit).

I would heavily recommend outsourcing to Mexico before outsourcing to China. Even better, do it in the US.

Find some partners

[u38cg]

If you're serious about producing something that has the potential to be mass market, I suggest you bring some partners on board. For product development, find an electronic engineer that can cope with the hardware side; and also someone that can speak marketese and has experience in accessing the kind of markets you're talking about.

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.

As I've often said before...

[KlaymenDK]

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/
PCB manufacturing; verified a la carte on demand specifications ...also...

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 luck

[Rorschach1]

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

shameless plug: www.plexus.com

[bdcowell]

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

Re:Good luck with IP if working with the Chinese

[nebby]

This generally isn't true. A VC will get preferred stock and as such in a liquidation event they will be able to recover their money before anyone else can. (So if you take on 1M in funding, sell the company for 500K, you're right, you get nothing and they lose 500K). I'm guessing this is what you're thinking of.

If you sell the company for 2M and they put in 1M, they get their 1M back and the rest of the pie can be sliced up in different ways depending on the term sheet. (Google participating preferred stock cap)

Re:Good luck with IP if working with the Chinese

[Bearhouse]

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.