Making commercial electronics, self-financed - steps?

[abc 5]

Sorry if this is slightly off-topic. Now that I've got into embedded programming, I am contemplating all kinds of industrial and consumer electronic products I could make. Problem is, I've never produced anything other than software.

 

I understand this is highly specific to a product and there are no one-size-fits-all solutions, but I'd like to hear some gotchas, keywords, leads, success stories, failure stories, etc.

 

For instance: what if I am manufacturing tiny (an ounce or less) consumer electronic devices, for indoor use. They communicate wirelessly, no buttons or screens, just a bunch of small boxes. Are there any pre-fabricated cases I could purchase for this? How would I approach manufacturing them? What would be the bare bones starting cost, for the simplest project imaginable?

 

(I don't really intend to do all that by myself, I'd probably partner with somebody who knows manufacturing, just want a very vague, very preliminary estimate of the costs, say, to the order of magnitude.)

 

This may be a silly noob question, but got to start somewhere.

 

 

[rockets4kids 204]

The first thing you are going to need to qualify is whether you are intenting to sell a component or a finished product.  If you are selling a component you (generally) do not need to worry about FCC approval.  If you are selling a product, you do.  This makes a world of difference in your overall costs.

[abc 5]

I am going to sell a complete product. I think I should not have to worry about FCC approval, as long as I use an established stack & hardware (e.g. Bluetopia stack on TI/Panasonic chips)

[dubnet 238]

I'm no expert here but I believe @@rockets4kids is correct.  If you use an approved wireless module with FCC approval within your product you may be ok.  However, if you are designing/manufacturing the product then in order to sell it commercially you will need FCC approval. Although you may be using standard software/hardware building blocks your board and enclosure design will affect how the product radiates RF.

[abc 5]

I think there is a highly expedited certification process, if any, for those who use pre-certified software/hardware. 

 

Other than the radio, what is involved? I am mostly wondering whether I can/should get simple pre-fabricated casings.

[dubnet 238]

Just to clarify and to make sure we are using the same syntax, pre-certified hardware would be a complete module from the likes of LSR and others.  A component level design would have to go through the full FCC certification process regardless of the inferred compliance by the IC manufacturer.  Some links that might be helpful:

 

http://www.digikey.com/en/articles/techzone/2010/dec/why-a-wireless-rf-module

 

http://info.lsr.com/LSR-Wireless-RF-Design-blog/bid/256857/Let-s-Say-You-ve-added-a-WiFi-Module-to-your-product-what-s-next

 

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDsQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.atmel.com%2FImages%2Fdoc42037.pdf&ei=BG2wU431HoOYyAS_ioEI&usg=AFQjCNHphn67Dymy951NktFNP4tUu3u8pQ

[enl 227]

Unless the rules have changed recently, ANY electronic product is going to need to go through compliance, wireless or not, to insure that it meets stated interference spec, etc. Battery operated MAY not need to go through UL, etc.

 

Best bet is talk to a compliance pro.

 

Been a few years since I followed the details, but one of the best resources was _Conformity_ magazine (I think it changed hands and name a few years ago.... _In_Compliance_ now maybe?)

[rockets4kids 204]

Here is a list of devices that are exempt:

 

http://www.emcfastpass.com/could-your-product-be-exempt-from-emc-testing-altogether/

 

This is a good introduction to designing for EMC compliance:

 

http://www.emcfastpass.com/rightfirsttime/

 

If your device is going to require compliance, the first thing you are going to need to do is read about what is involved in the process.

[Mihec 1]

If you attempt to use BLE module inside your product, you need to pay Product Listing Fee to SIG organization for using Bluetooth knowledge.

[gwdeveloper 275]

Electronics and certification aside, make sure you protect yourself legally too.  Lawyer, indemnification... start an LLC or something.

[zeke 693]

If your product is wireless then you will have to certify it. No questions about it. The cost of that is >$10K.

 

You will have to take your device to an FCC approved testing house where they will test it for all manner of conducted and radiated emissions. They want to make sure that your device does not have spurious or excessively powerful RF emissions. That may take up to 5 days if you are well prepared and are able to give the testing house the information and the software tools they need to perform the tests. You will receive lots of documentation from the testing house.

 

I bet @@jpnorair could offer up a few battlefield stories on this topic.

 

 

Concerning packaging, the answer is every enclosure that you might like is custom. You will want to hire an Industrial Design expert.

 

He will interview you for about 16 hours over the course of two or three weeks, make some mock up drawings in Solidworks, meet with you several times to get your feedback on the aesthetics and then get you to pay him something like $10K when you are happy.

 

Then, if you are lucky, the Industrial Designer will hook you up with his Machinist buddy who will carve you out some injection molds out of T6061 Aluminum.

 

Then those molds will have to be transported to a plastics factory in China (or somewhere else with cheap labor) where they will pump out the first 10 units of the enclosures. You will then evaluate those enclosures for form, fit and finish.

 

Then, once you sign off on that, the plastics house will start pumping out 1000's of your enclosures for you. The more units created - the lower the cost per unit over the entire batch. Each unit may work out to be ~$2 in large quantities.

 

They will arrive at your door six to eight weeks later because they took a boat to get to you.

 

By that time, the following should be ready:

• circuit design,
• circuit prototyping,
• Version 1 - minimum viable firmware,
• PCB layout,
• board assembly,
• board testing,
• Unit assembly procedure written,
• Unit Final testing procedure written,
• product packaging ready to go,
• SKU assigned,
• Sales force educated and cut loose on the world to sell 1000's of your gizmos.

Just start assembling, testing, packing, shipping and collecting the dough in 30 to 90 days time.

 

Does that help?

 

 

 

[dubnet 238]

What @@zeke said....plus:

 

What has been said thus far has touched on the product development and certification side of things.  You also have to consider the financial/marketing side to ensure that the entire effort isn't a very expensive lesson.

 

As @@gwdeveloper stated you will want to setup a corporation to shield yourself from product liability, give yourself credibility with suppliers/vendors/customers, etc.  Depending on how you go about this it will cost you $1-2K. You will also need liability insurance no matter how safe the product is perceived to be.

 

You will need to understand where your product fits in the competitive landscape and based on that how you will differentiate your product. Even more challenging is setting a selling price since if it is too high against either the direct or indirect competition, you won't sell as many as you need to. If it is too low then you are unnecessarily giving away profit.  Note that the market's perception of a reasonable price and your product cost and a reasonable markup are not necessarily going to coincide. 

 

Once you have your sale price and product cost determined you will want to do a breakeven analysis to see how many units you have to sell to start achieving profitability.  This is to verify that the estimated market will support at least breaking even. This will also give you insight into the potential ROI over the product's projected life cycle.

 

This is just scratching the surface.  However, if after evaluating everything you still feel you have the next killer product then don't let any of this discourage you.  Spinning up a company, developing a product and doing all the analysis is hard work but, if you are successful, can be a rewarding experience. Not only financially but also in terms of the satisfaction of creating something (both the company and product).

 

Best wishes and good luck.

[jpnorair 340]

I am going to sell a complete product. I think I should not have to worry about FCC approval, as long as I use an established stack & hardware (e.g. Bluetopia stack on TI/Panasonic chips)

Nope, you're going to have to go through FCC and ERC (europe).  But it should be relatively cheap and easy if you are using someone else's module in the 2.45 GHz band.  You can ask the company if they have "modular approval."

 

As far as making the plastics, and everything else, @@zeke has all the basics down.

 

One thing you will want to invest-in is an antenna tuning service (if you don't do it yourself).  The plastic will have an effect on the the resonant frequency.  If you want, I'm happy to design and tune your antenna for $1000.

[zeke 693]

One thing you will want to invest-in is an antenna tuning service (if you don't do it yourself).  The plastic will have an effect on the the resonant frequency.  If you want, I'm happy to design and tune your antenna for $1000.

 

I can tell you from personal experience, at $1000, that is a good deal!

 

Do you include a notarized performance report with that? If so then it's an even better deal.

[jpnorair 340]

I can tell you from personal experience, at $1000, that is a good deal!

 

Do you include a notarized performance report with that? If so then it's an even better deal.

For $1000, it's not going into a chamber.    But of course I will do some basic performance assessment using a reference.