How to build my prototype to production (Kickstarter, etc)

[espruino-discuss3]

Posted at 2016-01-08 by yargnawh

I've been working on a little project for almost a year now. I 3d printed an enclosure and assembled all the parts and programmed the software. Most of the parts were purchased on Adafruit. Does anyone know the general process to build a custom chip with all the parts and have it pre-programmed?

[espruino-discuss3]

Posted at 2016-01-08 by DrAzzy

You don't build a custom chip.

You design a custom board with the chips on it, get some prototypes and assemble them and test. Then you work with one of the assembly places to get it produced. There are a bunch of places specializing in runs of various sizes. Lots of places will pre-program your chip (or you could do it yourself). Notice how Digikey et. al. offer to pre-program many microcontrollers.

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Posted at 2016-01-08 by @gfwilliams

One simple (but not ideal) thing you could do is to use 'Fritzing' - if you wire all the parts together in that, it'll make it relatively easy to make your own PCB (printed circuit board) that you can solder them all to - but you will still have to use all the individual modules, it'll just save you a lot of effort doing the wiring.

Otherwise you might be better off asking another company to design the board for you based on your prototype. Seeed are based in China (mainly - they're expanding) but they provide very sensibly priced board design work, and can even produce the whole thing for you in volume.

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Posted at 2016-01-08 by Ollie

This is interesting info. I'd toyed with the idea of getting a PCB designed to just add the components to. I looked at Fritzing, but the in-software purchase options seem quite expensive.

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Posted at 2016-01-08 by @gfwilliams

but the in-software purchase options seem quite expensive.

To be honest I didn't try that. You can export as gerber though, which you can use with DirtyPCBs and OSHPark, both of which are extremely reasonable.

Fritzing isn't that good really, but I think it's a lot less of a learning curve than something like Eagle (especially as it has many of the modules built into it already).

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Posted at 2016-01-08 by Ollie

@gordon I looked at Eagle - briefly. Thanks for the info on export and the other manufacturers, will check them out

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Posted at 2016-01-09 by DrAzzy

If you don't want to learn eagle or other board design software, I can do board design for a nominal fee. You can see some examples of my work in my tindie store tindie.com/stores/drazzy and if you're interested I can show you some other boards I've designed.

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Posted at 2016-01-09 by Ollie

@drazzy, that's a thought, I've seen your stuff, didn't know you did for others. Maybe I can PM you rather than hijack this thread?

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Posted at 2016-01-09 by DrAzzy

Sure, yeah, PM would be better