Getting your new electronic product design ready for mass production and PCB assembly involves many steps and risks. I will give some recommendations about how to avoid costly mistakes and how to minimize the time to market for your new product designs.
Once you have finished your product and PCB design, you want to get started building prototypes before you agree to large production volume. Many design pcb manufacturer. computer applications such as PCB layout design software and industrial design software have simulation capabilities built in. Doing a simulation allows reducing the number of design mistakes before the first prototype is created.
If you are designing a complex product, you may want to think about a modular design in which all of the main functions are situated in individual adventures. During your testing, you can then replace adventures which do not fulfill the design difficulties. Re-writing individual adventures will be quicker and cheaper than re-writing a whole design.
Depending on the design intricacy, you could consider hand growing PCB components to save cost. However, for medium to large intricacy this method tends to be extremely time consuming, especially if you want to build several prototypes. Therefore it makes sense considering a contract manufacturer for the assembly.
When running small-quantity production runs, the production setup cost will typically dominate the overall prototype build cost. When buying a subcontractor, it is best to purchase a vendor that focuses on prototype builds to reduce the expense. Prototype PCB manufacturers typically combine the enterprise boards of several customers which effectively shares the setup cost amongst several customers. The drawback is you will typically only be able to choose amongst several standard PCB material thicknesses and sizes.
Aside from selecting a supplier with low setup costs, selecting a company that will also be able to handle your full-volume production runs lowers mistakes since switching manufacturers has the chance of mistakes due to a particular supplier interpreting production design data differently. This way your design has already been translated into the specific machine data which means no setup cost for your final production.
Some PCB manufacturers also offer PCB design services which is a great plus in case you don’t have experience with the design. Also, these vendors will be able to direct you towards case there are problems with your design files and then spot problems before the production.
One problem with small-quantity production runs is sourcing of PCB components. Most components vendors will charge ship fees and have minimum order quantity requirements for certain components. Also, dealing with a small quantity of components is a problem in case of surface mount assembly since components will be mounted from SMT feeders. Some manufacturers will stock standard SMT components that you can invest in the seller. This can save you the time of having to purchase these components individually. Also, you don’t have to worry about burning up excess components.
Choosing a manufacturer that is also able to do the final product assembly lowers time to market by avoiding ship times between different vendors. Also, enterprise boards that are found to be substandard during the final testing can be repaired much more quickly. Finally, ensure that you are able to easily communicate with your supplier. This will help avoid costly mistakes and shorten production preparation times throughout all levels of PCB manufacture, PCB assembly and final product assembly.