Costs for making a DIY project into a business product - Show your story!

[VEGETA]

Hello,

I've been wondering what goes into making the project into a sellable product assuming it is good and there are people who wanna get it. So I thought nothing is better than EEVBlog to post this question!

My main concern is PCB assembly services, especially that you would make at least 100 boards to make it good enough right (all SMD design of course)? how about if they buy your parts (assuming you put digikey\lcsc part number)? delivery cost? customs? how about hand assembling it?

Assuming a normal-sized project like a lab power supply (like uSupply or something) 30v-3A... I would estimate it to have something like 20 different SMD part, 3 through-hole parts, roughly 200-250 SMD pads... correct? how would this be profitable at 100 pieces of volume?

I thought of making it a story\personal experience thread so that people can share examples not just pure info (no need to expose any secrets though). This could turn into a nice video blog right?

Looking forward to your replies.

With respect,

VEGETA

[forrestc]

I was searching for the answer to different question and came across your message that didn't get any replies.

The most likely reason why is that those of us who do this professionally are in the 'Manufacturing' subforum where these questions get asked, and this got posted in beginners.  You might be able to get a mod to move this if you're still curious.

I will say that going from an idea/basic design into production is both easier and more difficult than you would expect.   It's always more expensive than a novice expects, because there are seemingly an infinite number of things you might miss.  But it also isn't anything someone can't work through if they're diligent about it.

I personally manufacture in-house because my products tend to be on the lower end of the quantity scale.  When I started doing this, it was so expensive to do <1000 pcs anywhere that it didn't make sense to do anything else.   Now I am at higher volumes, I find that every time I go through the process of comparing in-house costs with outsourcing it I still find that it's cheaper in-house.   But that's with a lot of existing investment over the years in production equipment.

I've got a few products that I'm planning on designing over the next year or so that I am considering designing to be able to be assembled with JLCPCB's smt-assembly service.  That is, using 100% parts which JLC says they will support, and preferring basic components where possible.   It looks like I should be able to get under my in-house costs that way, but until I work through this design I won't know for sure.

[fcb]

Build one and sell one - see how you like it, what you'd do differently etc.. Do it again... Do it again.. etc.. until you have figured out your market, quantity, production methods etc..

Assemble it by hand to start with, you'd be surprised what you can do with a cheap stencil, tweezers and a toaster oven.

[Psi]

I do orders of 100 PCBA boards to sell every 5 months or so.

When i first started out i was soldering all the SMT parts on with an iron.
Then i moved to using a paste stencil and hot air, then later a toaster oven.

Hand soldering boards is usually a better plan when starting out because sales qty is very low. It gives you lots of control, you don't have large up-front part costs.
You can solder 5-10 boards at the weekend and they will last a few weeks/months before you need to make more. Or you can even solder them together as orders come in.
But after a while you will realize that you're wasting too much time and need to get the boards populated professionally. Then you will think "why didn't i do this sooner"

For a home manufacturing business you need to be selling your products at a bare minimum of 2.5x what it costs you to create them (including parts, power, consumables etc.. everything).  So, figure out what the public will pay for your product, then you can work back to see what the total max cost of the manufacture needs to be for the product to be viable.

I found the cost for PCBWay to purchase all my component for PCBA to be slightly cheaper than what i could get the parts for myself (5-10%).
The cost to populate the 100 PCBs is around US$400 and the total parts for them is around $3000.
You do have to make sure the PCB house understands what parts you require them to get from known good distributors (digikey/mouser etc) and what parts are generic like resistors where they can use their own stock/source etc..
If you don't make this clear, and confirm they understand, you may end up with fakes/rejects/bad quality parts that may or may not cause your problems.


I'm not going to give much detail about my product because reputation is important and some customers think it's unprofessional to be building/shipping goods from a room in a residential house. So i like to maintain a public view that the company is bigger than it is.
I would recommend you do this too. People are more likely to purchase from a professional company, or a company that looks professional.

[bjbb]

"My main concern is PCB assembly services, especially that you would make at least 100 boards to make it good enough right (all SMD design of course)? how about if they buy your parts (assuming you put digikey\lcsc part number)? delivery cost? customs? how about hand assembling it?"

Have done a few China runs, where the customer wanted more than 30 or 40 widgets - mostly for time, not for quality or $$$. Most of my production is 5 to 10 unit runs, which I build in my shop/lab using 'neighborhood' labor.

"Assuming a normal-sized project like a lab power supply (like uSupply or something) 30v-3A... I would estimate it to have something like 20 different SMD part, 3 through-hole parts, roughly 200-250 SMD pads... correct? how would this be profitable at 100 pieces of volume?"

You are offering a commodity product. If your stuff is good, you can have one or two profitable production runs for 100-piece volumes before it is copied in Asia and mass-produced and sold at less that 50% of your cost. The products that have a decent margin are typically more high-end stuff; that is, specialty instruments for unique industrial niches. And you will still have people trying to reverse engineer/copy this complex stuff. For example, some of my widgets have somehow ended up in Asia and Eastern Europe, where it is not uncommon for these people to demand schematics and source code (they never ask for technical support).

As for a blog - dunno, but go for it.

[tunk]

There's also this thread about certification:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/bring-a-product-to-market-without-certification/

[Psi]

Ideally you want a niche product that can generate some brand recognition in your industry.

Where your customers buy your product partly because of recommendations, reputation and for being the best option available.
This makes it less likely to be copied by china because it's a low volume niche rather than mass-market and because there's no customer demand for a unit that is not your brand.