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| Microphone design |
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| ysl:
Hey guys, I would like to create a decent sounding desktop microphone at the 40-50$ range and I'm trying to look for somebody that could help with creating schematics and the PCB layout. I only do software so I don't really feel qualified evaluating properly and picking somebody that could do a good job. So my question is, apart from previous involvement with sound, which questions should I ask to get a proper sense about the engineer I'm talking to? Which tests do you think he should be able to perform to make sure the product functions properly? Lastly, is this considered to be a very complex undertaking? Is it reasonable expecting to find someone that would qualify on a relatively small 400-500€ budget? If anyone can point me to somebody that could be interested please feel free to :) Thanks guys, you're on such an amazing niche... I've started to convince myself that hardware is the new software, hahaha |
| sandalcandal:
I don't think any professional engineer is going to charge less than 100 €/hr and project like this will definitely take much longer than 5 hrs. Even a for simple off-the-shelf parts integration design, getting it to a working physical state is likely to take at least 100hrs i.e. 30 000€ not including costs for prototyping materials/components. You're asking someone to build a functional physical product, it's not like boiler plate software. Particularly, you're asking for a microphone which is a considerably complex electromechanical device. At the end you'll have a design for a microphone that's likely functional at best, then you'd have to bring it to production if you want make money off it? Another route is trying to do an open source type project but you'll have to convince people you and you're project are worth working on. Might be particularly hard since you don't seem to have the required knowledge to lead such a project? My advice to you to to understand exactly what it is you want as exactly and specifically as possible using quantifiable specifications. You could then post those here for feedback. Then write that up into a project proposal to bring to engineering firms/consultants for quotation. I'd also encourage you to consider taking the plunge and learning how to design and build the whole thing yourself, particularly if this isn't a serious venture and you want to save money. Edit: Absolute lowest time would probably be 20hrs to chuck together a spitball PCB and schematic without actually building it or doing any testing |
| ysl:
Definitely such a budget is low for advanced countries but maybe there are people internationally that could make it happen, I'm sure such budget would sound like a joke in the US or AU but where I come from at least 500€ is somewhat of a considerable amount. I don't want to get involved in crowdfunding to be honest as I don't want to convince them about something that I'm not sure I can deliver and end up deceiving them. I've got all the specifications in mind but how feasible they are doesn't depend entirely on me so that's something to be discussed with the engineer. Thanks for your reply, I appreciate it |
| sandalcandal:
--- Quote from: ysl on October 27, 2020, 04:55:45 pm ---Definitely such a budget is low for advanced countries but maybe there are people internationally that could make it happen, I'm sure such budget would sound like a joke in the US or AU but where I come from at least 500€ is somewhat of a considerable amount. --- End quote --- Fair enough, it'd be wrong for me to disparage hard working people but you can expect to get what you pay for, dealing with a client that requires significant education and guidance usually means higher fees or a very patient consultant. --- Quote from: ysl on October 27, 2020, 04:55:45 pm ---I don't want to get involved in crowdfunding to be honest as I don't want to convince them about something that I'm not sure I can deliver and end up deceiving them. --- End quote --- I'm not talking about crowd funding. I'm talking about building it with the technical help from community members publicly. Like people are doing for lots of projects over on the open source hardware board https://www.eevblog.com/forum/oshw/ --- Quote from: ysl on October 27, 2020, 04:55:45 pm ---I've got all the specifications in mind but how feasible they are doesn't depend entirely on me so that's something to be discussed with the engineer. --- End quote --- The fact you aren't openly sharing this here to get feedback tells me you're probably trying to keep it secret because you want to make money off this idea? That means you probably don't want to go the open source route which requires you openly share all the details of the project. I suggest you do some research and learning on "hardware product development" to help educate yourself what will need to be done so you can keep an eye on what your consultant is doing/asking from you. |
| SiliconWizard:
Basically agree with above. You'll find no one to do this at this rate in western countries. (You could try lower-paid countries through platforms such as Freelancer.com, there are many people from those countries. Now whether you'll get what you expect is another story. Also, I personally find those platforms questionable. But at least know they exist.) Of course, you could find people willing to help even for free... provided the project itself is interesting enough. Open-sourcing would not necessarily even be mandatory as long as the interest is there. Conversely, just open-sourcing the project wouldn't make it suddenly interesting. Which leads me to my final point: what's the point of this project? Can you explain what you'd see in it, considering there are literally thousands of desktop microphones on the market, with a whole range of specs and price tag? |
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