Getting your new electronic product design prepared for mass assembly and PCB assembly includes various steps and risks. I will give a few suggestions about how to eliminate costly mistakes and how to minimize the time to market for your new product designs.
Producing of samples is the first step of a new product launch and is usually done following simulation of product performance by utilizing the simulation capabilities of PCB and industrial design software. The simulation results often allow you to find mistakes and help you improve your design. This will save time and money by reducing the number of sample iterations required before mass production.
If you are designing a complex product, you might want to think about a modular design in which every one of the main features are situated in separate modules. During your testing, you can then swap modules that do not meet the design constraints. When a certain module does not meet the design constraint, it can be swapped relatively quickly. The time advantage at this step is clear. During the design stage however structuring your design into modules will take additional work.
PCB components are frequently assembled by hand during the prototype stage although this option is time consuming. Subcontracting the sample manufacturing provides higher quality. It can also save a lot of time.
When running small-quantity manufacturing runs, the production setup expense is going to generally dominate the overall prototype manufacture expense. When looking for a subcontractor, it is best to choose a supplier that specializes in sample builds to decrease the expense. Because prototype PCB manufacturers combine boards from several customers, you will normally only have a limited selection of board materials and thicknesses when employing a PCB sampling service.
When looking for a manufacturer, you ought to however not focus on low setup expenses alone. Picking a supplier which can also run production quantity runs later on will eliminate a lot of pitfalls during the production step since the sample data can without problems be reused. If there are no big changes in your design, assembly can begin rapidly. The manufacturing files are already available in the manufacturer-specific machine format.
Various PCB manufacturers also offer PCB design services which is a great plus in case you don’t have experience with the design. In addition, these manufacturers will be capable to aid you in case there are problems with your design files and be capable to discover problems before the assembly.
Component purchasing is a main concern when assembling samples as a consequence of the small volume and the freight cost and minimum order quantity requirements of some vendors. Furthermore, dealing with a small quantity of components is a concern in case of surface mount assembly because parts will be mounted from SMT feeders. If you select a vendor that carries inventory of commonly used SMT parts which you can purchase, you can save a lot of time. In addition, you won't squander any parts which are left over.
If you picked a supplier that also does the final product assembly, you will not only save time to market but also make sure that circuit boards that are found to be faulty during the final examination can be fixed much more quickly. Good quality communications with your supplier is key because it will help eliminate expensive delays and mistakes during all stages of the PCB assembly and finished product manufacturing.
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