corsasport.co.uk
 

Corsa Sport » Message Board » Off Day » Geek Day » PCB Designers / Printers / Creators...?!


New Topic

New Poll
  <<  1    2    3  >> Subscribe | Add to Favourites

You are not logged in and may not post or reply to messages. Please log in or create a new account or mail us about fixing an existing one - register@corsasport.co.uk

There are also many more features available when you are logged in such as private messages, buddy list, location services, post search and more.


Author PCB Designers / Printers / Creators...?!
AndyKent
Member

Registered: 3rd Sep 05
User status: Offline
16th Feb 12 at 08:00   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

For a dumb outsiders point of view, isn't the reason other companies use lots of different people to protect their idea from copying?

You approach a designer/producer with an amazing idea but not a clue how to build it, the first thing they're going to do is investigate the market you're targeting and best you to market.

If you have different people doing different things (ie. one person designs a pcb, another software etc.) you break the ease with which someone steals it.

Or maybe I'm being obvious.
ed
Member

Registered: 10th Sep 03
User status: Offline
16th Feb 12 at 10:28   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

Why would the designer you employ bother looking into the market you're targeting? It's not their job to do that sort of work, they should just do as they're asked.
Gary
Premium Member

Avatar

Registered: 22nd Nov 06
Location: West Yorkshire
User status: Offline
16th Feb 12 at 10:43   View Garage View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

And tbf if they went and did your idea when you have emails proving you went to the for a service i reckon you'd win in court
ed
Member

Registered: 10th Sep 03
User status: Offline
16th Feb 12 at 11:31   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

You'd enter into a non-disclosure agreement whenever you hire a freelancer anyway, unless you're an un-organised fool.
Gary
Premium Member

Avatar

Registered: 22nd Nov 06
Location: West Yorkshire
User status: Offline
16th Feb 12 at 12:00   View Garage View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

Lets be honest, welsh is an un-organised fool
ed
Member

Registered: 10th Sep 03
User status: Offline
16th Feb 12 at 12:29   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

I think I did an NDA for him once, or it could have been for someone he sub-sub-contracted out to me
Whittie
Member

Registered: 11th Aug 06
Location: North Wales Drives: BMW, Corsa & Fiat
User status: Offline
16th Feb 12 at 12:40   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

quote:
Originally posted by Gary
Lets be honest, welsh is an un-organised fool


Bit Harsh
Whittie
Member

Registered: 11th Aug 06
Location: North Wales Drives: BMW, Corsa & Fiat
User status: Offline
16th Feb 12 at 12:41   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

quote:
Originally posted by ed
I think I did an NDA for him once, or it could have been for someone he sub-sub-contracted out to me


No, was a client of mine / paid for the lead.
noshua
Member

Registered: 19th Nov 08
User status: Offline
16th Feb 12 at 16:11   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

quote:
Originally posted by Dom
Edit - Personally I'd a proof of concept knocked up on a development board (beagleboard or a variant, Raspberry Pi, Arduino if it's basic); at least then you have something to show designers/concept houses etc

[Edited on 15-02-2012 by Dom]


This is a very good idea as you could put together what you wanted the device to do for about £30-35. Raspberry Pi + memory card reader + battery + a case.
Dom
Member

Registered: 13th Sep 03
User status: Offline
16th Feb 12 at 16:40   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

quote:
Originally posted by ed
You'd enter into a non-disclosure agreement whenever you hire a freelancer anyway


Yup, this would be the first port of call before you spoke to anyone in great details. Although you can still get shafted especially if you plan to get it manufactured in the far-east.

Gary - Would emails stand up in court? Don't know the ins and outs but I would have thought not considering they can easily be forged.

Noshua - Wouldn't worry about casing it or batteries, it'll all change come development. It's literally just a proof of concept, so could look like a complete monstrosity as long as it worked. And a Raspberry Pi would probably work, but with a rPi you're essentially working with linux as there is naff all data about interfacing with the Broadcom SoC at a lower-level (from what I’ve read), so I’d personally look at something not as 'high-level' like a beagleboard (iirc there is a fair amount of info on the Texas OMAP). Granted it's still high-level in the scheme of things where compared with dedicated development boards you'd get from ARM etc.

Whittie - You're better of asking on a dedicated electronics/circuits/pcb/development forum as unless it is GCSE/A-level grade stuff then no one is really going to be able to help here, certainly not knocking up a prototype for a few pints and a packet of crisps
Chris
Premium Member

Avatar

Registered: 21st Sep 99
User status: Offline
16th Feb 12 at 19:33   View Garage View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

Pm me the full design spec, you dont really need to make a pcb.

If i was doing it it would send level via sms or email, easy to do really.

Full unit cost would be 40 quid, plus gsm line rental unless you want to make it TCP/IP to send direct via router.
Dom
Member

Registered: 13th Sep 03
User status: Offline
16th Feb 12 at 20:10   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

quote:
Originally posted by Chris
Pm me the full design spec, you dont really need to make a pcb.

If i was doing it it would send level via sms or email, easy to do really.

Full unit cost would be 40 quid, plus gsm line rental unless you want to make it TCP/IP to send direct via router.


If you're dealing with GSM then there are plenty of GSM/HSDPA modules (round solutions is one place for OEM modules) around that can be interfaced reasonably simply with something like an Arudino or Teensy. Have recently been doing something similar for a remote sensor based project.
Chris
Premium Member

Avatar

Registered: 21st Sep 99
User status: Offline
16th Feb 12 at 21:01   View Garage View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

Me too, I have a project is a basement level monitor, if any wants to buy one.

http://www.coolcomponents.co.uk/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=26&products_id=362

[Edited on 16-02-2012 by Chris]
sand-eel
Member

Registered: 15th Mar 07
Location: carluke/braidwood--IRNBRULAND
User status: Offline
17th Feb 12 at 01:52   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

http://www.expresspcb.com/ExpressPCBHtm/Download.htm

I designed the Intel core I7 on this program for my mate Gordon Moore.
Whittie
Member

Registered: 11th Aug 06
Location: North Wales Drives: BMW, Corsa & Fiat
User status: Offline
31st Aug 12 at 08:55   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

Well a guy in Mid Wales has come back to me today.

I now have a base design for the PCB now. Only thing stopping me to make a prototype now is data transfer speeds, and battery issues, i'd rather sort the issues out before making / spending money on a prototype.

It needs to transfer data onto a built in flash drive / ssd, quickly, also the battery can't die when its transfering. These are the two main issues at the moment, so want to sort them out before any kind of model is created.

The data transfer will be sorted. However the battery issue bothers me more.

Obviously wanting to keep costs down if it goes into production, so was going to use standard lithium AA batteries. So either need to add to the device the current percentage of power, and not to transfer data below say 1 bar or 10%. Or go down a recharge route which im wanting to avoid as its probably costly.

Going to be a long project at this rate
Dom
Member

Registered: 13th Sep 03
User status: Offline
31st Aug 12 at 09:44   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

There's plenty of solutions to the battery issue; as you say disabling writing to your storage medium when the battery voltage goes below a certain value is one; depending on how much data is to be written each time then you could use e-squared to buffer it prior to writing, if power is cut then you still have the data and you'd write it on power up; battery backup is another ie: gives enough time for the current data to be written.

Data transfers (assuming this is to your storage medium) is tricky but ideally you'd want to be using onboard storage where ever possible (could still get it looking like a USB device if need be but USB has it's own issues), you certainly wouldn't want to go down the route of HDD SDDs on basis of overheads and removable storage (like SD cards) can be a royal PITA (seen this first hand with the old mans embedded products) as transfer rates are dependent on both (process and flash) controllers, used filesystem and everything in between.
Good luck with this bit though
Gary
Premium Member

Avatar

Registered: 22nd Nov 06
Location: West Yorkshire
User status: Offline
31st Aug 12 at 13:14   View Garage View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

You still on with this
Chris
Premium Member

Avatar

Registered: 21st Sep 99
User status: Offline
31st Aug 12 at 15:15   View Garage View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

What was the project?
Whittie
Member

Registered: 11th Aug 06
Location: North Wales Drives: BMW, Corsa & Fiat
User status: Offline
20th Nov 12 at 12:51   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

Dom, gone with the option of charging it up and having a spare onboard battery for backup.

Storage is more than likely been done via Flash memory now mainly to keep costs down and reliability of the data.

Gone ahead with a prototype and paid the PCB programmers to do their thing. Fingers crossed will get to see something working end of January/February.
MULLER2
Member

Registered: 3rd Jun 02
Location: LONDON
User status: Offline
20th Nov 12 at 14:29   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

Have you seen this? http://www.circuits.io

It allows you to design your circuit and order PCB direct from the site. I've never used it but was only looking at it the other day :-)
Whittie
Member

Registered: 11th Aug 06
Location: North Wales Drives: BMW, Corsa & Fiat
User status: Offline
20th Nov 12 at 14:39   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

Looks good that Muller, but don't have a clue whats going on im afraid!

Wish I did, would have saved so much money.
baza31
Member

Registered: 19th Apr 03
Location: yorkshire
User status: Offline
20th Nov 12 at 20:34   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

quote:
Originally posted by Whittie
That's the plan Sam! Just finding somebody that will do it all from scratch. Got quite far down the road with somebody Gary knew of, but they're no longer operating.

Brett - Hope so.


Is this the transvestite at mirfield? If not go he him/her , decent guy/girl that seriously knows his/her shit .
Whittie
Member

Registered: 11th Aug 06
Location: North Wales Drives: BMW, Corsa & Fiat
User status: Offline
21st Nov 12 at 11:21   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

quote:
Originally posted by baza31
quote:
Originally posted by Whittie
That's the plan Sam! Just finding somebody that will do it all from scratch. Got quite far down the road with somebody Gary knew of, but they're no longer operating.

Brett - Hope so.


Is this the transvestite at mirfield? If not go he him/her , decent guy/girl that seriously knows his/her shit .




Nah, Colin Somebody, I suppose could have originally been called Coleen.
Whittie
Member

Registered: 11th Aug 06
Location: North Wales Drives: BMW, Corsa & Fiat
User status: Offline
19th Jun 13 at 15:18   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

I have a working prototype on its way to me!
Gary
Premium Member

Avatar

Registered: 22nd Nov 06
Location: West Yorkshire
User status: Offline
19th Jun 13 at 15:20   View Garage View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

This still going on? We talked about this idea about 2 years ago!

  <<  1    2    3  >>
New Topic

New Poll

  Related Threads Author Forum Replies Views Last Post
Rev counter wanted... Miner Classifieds 0 675
18th Aug 03 at 19:20
by Miner
 
Where've my lights gone ? H13X JW Help Zone, Modification and ICE Advice 11 888
22nd Jul 04 at 12:26
by Black Corsa SRi
 
dash dimmer gone pop? Ben ev Help Zone, Modification and ICE Advice 3 953
13th Jun 07 at 16:58
by Ben ev
 
How to print to 2 printers.. jamied Geek Day 18 948
7th Oct 07 at 15:35
by Deadude
 
Wireless PC Printers - Who has what etc... _Allan_ Geek Day 5 711
19th Jul 10 at 08:17
by Andrew
 

Corsa Sport » Message Board » Off Day » Geek Day » PCB Designers / Printers / Creators...?! 28 database queries in 0.1914740 seconds