3 ms·

There are a few things that I'm seeing differently in the market than what is outlined in this post. 1) Caps and res with 20+ week lead time? I'm assuming they

There are a few things that I'm seeing differently in the market than what is outlined in this post. 1) Caps and res with 20+ week lead time? I'm assuming they are not building their own boards, but are getting them built by a reputable manufacturer. From what we've seen, the manufacturers we've spoken with all have stock to supply ceps and res for our needs. Why are they not seeing the same? 2) As a start-up, how much hardware are they building now? and why? If you know you are going to need 2000 power regulators (one of the components we've had difficulty getting), find one that suits your need, and buy your needs for the next 12 months. We bought up every EEG chip we could get our hands on because without it, we have no business. Yeah, it cost a few thousand more than we wanted to spend at the time, but it kept us in business. It also kept these chips out of the hands of competing start-ups. :) 3) buying from exchanges is a real challenge. We actually had some breakout boards (I can't remember the supplier) and the chip didn't respond in the way the spec suggested it should. We're assuming it was counterfeit, and programmed around it for a time. We also bought a bunch of stock from one supplier that we're unsure of, so we made a small purchase, and tested it to make sure it was legit before buying more. I know there are supply chain issues, I'm not suggesting there aren't, but I've found that with a little bit of planning ahead we were able (so far) to get around them and have pre-purchased stock to last us the next 9 months. Supply chain is now a strategic advantage, not just a challenge. However, it looks like this is already turning around and chips are becoming available again.

bcantrill 4y ago
It depends on what you mean by "building [our] own boards." We (obviously?) don't have our own PCB fab -- but we are absolutely designing our own boards (and therefore securing our own supplies). On caps and resistors (and other passives), I think the point was that we saw even these very plentiful parts develop supply chain issues in the most challenging times in 2021. Broadly, these passives haven't been an issue for us -- but the fact that they have been an issue at all is notable. And there were several times where we did exactly what you suggested, where we either went with a slightly more expensive part or secured a substantial amount of inventory to assure our own supply. We certainly agree about the supply chain being a strategic advantage!
- pedalpete 4y ago
  Obviously not your own PCB fab. In some of our prototyping, we were "manufacturing" as in placing our own components on the boards we ordered, and cooking them in a toaster oven converted for PCBs assembly. We now get our next gen stuff manufactured by a local "manufacturer" who takes our PCBs (which come from China), and puts our components on them. We supply all the "non-passives", simply to make sure the stock is available. They've got all the passives for us. This is our first intro to building hardware, we're a bunch of software engineers, but I've commented on how the "hardware is hard" we feel is a misnomer. It's another point of failure, but as long as you're planning ahead, it seems manageable. My tune may change when we get into production on the scale of many thousands. But we're only at 250 units per batch atm.

bcantrill 4y ago

It depends on what you mean by "building [our] own boards." We (obviously?) don't have our own PCB fab -- but we are absolutely designing our own boards (and therefore securing our own supplies). On caps and resistors (and other passives), I think the point was that we saw even these very plentiful parts develop supply chain issues in the most challenging times in 2021. Broadly, these passives haven't been an issue for us -- but the fact that they have been an issue at all is notable. And there were several times where we did exactly what you suggested, where we either went with a slightly more expensive part or secured a substantial amount of inventory to assure our own supply. We certainly agree about the supply chain being a strategic advantage!

pedalpete 4y ago
Obviously not your own PCB fab. In some of our prototyping, we were "manufacturing" as in placing our own components on the boards we ordered, and cooking them in a toaster oven converted for PCBs assembly. We now get our next gen stuff manufactured by a local "manufacturer" who takes our PCBs (which come from China), and puts our components on them. We supply all the "non-passives", simply to make sure the stock is available. They've got all the passives for us. This is our first intro to building hardware, we're a bunch of software engineers, but I've commented on how the "hardware is hard" we feel is a misnomer. It's another point of failure, but as long as you're planning ahead, it seems manageable. My tune may change when we get into production on the scale of many thousands. But we're only at 250 units per batch atm.