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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 t
by 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 agoObviously 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.