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I design my own boards too, but throwing a SOM into my layout is way too attractive to pass up, especially when schedule matters more than COGS. Make-versus-bu

I design my own boards too, but throwing a SOM into my layout is way too attractive to pass up, especially when schedule matters more than COGS. Make-versus-buy decisions abound in product development. If you aren't a full stack electronics and firmware designer, then you have to manage the design project with its uncertainties, including schedule. A buy-in gets you moving right away, to address other project issues that require a prototype. You can always design it out later. Dealing with complex chips often involves discovering bugs in the docs, and a second board spin to fix them. Then you'd better have a good scope and some real knowledge. Despite its hobby orientation, the RPi is legit.

Turskarama 3y ago
Sure but the added cost is not a big factor when you're making a handful of them.. If you're making tens of thousands though? Then it begins to add up.
- arcticbull 3y ago
  10,000 @ $35 is $350,000 - that's really not that much money. That's like 1 to very generously 3 engineers for a year. Can you really design, build, validate, ramp, stock, fulfill and deploy your own hardware for less than that? I strongly suspect they ran the numbers and the answer was a hard no. Not to mention the time penalty - as a rule of thumb it takes about minimum 6m average 12m to go from concept to physical units in people's hands at scale. These Pi's are shipping today. As a startup, that's hard to pass on.
  - analog31 3y ago
    And then the designer up and quits, leaving you with a sketchy and gratuitously complex design that nobody can fathom. A volume like 10k puts you in a dreaded "in between" zone. You're not making a one-off widget that a customer is willing to pay an unlimited amount for because it solves a unique problem. And it's not enough volume to make something that just rolls off an assembly line. All of the simplistic mental models for how to proceed, don't work. I work in such an industry, making specialized equipment. Every component is an expensive buy-in. It's ridiculously hard to find cost savings every component is up against the same math. Then again the competition faces the same problem.

Turskarama 3y ago

Sure but the added cost is not a big factor when you're making a handful of them.. If you're making tens of thousands though? Then it begins to add up.

arcticbull 3y ago
10,000 @ $35 is $350,000 - that's really not that much money. That's like 1 to very generously 3 engineers for a year. Can you really design, build, validate, ramp, stock, fulfill and deploy your own hardware for less than that? I strongly suspect they ran the numbers and the answer was a hard no. Not to mention the time penalty - as a rule of thumb it takes about minimum 6m average 12m to go from concept to physical units in people's hands at scale. These Pi's are shipping today. As a startup, that's hard to pass on.
- analog31 3y ago
  And then the designer up and quits, leaving you with a sketchy and gratuitously complex design that nobody can fathom. A volume like 10k puts you in a dreaded "in between" zone. You're not making a one-off widget that a customer is willing to pay an unlimited amount for because it solves a unique problem. And it's not enough volume to make something that just rolls off an assembly line. All of the simplistic mental models for how to proceed, don't work. I work in such an industry, making specialized equipment. Every component is an expensive buy-in. It's ridiculously hard to find cost savings every component is up against the same math. Then again the competition faces the same problem.