| Author | Message | |||
| S. Brent Cardani (Brentc)
Junior Member Username: Brentc Post Number: 78 Registered: 8-2003 |
John, You have mail (I hope, this time!) Brent | |||
| John (Cohiba_man)
Member Username: Cohiba_man Post Number: 328 Registered: 1-2003 |
Peter, I'll send the email again, S. Brent, I haven't recieved an email from you, email it to [email protected] | |||
| S. Brent Cardani (Brentc)
Junior Member Username: Brentc Post Number: 77 Registered: 8-2003 |
John, You have mail. My company does exactly this type of work. I printed your PDF and we are using it as an informal RFQ. I will get you a price ASAP. | |||
| PeterS (Peters)
Intermediate Member Username: Peters Post Number: 1623 Registered: 1-2003 |
John...No, I did not get your mail. Send to [email protected]. One thing that can be done is to take advantage of an unemployeed pool of high-tech talent that is out there. You can find dozens of designers to PH.D's that are out of work....BTW: What do you call a Dot Com executive??? (Snap you fingers in the air)..."Waiter, Oh Waiter"...  | |||
| Chris Tanner (Ctanner)
Junior Member Username: Ctanner Post Number: 73 Registered: 5-2001 |
John, The website is expresspcb.com. It's the most basic of circuit boards, but it's fast. Chris | |||
| John (Cohiba_man)
Member Username: Cohiba_man Post Number: 327 Registered: 1-2003 |
Thanks for the info, very helpful. I've been talking to MikeB through email and he's told me that a digital circuit is what I really want, as opposed to an analog one in the long run, and I can see why, but perhaps I could build an analog circuit using that method as a means to cheaply test the idea among RC'ers. I would love the website address if you can find it. | |||
| Chris Tanner (Ctanner)
Junior Member Username: Ctanner Post Number: 72 Registered: 5-2001 |
John, I'd like to give you some tips for the prototyping if you decide to do it yourself instead of hiring a company. You can take two approaches for your circuit. The simplest is to build the circuit on a perforated board (aka..perf board, vector board) The components are placed through the holes on the board and connected together with wires. This provides a basic breadboard circuit to check and see if the design works. You can buy perf board at radio shack or any other electronics store like Newark, Allied, or Frys. Likewise, all the electronic parts from your schematic can be purchased there. If you would like something a little cleaner than perf board, you can buy a circuit board online. I forget the name of the company, but I can get it for you tomorrow. They have a simple, no very simple, software that lets you draw the traces (plan the copper routing) for your own circuit board. Since you already have the layout from the schematic article, you would draw that exact layout with the software. Once you complete the layout, you type in your credit card number, and hit submit. A circuit board will show up at your house in 3 days. I did this for a project in June and had one board built for the minimum charge of $65 (actually, you get 3 pcbs) and had a second board design done for $90, but I received 6 pcbs. If you choose the pcb approach, buy you components first and measure the lead diameters of the components. Size the holes in the pcb .015 inch greater than the diameter of the lead. For the 555 timer, that is a 8 pin package, so measure the distance between pins so it will fit in the pcb. You can use round holes even though the timer has rectangular pins. If you can't solder yet, its easy to learn. If you can't get the hang of it, I could install the parts for you, but you can do this. Learning to solder will cost less than shipping stuff back and forth. The guess of $6-8 for 100 is probably pretty good. But for your first one, no one is going to sell you one resistor, so you'll be buying minimums. Luckily though, they're less than 10 cents. Best wishes on your project. Chris | |||
| John (Cohiba_man)
Member Username: Cohiba_man Post Number: 326 Registered: 1-2003 |
PeterS I wrote you an email a couple days ago about distributors, did you get it? | |||
| Mike B (Srt_mike)
Member Username: Srt_mike Post Number: 395 Registered: 12-2002 |
Peter, We actually talked on the phone a few months back about packaging - not sure if you remember I work for... myself I guess. I started a company a couple of years back making electronics "stuff" for cars and bikes. We've brought several products to market, and one of the things I like to do is handle the supplier/production side, so I've dealt with various US and overseas suppliers of products and services, and I've sort of settled into a group of companies that give us great service, pricing, and all with good quality. So long as someone isn't competing with me , I'm happy to "share the knowledge" so to speak. | |||
| PeterS (Peters)
Intermediate Member Username: Peters Post Number: 1609 Registered: 1-2003 |
Mike B..I sold for Viasystems and made a killing in CM work, backplanes and box-builds for several years. Who do you work for? Drop me an email. | |||
| John (Cohiba_man)
Member Username: Cohiba_man Post Number: 324 Registered: 1-2003 |
PeterS, this is the same product we've been talking about through email, I sent you one last night. Mike, I got your email, and I'm on the road all today and I want to sit down and write you a decent email, so I'm going to do that tonight. For anyone else, the product must let the user select temp, and then sound an audio/visual (either one) alarm when it reaches that set temp, thats ALL it has to do, pretty simple. | |||
| Mike B (Srt_mike)
Member Username: Srt_mike Post Number: 393 Registered: 12-2002 |
Ben, Definitely feel free to PM me... I can't check my work email until I get to work on Monday, but feel free to email me at [email protected] and I can get your message and write back over the weekend. I shouldn't make it sound like I'm an expert or anything - cuz I'm not but I have gone through the process of coming up with an idea, prototyping it, refining it, making it into a PCB, setting up relationships overseas to get it made, and turning it into a 'real' product. Probably done that 20 times over the last 18 months. So any advice I can impart is something I'm happy to do. My company designs electronics products which we then have manufactured and we sell them, so it's not like we're a design house that does work for other folks for $$$ (i.e. like I said I'm not trying to find work, just happy to pass along any experience I have). I can most likely put folks in touch with the right folks to get the job done | |||
| PeterS (Peters)
Intermediate Member Username: Peters Post Number: 1607 Registered: 1-2003 |
John..The thermistor is a cheap item. Siemens makes millions of them for the auto industry. Do you need a positive or negative thermistor? They are just simple heat sensors, as you know. As far as a CM, I too made my living in a past life on selling electronic assembly. Let Mike B help you out. Being on FChat, he will probably do you right. As for the patent, market share is king. Having volume on the front-end and a supply chain of sales to get the product to market is the goal. If you product is that good that you will need a patent, you better have the money to fight for it when it gets ripped off...You have my #. Call me at your convenience. | |||
| Jaime T. Ferraris are sex on wheels (Chevarri)
Junior Member Username: Chevarri Post Number: 208 Registered: 1-2003 |
You could just bread board the design to make a working prototype. | |||
| DL (Darth550)
Member Username: Darth550 Post Number: 502 Registered: 7-2003 |
Ben, DL | |||
| Ben Cannon (Artherd)
Intermediate Member Username: Artherd Post Number: 1098 Registered: 6-2002 |
Hey Dave, talking with Steve right now, hashing our our goals and where/how he can fit in. Thanks for putting us in touch! I PM-d you to say thanks, did you get it? (if not, well, thanks again, I really appricate it! :D) Shoot me an e-mail at; [email protected] if you get a chance. Best! Ben. | |||
| DL (Darth550)
Member Username: Darth550 Post Number: 501 Registered: 7-2003 |
Ben Can, I hope Steve was of some help to you. I referred him, I hope you didn't mind. DL | |||
| Ben Cannon (Artherd)
Intermediate Member Username: Artherd Post Number: 1097 Registered: 6-2002 |
John- Untill we know a bit more about your project, it will be hard to give poinient advice. However, you may want to go with a microcontroler design (likely less cost, as you just need the controler, and the thermocouple, no other components really.) 8 and 16bit microcontrolers are getting DIRT cheap now, it's scary. Biggest question before you go any furthur is, what are the user-level needs? What does the user need to do with it? Set temps? How? How do they need to be alearted? PS: be careful about Inventor's Paranoia! Don't keep too tight a lid on your idea that you don't tell anyone about it, and never develop a market PPS: Patent the sucker right away! Get "Patent It Yourself" from amazon.com and spend the $400bux to file. (or even just $80 for a PPA and $400 in a year to file) DO IT NOW! Mike- I've got a need for some production engineering (we've got a functional prototype undergoing ASTM tests now.) for the outsource-to-China scene to which I am new (everything's been Domestic so far.) If you don't mind, I'll PM you ;) Best! Ben. | |||
| Mike B (Srt_mike)
Member Username: Srt_mike Post Number: 390 Registered: 12-2002 |
I emailed ya John... hope I can be of help | |||
| John (Cohiba_man)
Member Username: Cohiba_man Post Number: 322 Registered: 1-2003 |
What I will say though is that I will probably be producing in the tens of thousands, so thats very good news for my costs. BTW, if this type of thing is exactly what you do, I'd much rather deal with you and your company than some other name out of the phone book, so we could talk about that. You can email me at [email protected] or post your email. | |||
| John (Cohiba_man)
Member Username: Cohiba_man Post Number: 321 Registered: 1-2003 |
Hey, Mike, could I have your email address to send you the specific/answers to your questions? Since this is a brand new product (or at least a new application) I'd like to keep the real specifics of it a little private. Thanks. | |||
| Mike B (Srt_mike)
Member Username: Srt_mike Post Number: 389 Registered: 12-2002 |
John, This sort of stuff is my bread and butter... our company does electronics design and manufacturing. Well, we don't do the manufacturing, we outsource it to China. But we do design, prototyping, and small assembly. We don't do it on a contract basis (i.e. I'm not trying to sell you any services), but i would be happy to help you with this. It sounds to me like you really have a few things 'going on here'. 1) You need a circuit design that will allow a user to select a temperature and sound an alarm when that temp is hit 2) You need to cost the parts that will be required to build #1 3) You need someone to build you a prototype 4) You need someone to manufacture/assemble this in quantity, possibly, in the future. Have I got that right? It all starts with #1. You need to tighten up your requirements a little. Does the user need to set the temp in degrees or in ranges? What is the user input like? Like an "up" and "down" button or is flicking switches to set it OK? What is the "alarm" - audible? A light? Switch an external device? All of the above? There are a couple of ways you could do this... first would be an analog circuit - just like the circuit you showed. Downside is it's not super accurate or adjustable unless you use like a DIP switch. Second way is a microcontroller and temp sensor. More accurate and programmable, some programming required, but probably the same cost, although perhaps a bit lower. How will it be powered? Is battery life a concern? Does it need to function underwater? Temp extremes? Humidity? Longevity (years or decades or...?). There are probably circuits that already do exactly what you need. Do you *need* to start from scratch on this one? I mean, like at Radio Shack you can buy a temp probe with an alarm - used for things like monitoring cooking temps and the like. Ballpark estimate on pricing totally depends on how many you make. With the right suppliers, and with my ballpark guesstimate on components required, I would say maybe around $6-8 in parts (more if you need an LCD screen, etc), probably .50 for the circuit board, and maybe $2-3 to assemble. Figure about $10 each assembled.. that would be in quanties of 100-1,000 or so. Get into the 10's of 1000's and you can cut that in half EASILY, probably more like 1/3. Get into the millions and you can get it all made on a custom die and then you're looking and probably $1 or less per. First step is to very clearly define the requiremetns of the device though. | |||
| rob guess (Beast)
Member Username: Beast Post Number: 432 Registered: 5-2003 |
John; The circuit looks to be simple in design. if you want to make it cover several different temperatures, Just have a set of dip switches that will select the proper thermistor and R2 value for the temperature. That should not cost much more than just the basic single temp circuit shown in the PDF. Rob Guess "The Other Rob" | |||
| John (Cohiba_man)
Member Username: Cohiba_man Post Number: 319 Registered: 1-2003 |
Main thing I need to know is approx cost to produce something like this (simplest, cheapest way) and possibly a contact to a company who can build me a prototype. | |||
| John (Cohiba_man)
Member Username: Cohiba_man Post Number: 318 Registered: 1-2003 |
Here is a PDF with the basic idea (but mine needs programmable temperature, or if that is cost prohibitive, could in a pinch be preset single temperature to trigger the alarm). There is also a schematic of the circuit.
| |||
| John (Cohiba_man)
Member Username: Cohiba_man Post Number: 317 Registered: 1-2003 |
Hi, I am in the process of developing a new product I've invented, and I'm stuck now that I actually physically have to build the prototype. I was wondering if anyone had experience assembling simple circuits and such? I'm trying to build a thermistor (I believe that is the right term) to make a small programmable electronic thermostat, with an audible alarm when thermostat temperature is reached. Pretty simple I think, but I have no idea how to go about it, I do have schematics of the circuit for a thermistor. What I would like to know is what materials I'll need to build this (based on schematic if you can't visualize whats necessary) and about how much it will cost to build getting the materials at the cheapest cost possible. Also, if anyone knows a person or company who could build one of these for me I'd love to get in touch with them. Thanks. I'll post the thermistor schematic in a couple minutes. |
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