Spend the extra to gold flash your edge connectors unless you want a painful chemistry lesson.
Lessons learned by a software guy venturing into hardware
31–40 of 58 posts
Re: Lessons learned by a software guy venturing into hardware
#32> Be Prepared to Lose All Your Money
In Taipei we have Fablab which has a CNC machine, laser cutter, multiple 3d printers, oscilloscope, and soldering irons, among a thousand other little bits and bobs. I'm guessing most cities have similar, and I've heard of phenomenal libraries with tools like this. It could be worth looking into this! Universities often have all the equipment you need as well.
Re: Lessons learned by a software guy venturing into hardware
#33I'm on a similar adventure right now, an ex-software person building a motorized iPhone stand that is Bluetooth controlled. It's been fun to see how with Fusion 360, a 3D printer, and JCLPCB you can build all kinds of devices. YouTube and GPT-4 are excellent tutors for hobbyists entering the hardware space. The 2 week wait for custom parts from China makes you realize the advantage they have over there when it comes…
The two week wait just tells me you don't value your time during the rapid prototyping stage. Why exactly do you need a manufacturing process during prototyping that is exactly the same as your manufacturing process? Ok the domestic manufacturer charges 50€ more for the same PCB (price at 10 units) but they offer rapid turnaround including shipping in three or even less days.
Re: Lessons learned by a software guy venturing into hardware
#34The point about "not doing something in hardware if can be done in software", is although mostly true, is less so when one takes FPGA into consideration, where the difference between hard in soft is blurred.
Yes, and when doing it in software makes no sense. We have GPUs for a reason, for example. (Yes I'm aware graphics can be done on the CPU but there's a reason GPUs are faster)
There is no such as an affordable GPU in the cloud. You won't stop me from software decoding and software rendering and software encoding everything.
Re: Lessons learned by a software guy venturing into hardware
#35I'm on a similar adventure right now, an ex-software person building a motorized iPhone stand that is Bluetooth controlled. It's been fun to see how with Fusion 360, a 3D printer, and JCLPCB you can build all kinds of devices. YouTube and GPT-4 are excellent tutors for hobbyists entering the hardware space. The 2 week wait for custom parts from China makes you realize the advantage they have over there when it comes…
The two week wait just tells me you don't value your time during the rapid prototyping stage. Why exactly do you need a manufacturing process during prototyping that is exactly the same as your manufacturing process? Ok the domestic manufacturer charges 50€ more for the same PCB (price at 10 units) but they offer rapid turnaround including shipping in three or even less days.
I think he's implying he buys his ICs and components from China instead of Amazon or somewhere local with fast shipping
Re: Lessons learned by a software guy venturing into hardware
#36>First and Most Important Lesson: If You’re Here for the Money, You’re in the Wrong Place It's worth reiterating this for college students, etc. considering going down the hardware path. While I got a tremendous amount more intellectual satisfaction by going for an electrical engineering degree instead of a CS or even CompEng one, that was because I realized CS was the kind of thing I would end up in anyway and would…
If you choose a field and career simply for the money, you are bound for rather sad life. There should be at least some personal interest behind that choice.
Re: Lessons learned by a software guy venturing into hardware
#37Just like "software" is a huge field with a wide variety of technologies, payscales, opportunities, and niches, so it is hardware. You wouldn't expect someone writing about the opportunities and lessons from the JavaScript/CSS frontend world to have a huge amount of insight into the work and opportunities of firmware developers. So it is with hardware, and personally it frustrates me when software people think they c…
As the author of the blog post, it’s disappointing to hear that you didn’t enjoy it. My article was never about claiming to be a hardware expert, but rather about sharing my personal experience as a newcomer for those interested.
What I find concerning is the unwelcoming attitude towards newcomers like myself, prevalent in some hardware and electronics communities. My critique in the article is directed at this exclusionary mindset. It’s important to remember that every expert started as a beginner, and a dismissive approach does not benefit the community. We all have unique contributions to make, and diminishing the experiences of newcomers isn’t constructive. Let’s focus on fostering a community where learning and growth are encouraged for everyone.
Re: Lessons learned by a software guy venturing into hardware
#38I'm on a similar adventure right now, an ex-software person building a motorized iPhone stand that is Bluetooth controlled. It's been fun to see how with Fusion 360, a 3D printer, and JCLPCB you can build all kinds of devices. YouTube and GPT-4 are excellent tutors for hobbyists entering the hardware space. The 2 week wait for custom parts from China makes you realize the advantage they have over there when it comes…
The two week wait just tells me you don't value your time during the rapid prototyping stage. Why exactly do you need a manufacturing process during prototyping that is exactly the same as your manufacturing process? Ok the domestic manufacturer charges 50€ more for the same PCB (price at 10 units) but they offer rapid turnaround including shipping in three or even less days.
It's not just the fab.
Have you found domestic assembly services that will take a hobbyist prototype order, charge less than $2k and turn in under 2 weeks (US or Euro)?
For ~100 SKUs and 200-400 placements.
Re: Lessons learned by a software guy venturing into hardware
#39One note on "If It Can Be Done with Code, Don’t Do It with Hardware" - there are times where locking things down in hardware is worth it. Things like safety and compliance for example - it is much easier to prove a hardware design is "safe" and fault tolerant than software.
Re: Lessons learned by a software guy venturing into hardware
#40The Author stated that they had experienced hostility when asking questions. While I'm not sure to what level their experience was, I can share the many times I've tried to answer a hardware question in many forums , I found the the individual who was asking was just looking for a quick working solution to their design idea (mostly a school project) and not really willing to take input on how to figure the solution o…
All I can do is point someone in the right direction and give a few things to read. But nobody wants to read.
Unfortunately, doing hardware is hard without reading. Lots of it. Choosing a part requires reading datasheets by the dozen or hundreds, so you get fast at skimming them but when you pick one and design its circuit, you need to read every damn page of that PDF. And then go and dig up the errata if it exists too.
Lots of knowledge about hardware exists either as institutional knowledge in people's heads or in books. But, electrons and physics still work the same way they did 30 years ago, so there's no reason you can't read an EE book from that long ago to get foundational concepts.
Coders (myself included) try to Google our way to the fastest solution to each problem. Why read API documentation if someone has a solution on stack overflow? Unfortunately papering over knowledge gaps will often explode in your face because there inevitably will be mistakes, and now you have to wait 4 weeks to respin and assemble a new board.
Long turn times and physical costs require a bit more level and less yolo in hardware. So there is no reason to become allergic to reading if you want to be in hardware.