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Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product

simonberens.com

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Re: Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product

#301

Post by michaelanckaert »

throwup238 wrote: post #255
rendaw wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I'm curious, if you give them a really detailed specification, will they actually follow it all? If they don't, do you have any recourse? Are these small shops/fronts that are constantly coming/going like Amazon sellers, or do they have reputations?

> Are these small shops/fronts that are constantly coming/going like Amazon sellers, or do they have reputations? Depends on the shop. The one I use for prototyping has been around for at least 15 years with a good reputation.

Do you mind sharing your contact / shop? Email in profile if you don't want to share publicly.

Re: Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product

#302

Post by weebull »

nomel wrote: post #194
ggm wrote: post #132

This is the second article about hardware supply from China I've read and it reads very much the same, albiet in a different niche (the other one was about SBC construction) -Anything you don't specify will be done least cost, and there is no amount of "least" which cannot be chased in manufacture. The other one noted if you don't specify the density of plastic for bags, or paper for bags and packing, you get clingfi…

Working with a Chinese vendors is an adversarial first relationship, where 差不多 is deeeeep in the culture (and, from my experience, tends to survive trips across the ocean). There are professional communication/training courses for working with Chinese vendors/colleagues that spell all of this out, because it's not some secret. It's just a very different culture, with high context communication (I'll let you read what…

Given that Mandarin has many forms of "yes", isn't the problem that all those forms map on to our singular "yes". For a native speaker "yeeeessss" means something very different to "yes", but they would use a different word.

Knowing which is being spoken or heard is going to be hard.

Re: Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product

#303

Post by KolmogorovComp »

bytesandbits wrote: post #210

I will never understand why when you expect to sell a few hundred units of a product at most, you would decide to go and build something in china. There are instances where building in china might make sense. this is not one of them! you can easily hand assemble everything yourself in America, since this was a 1-year long time-frame. There is phenomenal CNC shops in the east coast (and also some in the mid-west) if y…

I assume they plan/hope to sell much more than 500 units, and/or the profit margin is much higher with China manufacturing.

Re: Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product

#304

Post by rxt_ian »

phasetransition wrote: post #299
rxt_ian wrote: post #252

I'm curious that this story seems to be missing a big part of hardware design - certification. It seems like the design was being changed up to the minute these were shipped to customers, so it doesn't seem possible that any testing was carried out on the final design?

Given that these went straight to backers, and would have required the final die cast parts to test in the thermal chamber, they probably had not gone to an NRTL at the point the article had been written. This product is about at the point of DVT in development flow, and therefore would be sent to testing about now. But, instead, being sent to backers. PS, not a hypothetical circumstance for me. I've previously certi…

Totally agree, I've also done electronic design work in the lighting industry, though not enough to end up on any standards body.

I was trying to ask in as charitable way as possible...

Re: Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product

#305

Post by phasetransition »

sberens wrote: post #173
Scene_Cast2 wrote: post #129

Oh hey, I have one of these! I really like it. It's quite a unique design. People (especially where it snows and gets gloomy) should have more lumens, and I'd recommend this lamp for others. One downside is that the active fan cooling design is questionable - the air goes over the top of the LEDs, and there aren't any dedicated exit holes so the air is just squeezing through the very small gap between the glass and t…

Glad you like it - we're working on improving the airflow right now actually! Thanks for the feedback on the paint.

What is your TIM? Do you have a facing secondary on the interface surface?

What finishing process, thickness, overspray, masking requirements does your drawing package specify?

Re: Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product

#306

Post by detourdog »

jasonkester wrote: post #226
ggm wrote: post #132

This is the second article about hardware supply from China I've read and it reads very much the same, albiet in a different niche (the other one was about SBC construction) -Anything you don't specify will be done least cost, and there is no amount of "least" which cannot be chased in manufacture. The other one noted if you don't specify the density of plastic for bags, or paper for bags and packing, you get clingfi…

That's the thing that drives me nuts about buying stuff manufactured in China. They'll make this amazing Remote Control Car, with good suspension, a battery that lasts half an hour, plenty of power, and just all around amazing. But then it'll break after a day because somebody saved 1/20th of a penny by speccing this impossibly thin wire the thickness of a human hair to hook that powerful battery to the powerful moto…

I felt the same thing with GE home appliances. They would last forever if someone didn’t choose to make some little plastic thing so cheap.

Re: Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product

#307

Post by detourdog »

mlrtime wrote: post #295
jasonkester wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the thing that drives me nuts about buying stuff manufactured in China. They'll make this amazing Remote Control Car, with good suspension, a battery that lasts half an hour, plenty of power, and just all around amazing. But then it'll break after a day because somebody saved 1/20th of a penny by speccing this impossibly thin wire the thickness of a human hair to hook that powerful battery to the powerful moto…

You're not wrong, but there are 1000 of those rc cars, and maybe 20% have that feature you want, but everyone buys the cheapest because they don't know which has slightly better quality. Now go with Kyosho or Tamiya and you DO know it will be best in class, but at 10x the cost.

We live in an age where we can make our own inflation. We can choose between 2 products one with realistic expectations at greater cost and one that just looks like the other product but didn’t go the extra mile to ensure the product will function.

Re: Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product

#308

Post by fanatic2pope »

mmh0000 wrote: post #58

This is super interesting, and I'd actually be quite interested in buying a 60K-Lumen lamp... but not at $1200. Years ago, there was an HN article "You Need More Lumens"[1], which in turn led me down a rabbit hole. I ended up purchasing: 4 standard table lamps from Target, 28 2000-lumen Cree LEDs bulbs[2] and, 4 7-way splitters[3]. The end result is somewhere around 56,000 lumens. And I LOVE it. Makes me much happier…

Costco sells a ceiling light that does 24k lumens for just over $100.

https://www.costco.com/p/-/enbrighten-ultrabrite-hex-lights/...

Re: Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product

#309

Post by NooneAtAll3 »

lylejantzi3rd wrote: post #275
pinkmuffinere wrote: post #208

I would not advise jumping to mass production for your first deliveries, i think your story would have had less stress and more lower risk of failure of the first n (maybe 10?) units was bespoke, made lovingly by hand in a machine shop somewhere. I don’t think this is unusual advice, it matches the ethos of the lean startup, and pg’s “do things that don’t scale”. We made our first hardware by hand, i believe we did 1…

The product in question has a cast part. How do you do that in low quantity by yourself? Sand casting?

I wander what's the cost of (renting) metal 3D printers nowadays
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