Dear fellow startup entrepreneurs, hoping someone can point me in the right direction! I have been reading countless articles about going “from prototype to production” for hardware products, but they all cover such basic, high level topics.
What I haven’t been able to get details on is how to actually conduct the step of going from a working prototype (e.g. arduino, 3D printed parts, motors, etc) to optimized part selection for mass production (e.g. custom PCB with just the microcontroller, picking the right voltage converters, the wires, cheaper motors, etc.)…
I have a rough idea of steps such as Design for Manufacturing (DFM)/Injection molding/FCC Certifications/etc… but what I don’t get is how to go from off the shelf parts I’m getting off Amazon to better scalable and cost-effective versions for mass production?
My thought is that I should ideally have a pretty much final prototype of the final parts that will go into production before I pursue any sort of manufacturing.
Is that something I can do myself, or who do I look for with that sort of help?
You need to get a technical cofounder (I know its fucking hard) or outsource parts of your project.
Im doing hardware too as a solo founder and Im using affordable services from developers at the Fiverr platform.
The learning curve for manufacturing ready product is steep, and there are too many aspects, regulations and design requirements to be observed.
Injection molds are super expensive and can take months to be ready, so at this point any change on the product is going to increase drastically time and budget.
You are going to need technical drawings and different certifications that cost a couple of thousands of dollars too
I usually hire developers/engineers to make small tasks, see how they care and how much they know about the subject, like some kind of trials.
For example I work with 2 different 3D modeling professionals.
One is cheaper and with less experience, so I do the biggest part of editing the stl file with him and later send to the more expensive guy and with more expertise do the refinement.
Other guy is doing the PCB and another is 3D printing.
They send me all the parts and I assemble and test it at my garage and with a few users.
Every iteration helps me to check functionality, resistance and design patterns.
I guess when you get to the point where you have almost no changes between the last batch of prototypes, then you start to converting to a mass production design.
So if you are not sure about it, get someone technical with experience in manufacturing, go to conventions about manufacturing, talk with engineers and industrial designers.
Good luck!