If you are an entrepreneur, startup, inventor, or small company developing a new electronic hardware product then you have come to the right place!
I’m John Teel, an electronics design engineer, entrepreneur, and the founder of Predictable Designs.
As a design engineer at Texas Instruments I designed many successful microchips. I also developed and manufactured my own hardware product that was sold in hundreds of retail stores.
Ultimate Guide - How to Develop and Prototype a New Electronic Hardware Product in 2024: predictabledesigns.com/guide
From Prototype to Production with the ESP32: predictabledesigns.com/esp32
From Arduino Prototype to Mass Production: predictabledesigns.com/from-arduino-youtube/
DESIGN REVIEW CHECKLISTS for the schematic circuit, PCB layout, and enclosure 3D model design: predictabledesigns.com/design-review-checklists-youtube/
Want my personal help? Check out my Hardware Academy: predictabledesigns.com/Academy
I made my first PCB my junior year in college. I remember uploading the files and asking my professor when the feeling of panic and apprehension would go away. He told me I would start feeling better after I had done 20+ boards. I had done 10+ by the time I graduated and who knows how many since that first one in 2006. By now I'm confident that feeling will never go away.
Altium is terrible and way overpriced. Plus they will borderline harras you to buy it if you get the trial. I suggest eadyeda it's easy to use and has a massive component library ready to go.
@@PredictableDesigns now you can make part with better quality using sls tech and good materials like nylon or C p12 ' and the result is the same and better is depends on the materials you use .
Are you the kid from the Mr Bean vacation video or related to him? You look so similar, and the timing is about right XD I am really glad I found your channel, enjoying it very much. Thank you
Hey Sir, I’ve been watching your videos across the board: electronics to injection molding. After watching your injection molding videos, I’m still unsure how to design parts that take the injection molding into account first. Is it possible to design injection molds with Fusion 360? It would be cool if you made a video that applies injection molding concepts using Fusion 360 or some other free CAD software.
Yes, you can absolutely use fusion 360 to design injected molded parts. That's the primary 3D design software I use these days. I do have several courses in my Hardware Academy on 3D design for injection molding using fusion 360, but I'll look into doing one on RU-vid soon too. Thanks for commenting!
When I started making PCB's in the mid 70's, I used everything from fingernail polish to tape on mylar sheet. Things have certainly come a long way. Like programming, it's become so easy and so cheap that every 9 year-old can do it. Almost takes the fun out of it, but not quite. 😄
Is there an MCU available today, even a very basic 8 bit one, that does not require an expensive hardware component (programmer) or a specific required IDE in order to program it? I have quite a few 12 to 24 VDC contraptions that I would like to develop, and have already started on the first. While MCU isnt strictly necessary in every application I have in mind, they could be helpful. In my case, arduino et al, as great as they are, would be overkill, with the vast majority of features unused. I want a MCU that I can program without expensive specialized hardware using code that I supply to it in Assembly or C written in any text editor I choose. Does such a thing exist? For now I am making my first version of my first project, and also going through the Mimms Radioshack learning lab circuits ... I realized at an early point that I needed to understand more about circuits than just wiring and programming a programmable IC. A lot of what I need can be done with non programmable ICs, like 555 or op amps. Enjoyed the video, new sub. Thanks for sharing, please be encouraged to keep sharing with us!
I love Arduino, mainly because how easy is to start with, the boards are usually well done. Now I'm trying to design own boards, Arduino and shields are good source of referece designs, such as power supply, mcu connections, antenna design, ,..
I've used eagles for a while Till one time i checked my designs And to my surprise I've found that i lost all my designs hours of works Because of a silly bug in this shitty software
Most have SPI and I2C controllers, but to execute program in such memory you must copy it in internal RAM and set that as executable. So that is a hassle and slows down execution, but you can store lots of data in I2C or SPI memories
YESSS. THANK YOU. My university makes us use Eagle for our courses but on the student design teams we use altium (it’s free for us since we are students) and eagle is SO BAD. It’s like nails on a chalkboard
Designing - producing - selling in highly competitive markets. No piece of cake. Specially when you are a newcomer. You have to have a promising IDEA and you have to have BALLS. Entrepreneurs are inspiring.
This is all great info, I am going through this process right now. I spent the last 7 years working for a startup until i left to start my own company. I know my product and market very well.
Was using kicad but notice jobs in my field all want altium including the work I currently has, luckily work pays for the license I might as well learn it
Hello John I appreciate your work on the Hardware Academy platform, but my observation is that the subscription prices on your platform are very high, which does not allow beginners or students to learn. Personally, I am a new graduate. I am trying to enter this field and learn from experienced people like you, but I cannot pay a large sum of money for this platform even though I love its content. This number is approximately equivalent to my income for more than two months in Africa. I hope that subscription prices will be reduced
Thank you for your thoughtful post, and I'm sorry it's not something you can afford. The standard plan is $97/month which is a bargain for those in many countries especially considering the amount of money it costs usually to develop and manufacture a new product. I'm not sure what the solution is, and I can't charge what seems affordable to you in a lower income country, because I live in a higher cost country:) I can't charge people different prices based on where they live either. Thankfully I do create a lot of free content too:) I also commonly hold open house events and open some courses for brief periods. For the private mentoring plan which is $2995/quarter, keep in mind that's more expensive because it's 1 on 1 with me so I have very limited capacity. Best wishes!
If you are after electronic design skills I would recommend you to start with capability to make plugin board for Arduino. And regarding product design, there are plenty of prefabricated equipment boxes which can be modified by hand or 3D printed parts.
yeah, but for that temp humidity example ESP 32 might actually be perfect because of the ULP capabiity and deep sleep features, plus wifi bluetooth and there are just bucketloads of them around
Hello! Great video. How would I modify this schematic to include the option of powering this setup using EITHER the usb source OR a battery, making it able to be entirely wireless?
The key was I had already made considerable progress. I had a late stage prototype, and most importantly I had written interest from a big company. All this showed them I can execute and I'm not just a dreamer with an idea. Hope this helps.
What is considered high speed frequencies? Is there a rule of thumb when to seriously consider delay lines (kHz, Mhz, GHz)? Or do you have to calculate it yourself every time?
Well already happened but no network access for this thing. You still have to certify and let you module be checked. Well the RF design is trivial for a real manufacturer that creates mass products.
I agree EAGLE was the worst user interface ever presented in a Windows environment. They reinvented what is a computer mouse and before interacting with an object you had to tell what to do. Especially MOVE was crazy where one click would stick the object to the pointer and the next click would unstick it. Also KiCAD is near crazy but not the user interface. Where EAGLE actually does a decent job. Associating a symbol with a footprint and then with a 3D appearance takes forever. There is an enormous lack of overview when libraries are loaded and inspected. The things it produces is ok, but working with components could have been arranged in one page. Sometimes you have to know you should DoubleClick an item because a right click does not offer the open function. The application is full of closed doors where you have to take another path.
The way I see it is, if you're a hobbyist making ESP32 boards with bad routing techniques, use KiCad which is quite decent. If you're a professional then use Altium Designer for complexil multilayer stackup impedance controlled high speed designs.
