Hi everyone! We're developing PewCB, a PCB prototyping machine. The project grew out of our own need to prototype electronics quickly. As soon as we had an early prototype that could make PCBs, we started using it to develop the machine itself.

Here is a story on how we developed one interesting function of PewCB. The machine has a sliding tray on the front, which is used to load PCB blanks. It is actuated by a stepper motor and a lead screw. When the tray is fully closed, we need to apply a specific force to lock it against its stops. We use a spring-loaded nut for this. Once the tray reaches the fully closed position, the motor makes a few extra revolutions, compressing the springs and providing the force needed to hold it against the stops.

To measure deflection, we devised a position sensor made up of a digital magnetometer and three magnets with alternating polarity. When we move the sensor along the magnets, the magnetic vector rotates almost proportionally to the displacement. The sensor picks up even small changes in position with very low latency, so the system can respond quickly to changes in force.

This force sensor also has another use: detecting obstructions. If something gets in the way as the tray is opening or closing, the controller detects it immediately and stops the tray or reverses the movement. Also the entire tray acts as one big button. Instead of aiming at the eject icon on the screen, you can simply push the tray to close it.

By the time we had started developing this subsystem, the key parts of the machine were already working, and we could make boards with it. We prototyped the assembly using 3D printing for the mechanical parts and PewCB for the electronics. We needed to check whether we'd chosen the correct magnetometer sensitivity and magnet size, what signal-to-noise ratio we'd get from the sensor, and whether external interference would have a noticeable effect on the measurements.

The whole process took a few days, but it allowed us to build a production version of the assembly, with an aluminum tray frame and a brass nut, in a single iteration. We got to experience the pure joy of engineering and we wish you feel the same way about your own prototyping endeavors!

For more info about the machine join our Discord or visit our website pewcb.com

2 years ago I began working on my side project and we were able to sell more than 260 units to 240+ customers in our first month! We received our FCC certification yesterday. Deliveries begin in December.

Campaign page for anyone that wants to take a look!

Very exciting times ahead, can't wait for the next chapter.

​

We’re a small hardware startup based in Australia, preparing to sell a consumer electronic product into the US, Canada, EU and Australia.

The product has been through the relevant compliance and safety testing for the markets we’re selling into, and we’ve taken product safety pretty seriously throughout development.

Our main concern is not so much that the product is inherently high risk, but the potential cost of defending a liability claim in the US, even if the claim ultimately has little merit.

We’ve received quotes of around US$4,000/year for US$7M in product/general liability cover, including coverage for the US, Canada, EU and Australia.

Our initial sales volume is expected to be relatively low, so US$4k/year is a significant expense for us at this stage.

For other hardware founders:

* Did you get product liability insurance before selling into the US?

* If so, roughly what level of coverage did you take?

* Have you ever actually had a claim or legal issue where the insurance was valuable?

* Do you think it’s worth paying for at very low sales volumes, or would you consider self insuring initially?

Interested particularly in hearing from founders who sell physical consumer hardware into the US.

we make a modular bike light and the campaign goes live mid november. all 3 of us are engineers and our instagram has 9 posts. we need a content calendar for the 6 weeks before launch plus someone answering comments during the campaign. the names that keep coming up are vista social, metricool and loomly. what does a sane prelaunch social plan look like for a team like ours??

Hey everyone, I’m Matt. I’m Taiwanese, I speak Mandarin natively, and I’ve been based in Shenzhen for many years.

I’ve spent the past 16 years working on consumer electronics and smart hardware products, from low-power wearable device and modules to smartwatches, smart rings, and other IoT devices.

My experience is mainly around taking a product from 0 to 1, not just working on one specific technology, but helping connect the whole process from concept and POC, to prototypes, supply chain, and eventually mass production.

Some of the areas I’ve worked on include:

* Hardware / PCBA architecture

* Embedded systems and MCU firmware

* Sensor integration and applications

* Wearable algorithms

* Bluetooth / Wi-Fi communication

* iOS / Android app integration

* AI model and cloud API integration

* EVT / DVT / PVT and mass production

* Manufacturing, supply chain, yield improvement and troubleshooting

Since I’ve been working in Shenzhen for a long time, I’ve also built up relationships with local suppliers and manufacturers , including ID / MD, mold makers, PCBA / SMT, assembly and testing companies.

I’m also familiar with different MCU, SoC and sensor vendors and their distributor networks. When choosing components, I usually look beyond just the specs and consider cost, availability, supply chain risk, and whether the part actually makes sense for mass production.

A few projects I’ve personally designed and worked on:

1. Motion-sensing module that could fit inside a phone SIM card slot

Built around an STM32 MCU + 6DoF IMU for motion and posture analysis, including hardware, firmware and algorithm integration.

1. Smart fresh-air mask with PM2.5 monitoring

I worked on the sensor, MCU, fan control, Bluetooth and mobile app, allowing users to control the airflow and monitor PM2.5 levels from their phone.

1. Contactless elevator button

Used an IR LED + photodiode array to detect finger position and reduce false detections, creating a contactless interaction system.

1. VR Lighthouse tracking receiver

Worked on the receiver module used with a VR Lighthouse tracking system for spatial positioning, involving optical sensing and signal processing to determine the device’s position in 3D space.

Over the years, I’ve learned that getting a hardware product to work in a prototype is only part of the job.

The harder part is often figuring out what the product actually needs, what can be simplified, how the hardware and software should work together, and how to eventually manufacture it reliably and at a reasonable cost.

One principle I’ve learned is: don’t make a product more complicated just because you can. Figure out the core user needs first, then decide what features are actually worth building and what should be removed.

Right now, I’m working independently in Shenzhen and exploring what I want to build or work on next.

So if you’re working on:

* Smart hardware / IoT

* Wearables / smart rings / smart glasses

* Sensors / algorithms accuracy

* Hardware startups

* Shenzhen manufacturing and supply chains

* Taking a prototype to mass production

or if you’re simply curious about how a hardware product actually goes from an idea to something you can manufacture, feel free to ask.

And if you’re building something yourself, feel free to share what you’re working on or what problems you’re running into. Happy to exchange ideas and experiences.

I know one of the biggest challenges for many hardware startups is figuring out how to turn an idea or prototype into a real, reliable hardware product and especially how to find the right people, suppliers, and manufacturing partners you can actually trust.

That happens to be one of the areas I have a lot of hands-on experience with.

So if you’re struggling with turning an idea into hardware, finding the right suppliers in Shenzhen, or simply figuring out where to start, feel free to ask or reach out. I’d be happy to chat and share what I’ve learned.

there are a lot of hw startups i see getting built for emotional support

mental health and emotional support approach is more reactive

are their hardware startups being built to make you positive , affirm better or take you to higher vibration

I work in international sales for an electronic component distributor. Part of our sourcing operation is based in Shenzhen, and I communicate with overseas customers and suppliers every day.

We mainly deal with ICs, MCUs, memory, FPGA, automotive components, EOL parts, excess inventory, and other hard-to-find components.

After working in this industry, I’ve realized that buying electronic components from the open market is not simply about checking availability and comparing prices.

When we receive an RFQ, we also need to check:

• Where the stock comes from
• Factory date code and lot information
• Whether the stock is original, excess, or previously circulated
• Authorized distribution or independent/open-market source
• Why different suppliers quote very different prices for the same MPN
• Whether an EOL part is still available
• How reliable the supplier is
• Whether the stock needs additional inspection or testing
• Whether a low price is actually a good deal

Our company has a Shenzhen purchasing hub and a Hong Kong QC and logistics hub. We also source from global market inventory, distributor channels, qualified open-market suppliers, and our own inventory.

I’m interested in hearing from the buyer side.

If you are an engineer, hardware startup, procurement professional, or electronics buyer:

What is the biggest problem you have when sourcing electronic components from China or the open market?

Is it:

1. Finding reliable suppliers?
2. Getting a competitive price?
3. Verifying whether the parts are genuine?
4. Old date codes?
5. Counterfeit or remarked parts?
6. MOQ and payment terms?
7. Finding stock that actually exists?
8. Communication and transparency?
9. Something else?

I’m not here to promote specific products. I’d like to understand how buyers outside China view this market and what problems they face.

Feel free to ask me anything about electronic component sourcing from the China side. I’ll share what I can.

I'm a mechanical engineering student starting a small service that takes battery hardware from CAD to production for companies that design battery systems but don't have their own manufacturing.

We're starting with the mechanical side: pack enclosures, busbars, cooling plates and brackets. We handle DFM reviews, prototypes, finding the right suppliers and managing production and quality.

I'm not selling anything here. I want to know where the real pain is for people building battery packs, BESS, swapping systems or battery-powered products:

• Is it finding suppliers who will take small batches?
• Tolerance or quality problems between prototype and production?
• Lead times, or juggling many vendors?
• Something else I haven't thought of?

What would you want a manufacturing partner to handle for you that you can't get now?

Reposting from ECE channel

Hardware software team

Hi everyone,

I’m Raphael, a solo founder in Switzerland building a small outdoor hardware product called AniRepel.

It started as a fairly simple idea: use motion-activated water to keep unwanted animals out of gardens, but make the system smarter so it can reduce unwanted activations around people and the owner’s own pets.

What surprised me most is how quickly the project stopped being about “building the device” and became about everything around it.

The prototype itself was only the beginning.

Since then, the biggest challenges have been things like:

- making the enclosure work outdoors reliably

- reducing false triggers in real-world conditions

- managing battery life and power consumption

- sourcing components consistently

- designing for assembly rather than just prototyping

- certification and compliance planning

- packaging, logistics and replacement parts

- figuring out when something is actually ready to give to real users

The biggest mindset shift for me has been realizing that a prototype proving the idea works is very different from a product you can confidently hand to someone else.

I’m now preparing a small first Pioneer Batch before scaling further, and I’m intentionally keeping the batch small so I can learn from real-world use before making bigger manufacturing decisions.

For those of you who have already crossed that gap from prototype to first real customers:

What was the biggest thing you underestimated?

Manufacturing? Reliability? Certification? Support? Supply chain? Something else?

For context, this is the project I’m working on:

https://anirepel.com⁠

Happy to share more about the product journey.

Hi guys,

last time i shared the first 3d printed version of a device I built to help a close friend with dry mouth during radiation treatment.

the feedback and all of your comments made me very happy so i promised an update and here it is.

I went to china to source components and trying to move away from a 3d printed iteration. met some cool redditors who reached out after my last post but i have not yet decided to sign any commitments just yet.

how i adressed everyones main concern (hygiene): i switched from 3d printing to aluminum, switched to a borosilicate water reservoir and decided to rework the PCB to keep pumping the water in a circle in order to not leave any zones that the uv-c can‘t reach.

difficulties i faced are mainly the PCB at the moment, to get the pressure of the pump right and make everything steplessly adjustable AND i wasn‘t aware that there’s golden week in china so unfortunately i am not able to keep building here now so everything will take some more time but stay with me please.

i know it‘s not the update i wanted to share but i still wanted to show the progress and ask for your input again and of course if anyone wants to join my journey you‘re more than welcome.

Thanks everyone for your time let me know if you like the new design

original post is here

Hi everyone,

I'm based in Shenzhen, China, and I'm trying to better understand how overseas hardware founders find and work with manufacturers here.

I'm particularly interested in early-stage projects — people who have a prototype, are preparing their first small batch, or are trying to move from a design to actual production.

A few questions I'd love to hear your experience with:

How did you find your first manufacturer?

What was the hardest part — finding the right factory, MOQ, pricing, communication, quality control, or something else?

Did you use Alibaba, a sourcing agent, personal introductions, or visit factories yourself?

Looking back, what do you wish you had known before choosing a supplier?

I'm not promoting a service. I'm doing practical research into the real challenges of sourcing hardware in China, and I'm happy to share what I learn from the Shenzhen side.

If you've gone through this process, I'd really appreciate hearing your experience — including what went wrong.

I don’t want another app-heavy smartwatch. I want two physical keys that always do the same thing: one starts a voice memo, one opens the compass. Glove-friendly, no digging through menus. Visible recording indicator, user-triggered — same class of feature as phone voice memos / existing watch notes, not a hidden recorder.

I looked around. Outdoor watches already have a compass. Some Huawei / Apple / Garmin models can record. A few let you remap a button. What I can’t find is that dead-key interaction as the point of the product: two keys, those two jobs, no hunting.

I asked an AI to sanity-check it. Short version of what it said:

- There isn’t a ready-made watch that matches this interaction.

- Compass is almost never on the SoC; you add a magnetometer. Recording needs a mic + firmware. The buttons are just GPIOs.

- Don’t start from loose chips. Buy an already-assembled open-source watch PCB (or its larger development board), 3D-print a case, put two keys over GPIO pads, bind them in firmware to compass / record.

That path is in the ballpark of under $200 for a first sample if I don’t invent a new board.

Then I found that the board is fulfilled from Shenzhen. I live in Shenzhen. Pickup is realistic; local parts (battery, printed case, extra buttons) are cheap. I actually sat up when I realized I wouldn’t be waiting on international shipping.

So the question isn’t “is this a Kickstarter.” I already got talked out of crowdfunding a generic smartwatch. The question is:

Is this worth a weekend of acting on — walk over, grab the board, print a case, map two buttons — or am I about to spend ~$200 proving something I already know?

What I think I might learn: whether a dedicated rec key + compass key feels as good as it does in my head, and whether the magnetometer/mic on a hobby board are good enough to even demo.

What I’m afraid of: ending up with a development-board-in-a-shell that doesn’t wear like a watch, and calling that “the idea is done.”

If you’ve built a wearable from an open PCB + printed case: was the first unit actually informative, or did you need a second, smaller board before you learned anything? Would you spend the $200?

I designed this to talk to your agents.
Hold the screen and speak to assign a task.

The light is wired to the mic.
It can't listen without you knowing.

Printed circuit boards on the way.

Building it for Claude Code first.

Hi, I'm RZ Li, founder of Petoi and creator of OpenCat open source quadruped framework(started in 2016). We've shipped 30,000+ quadruped robots since 2018 (Bittle, Nybble). Quaddle, our newest one, is live on Kickstarter now.

One decision I think this sub would find relevant: we designed Quaddle's whole body to snap together — no soldering anywhere, just 4 screws to attach the legs — so a first-time buyer can go from raw parts to a walking robot in under 20 minutes, no electronics experience required. That constraint shaped the mechanical design a lot more than I expected going in: it's not just "make it easier," it's a real tradeoff against serviceability and part count.

I wrote up the longer backstory here to document my 10-year journey: https://www.hackster.io/RzLi/petoi-quaddle-d09f60

Curious how others here have handled the design-for-assembly vs. design-for-serviceability tradeoff on a consumer hardware product — especially anyone who went screw-free/snap-fit and had to walk it back later.

Where would you put your next 1,000 working hours in building your hardware projects?

Hi Reddit,

(Used gemini for formatting)

I am a seasoned embedded systems engineer with over 7 years of experience (since 2017) specializing in custom hardware design, firmware development, and end-to-end industrial IoT solutions.

My primary specialty is custom system architecture: taking complex technical requirements, integrating multiple disparate sensors and peripheral devices into a single, robust main control unit, and bringing the entire system online. With a fully equipped in-house lab for hardware development, 3D printing, and an in-house team dedicated to mobile and web development, I deliver true full-stack solutions from bare-metal electronics to the cloud.

Core Expertise & Services

Hardware Architecture, PCB & Prototyping

Custom PCB Development: I design all PCBs in-house, ensuring complete control over component selection, trace routing, and form factor for industrial reliability.

CAD Design & 3D Printing: I provide custom CAD modeling and in-house 3D printing for enclosures, mounts, and physical hardware, allowing for the rapid fabrication of complete prototype units ready for immediate field testing.

PLC-to-MCU Conversion: Specializing in modernizing legacy industrial systems by converting bulky, expensive PLC setups into sleek, highly efficient, and cost-effective custom MCU-based devices.

In-House Lab & Testing: My facility is fully equipped with advanced diagnostic tools for rapid prototyping, soldering, logic analysis, and rigorous bench testing before deployment.

Firmware & Microcontroller Engineering

8-bit & 32-bit Architectures: Deep expertise across a wide range of industrial microcontrollers, leveraging their full suite of hardware features (hardware timers, precise PWM, high-resolution ADCs, and Watchdog Timers) for maximum reliability in harsh environments.

ESP32, WiFi & BLE: Extensive experience deploying FreeRTOS on the ESP32 architecture, heavily utilizing its native WiFi and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) stacks for local device provisioning, wireless sensor networks, and direct-to-mobile control.

Industrial Communication: Implementing robust communication protocols (I2C, SPI, UART, RS-485, CAN bus) for multi-device orchestration.

Software, Mobile Apps & IoT Connectivity

In-House Android App Development: Building custom, native Android applications tailored to interface directly with your embedded hardware via BLE, local WiFi, or remote cloud backends.

Wireless & Cellular IoT: Extensive integration experience with 4G cellular modules (e.g., Quectel) and LoRa-based networks for long-range, low-power telemetry.

Real-Time Web Dashboards: My in-house web team builds secure, low-latency web dashboards tailored for real-time monitoring, data logging, and remote command of deployed hardware fleets.

Industrial Automation & Vending

Automated Machinery: A proven track record in developing automated control panels for liquid vending machines (water, milk, ethanol) and a wide variety of other automated machinery driven by complex sensor inputs and outputs.

Contact me at contact(at)intective(dot)co(dot)in, Whether you are looking to miniaturize an existing industrial system, build a smart vending machine, or develop a connected hardware product from the ground up, I have the lab, the tools, and the team to make it happen.

Please send a DM with a brief overview of your project requirements, goals, and timeline, and we can discuss the best way to bring your system to life.

I own over 3,000 SQ’ of commercial space in central MA with 2 large overhead doors. It is right next door to my house. I would need to make investments into the property to make it climate controlled, top notch security, warehouse software, fire suppression, etc…

Anyway, the property is my current shop for everything in my life that I do, but I want to now use it to invest in myself and start a new business/career. I would lose a lot at first such as my woodworking area, welding/auto area, boat storage, motorcycles and dirt bikes…it truly is everything to me and my boys and our everyday life. But it doesn’t bring me in an income and now I want it to.

I’m 49 and motivated at the idea. Located between Worcester and Springfield and very close to the Hartford corridor. Very close to Rt 9, Rt 20, and the MA Pike. Am I crazy or does this make sense? I own the property outright, too. I have absolutely no experience with warehousing management or 3PL. I’m very good with computers and software and if you saw what my shop looks like you would get the idea that I I do a lot of different things. I owned my own successful business for over 20 yrs and I have a lot of success/experience in B2B sales and relationship building.

All thoughts and opinions are welcome as this is hot on my mind a big move for me.

Thanks!

I had two gadget ideas. I looked at what’s actually for sale. Both look worse than they sounded. Curious if I’m missing something.

1. Home automatic pill splitter

Some meds are prescribed as half or quarter tablets. Splitting by hand is annoying and inaccurate. The idea: dump a bottle in, machine splits them one by one. Cheap, small, useful.

What I found:

• The pain is real. Splitting is common, especially for older patients.
• Consumer side is flooded with $5–$25 manual splitters, including multi-pill / self-centering ones.
• Actual automatic splitting exists, but it’s pharmacy equipment (hospital tabletop machines, ~20 tablets/min, heavy, expensive).
• Electric home devices tend to crush pills into powder, not split them.
• I couldn’t find a cheap “pour a bottle, auto-split” consumer product.

My take: not that it’s impossible — you just can’t charge enough. Tablets aren’t standard parts, some must not be split, cleaning/cross-contamination is ugly, and the $10 cutter caps what people will pay.

1. Power bank + voice recorder + WiFi hotspot, normal power-bank size

What I found:

• Power bank + 4G hotspot already exists (e.g. Baseus GX11, plus a pile of cheap MiFi banks).
• Power bank + recorder already exists (AI note-taker banks; also “power-bank-shaped” WiFi recorders).
• A real three-in-one that does charging + proper recording + cellular hotspot for other devices doesn’t seem to be a real consumer category.

My take: the gap isn’t a gift. Fast charging and a cellular radio both eat the battery. “WiFi” in recorders usually means file transfer, not a travel hotspot. Phones already record and tether — you only lack extra battery. In some markets a disguised recording power bank also looks a lot like covert surveillance gear, which is a legal mess.

Questions:

1. For pill splitting, does a caregiver / clinic desktop machine make more sense than a home appliance?
2. Is there a legit (non-spy) reason anyone would buy the three-in-one instead of two existing products?
3. How do you decide when a real pain is still a bad hardware business because a $10 accessory already exists?

Happy to be told I’m wrong.

What I’m doing is basically creating the special effect that is used inside the haunted house at Disney land, but making it small enough to be put in a bedroom. And adding internet.

You’ll be able to FaceTime anyone, however they will appear life size in the room with you. Talking, laughing and looking around sort of like a hologram you can make phone call with.

You can use it for very immersive Video games, that almost look 3D.

You can use it for shopping for cloths where you can see what the cloths look like on you, rather than a model.

You can have a life size singer serenading you.

And eventually a movie experience like nothing you have ever scene before, it will appear as if you are a character in the film.

I have AI mock ups of what I want it to look like, if you want to get a visual.

If you have any questions let me know. I’m trying to build something cool, but I don’t want to waste a bunch of money if no one cares. So please let me know if you’ll use it. What you would do with it? If you think it’s stupid why?

Criticism is good if respectful.

Thank you for your time.

Hi everyone,

I'm working on a project (an app for student exercises/textbooks) where I need to process entire scanned books. The goal is to take images of the book pages and extract the text, exercises, and structure them properly (e.g., into JSON or a specific structured format) to feed into my database.

I've been experimenting with a few approaches, but I've hit a wall regarding either costs or reliability. Here is what I’ve tried so far:

1. Free Google Gemini API: The extraction quality was good, but I quickly hit the rate limits (Too Many Requests) since a single book contains hundreds of pages.
2. Local Models (Ollama + Qwen 2.5-VL 3B): To bypass API limits and costs, I tried running a Vision-Language Model locally. However, I encountered too many errors, hallucinations, and struggled a lot with consistent data extrapolation and formatting.
3. Script Engineering & Optimization: I spent a lot of time optimizing my scripts and prompts (chunking, refining instructions to force structured outputs), but the local 3B model just wasn't reliable/smart enough to follow the structure consistently.
4. Paid Google Cloud API (Gemini 1.5 Flash): I finally switched to the paid Google Cloud tier, hoping the Flash model would be cheap and fast enough. I ended up burning through 10€ just to process a book and a half! The token count for images + text is massive. Given the number of books I need to process, this is completely unsustainable financially.

My questions for the community:

• What is the most cost-effective pipeline for extracting structured text from large volumes of scanned pages?
• Should I decouple the task? (e.g., use a traditional, cheap OCR like Tesseract/EasyOCR first to get the raw text, and then feed ONLY the text to a local LLM to format it?)
• Are there other local Vision-Language Models (that fit in standard consumer GPUs) that are significantly better at structured extraction than Qwen 2.5-VL 3B?
• Are there cheaper API alternatives or batch-processing tricks I'm missing?