"Maker board"

In article <o9kk5v$qtg$1@dont-email.me>, rickman  <gnuarm@gmail.com> wrote:

>On 3/6/2017 4:19 PM, Steve Pope wrote:

>> I have not yet used a Pi, but did propose
>> using one for a recent low-budget project.  The same project would have
>> also needed an additional custom board containing mostly thru-hole
>> components but some number of surface mount.  As was pointed out
>> upthread, modern CPU's/RAM's cannot really be included on the cheap in
>> a custom board.

>Depends on what you mean by cheap.  BGA is not hard to use and 
>everything else is durn easy.  Cell phone type CPUs are BGA only, but 
>embedded ARM Cortex M type CPUs are easy to find in leaded (QFPs, SOIC, 
>TSSOP, etc) and non-leaded packages (QFNs).
>
>I think the bigger issue is simply do you want to roll a board or not? 
>Once you are rolling a board it is cheaper to ditch the through hole 
>stuff, they have to be hand inserted, and put it all on one board unless 
>there is a reason to modularize.

Right.

In the above I forgot to add the scope of the above project would have
been like three boards -- not a product design.

Steve

On Mon, 6 Mar 2017 16:41:11 -0500, rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> wrote:

>On 3/6/2017 4:22 PM, eric.jacobsen@ieee.org wrote:
>> On Mon, 6 Mar 2017 15:58:09 -0500, rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On 3/6/2017 3:18 PM, eric.jacobsen@ieee.org wrote:
>>>> On Mon, 6 Mar 2017 14:45:47 -0500, rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On 3/6/2017 1:15 PM, Tim Wescott wrote:
>>>>>> On Mon, 06 Mar 2017 06:37:01 +0000, Steve Pope wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Les Cargill  <lcargill99@comcast.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Steve Pope wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I've recently seen in job listings, contract requirements etc.
>>>>>>>>> references to desiring engineers who are "experienced with Maker
>>>>>>>>> boards".
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> What exactly is a Maker board?  I gather it's not a brand name,
>>>>>>>>> but some general concept ... it sounds a little new-age or something.
>>>>>>>>> Is there a specific meaning?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Arduinos and Raspberry Pi are market leaders in "maker" market space.
>>>>>>>> "Maker" is a sort of movement where kids learn electronics in a club
>>>>>>>> environment using these and small breadboard-style peripherals.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Sounds great.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Maybe my concern is a prospective cutomer will take the stance that, a
>>>>>>> consultant would usually charge $80K to do a certain design,
>>>>>>> but with a "Maker Board" they can do it for $10K.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> My larger concern is .. they might be right.  :--)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Then we consultants should learn to do one-offs with maker boards!
>>>>>
>>>>> Who doesn't?  Why would anyone *not* use a production board for a design
>>>>> if the volume isn't thousands?  But if the term "maker board" is limited
>>>>> to the low cost units made for the hobbyist market, then I say there is
>>>>> a much smaller market for commercial use than boards made by a
>>>>> commercial vendor.  The Beagle Board and rPi seem to be stable
>>>>> platforms, but you can't count on compatible units remaining in
>>>>> production for a long time.
>>>>>
>>>>> The cost of having to port software even between an rPi and an rPi 3 is
>>>>> *much* more than the savings of not using a commercial unit available
>>>>> for 10 years.  It all depends on the project requirements.
>>>>
>>>> A large number of the cheapie boards run Linux on ARM cores, e.g.,
>>>> Beagle Bone, RPi, CHIP, Orange Pi, are essentially all software
>>>> compatible.  i.e., executable developed on one will run on any of
>>>> them.
>>>>
>>>> Even if they're not ARM, if it's a reasonable Linux distribution it's
>>>> often just a recompile to port to a different platform.   This assumes
>>>> that you've been careful about library usage, etc.
>>>
>>> It also assumes you are doing work that doesn't actually *use* the
>>> features of the board such as I/O.  The TI chip the Beagle uses has
>>> auxiliary processors.  You would need a cloned board to port that code.
>>> There's often a lot more to embedded apps than network calls.
>>
>> That was essentially the caveat on libraries that I made.
>>
>>>>>> It's also good to educate customers on how, while our bit looks
>>>>>> impressive as a line item, it's just one part of a larger whole, and we
>>>>>> (hopefully) know how to do our work to minimize the rest of the life-
>>>>>> cycle costs.
>>>>>
>>>>> Mostly that comes from not buying low priced, but short lived hobbyist
>>>>> hardware.
>>>>
>>>> This is a concern, but not a big one.   Even the mainstream
>>>> development hardware is often a fast-moving target with short life
>>>> cycles.
>>>
>>> And the short life cycle products are mostly the higher volume products.
>>>  Short life cycles don't mesh well with high NRE like custom
>>> development.  Most projects with limited production and significant
>>> software development will either be long life cycle products or if short
>>> life cycle have high profitability which we all know is not so easy to
>>> find.  These are relatively infrequent or we here would all be
>>> millionaires.
>>
>>>> I think the "maker" and hobbyist hooks in the cheapie dev
>>>> platforms actually make them live longer.   For example, Arduinos have
>>>> been around for how long now?   Way longer than most professional
>>>> development platforms.   The Beaglebone has been around for a long
>>>> time and was one of the first low-cost Linux-ARM platforms and still
>>>> enjoys a lot of use, I'm sure patly because the hardware is totally
>>>> open-source.   There are still people making special-purpose stuff
>>>> that is pretty much just a Beaglebone board with a few hacks to place
>>>> some specialized hardware on the board.
>>>
>>> Your definition of "a long time" is different from mine.  The BeagleBone
>>> (BB) was introduced less than six years ago and is not totally
>>> compatible with the BeagleBone Black (Black) which was introduced not
>>> quite four years ago.
>>
>> Cycles move quickly these days.   Not keeping up means early
>> obsolescence to competitors that do.
>
>Low volume designs can't afford to redesign every couple of years.  High 
>volume designs don't need maker boards.

There are many low-volume applications that can afford frequent spins.
There are a number of markets where the electronics are the "cheap"
part of the system or the margins are high enough that the design
refreshes are worthwhile.

Low-cost, low-margin applications can benefit even more from the
cheapie "maker" board, because they update frequently.   So from that
perspective it can be easy for a low-volume application to update for
cost savings or other reasons.

>
>>> Before the Black was introduced I inquired about the future availability
>>> of the BB and was told to *not* design it into any products unless I was
>>> willing to build my own hardware.  They were not interested in
>>> supporting commercial apps meaning, they wanted to be able to make revs
>>> to the design without worrying about maintaining compatibility.
>>>
>>> I haven't inquired about the Black in this same way, so I don't know if
>>> they support commercial use or not.
>>
>> It's open-source, and TI doesn't care.   There really isn't a "they"
>> any more.   Using the design means populating TI parts, so they're
>> happy for people to run with it.
>
>You are confused.  My comments were about *using* the Beagle boards in 
>commercial work, not copying them.  They recommend you do your own 
>production for commercial work.  The design is open source, but for a 
>low volume project, why would you want to pay for ramping production, 
>debugging, etc???

Using one or not will just depend on the requirements for the
particular system.  I still don't know who "they" is, but there's
nothing stopping anybody from sticking a COTS board in a box to do a
job and this is done more than some people might expect.

>>> THAT is the big difference between "maker" boards and commercial
>>> hardware.  With commercial hardware your app will continue to run for
>>> the life of the product.  That is why companies like BittWare, Signatec,
>>> RTD Embedded Technologies and many others exist.
>>
>> Actually, the "maker" boards generally *are* commercial hardware.  And
>> my experience hasn't matched yours on "pro" platforms supporting
>> legacy users.   You're always at risk to market forces, and if there's
>> not continued money in supporting your chosen platform, don't be
>> surprised to become an orphan.
>
>Which of the above companies ditched you?  I've had chips obsoleted, but 
>that was after more than 13 years in production.  I can still buy them 
>from a 1st tier disti who bought around 100k of them.  Commercial boards 
>are typically not removed from production until a chip is EOL'd.  Once a 
>board is in production the costs of maintaining that is minimal.  The 
>price may go up as the production volumes go down, but why kill a cash cow?

I wish I could remember all of them to count how many times over my
career redesigns or development path changes had to happen because a
supplier or expected supplier unexpectedly dropped support of
something.    This happens with big or small suppliers.  

>>> If your application really only needs a few years of production or can
>>> afford a porting effort, then low cost units suffice.  But if low cost
>>> matters, you likely aren't in high volume and low price isn't a real
>>> factor.
>>>
>>>
>>>> So I think many of the cheap hobbyist hardware platforms actually wind
>>>> up with longer life cycles than pro stuff.
>>>
>>> Only if you don't mind paying for the software over and over again.
>>
>> What software?   One big reason to use the Linux platforms is that
>> much of the support and tools are open-source and free, not to mention
>> the OS itself.
>
>The software that is written for the app!  If it is anything other than 
>simple networking code, it uses features of the board that may be 
>different in new versions.  Even the BeagleBone and BBB are not 100% 
>compatible in I/O etc.

Again, that just depends on how careful you are on modularizing
dependencies on libraries or various interfaces.  These days it's even
easier to make things modular or platform portable, e.g., use a USB
interface (or any standard interface with library support) to
application-specific hardware.   The demodulator I linked was
developed on a BBB, but so far has ported with no changes to a wide
range of Linux/ARM platforms, and just recompiles to other platforms.
A little bit of planning helps.

>>>>>> My biggest concern about designing such a thing into a project is the
>>>>>> quality and product lifetime of the board -- I'd certainly brief a
>>>>>> prospective customer on said concerns if that's how they wanted to go.
>>>>>
>>>>> Yes, exactly.  But there are applications with short product lives or
>>>>> that are not very hardware dependent.  This is a factor that needs
>>>>> careful consideration.
>>>>
>>>> For something like the BBB (Beaglebone Black), the hardware (board)
>>>> design is open-source and free.   Even if the multiple vendors all
>>>> stop making it, you can ramp it yourself as much as needed.
>>>
>>> Avoiding making a board is the whole point to using a COTS product.  I
>>> made a lot of money supplying a custom board to a major networking
>>> company, mostly because they didn't want to incur the cost of ramping up
>>> production.  There's a lot more to building a board than having the BOM
>>> and artwork.  BTW, they already owned the design, they paid me to do
>>> that so it was theirs to begin with.
>>
>> Good for you, but there are many reasons to elect to use or not use
>> any COTS or custom platform, and there are many reasons why even a
>> tiny company may elect to do custom hardware rather than COTS, for
>> large or small quantities.  It's a big world out there with lots of
>> crazy stuff going on, so the solution spaces vary greatly.   The
>> cheapie "maker" or "embedded" platforms are just one potential
>> direction among many, but for some applications they're an easy way to
>> get stuff done quickly and cheaply.
>
>Yep, there is a market for "maker" boards, but that is limited to 
>products at lower volumes and a short life span.  The basic tradeoff is 
>NRE vs. recurring costs.  Low volume jobs need to minimize NRE and so 
>can use "maker" boards as long as there is no need for a long life span. 
>  That usually means not much profit so again, a squeeze on NRE.
>
>If it isn't worth spending some money on, there isn't much money to get 
>from it.

It's just another tool in the box that can be very useful.



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On Mon, 6 Mar 2017 21:19:53 +0000 (UTC), spope33@speedymail.org (Steve
Pope) wrote:

>Tim Wescott  <seemywebsite@myfooter.really> wrote:
>
>>On Mon, 06 Mar 2017 06:37:01 +0000, Steve Pope wrote:
>
>>> Les Cargill  <lcargill99@comcast.com> wrote:
>
>>>>Steve Pope wrote:
>
>>>>> I've recently seen in job listings, contract requirements etc.
>>>>> references to desiring engineers who are "experienced with Maker
>>>>> boards".
>>>>>
>>>>> What exactly is a Maker board?  I gather it's not a brand name,
>>>>> but some general concept ... it sounds a little new-age or something.
>>>>> Is there a specific meaning?
>
>>>>Arduinos and Raspberry Pi are market leaders in "maker" market space.
>>>>"Maker" is a sort of movement where kids learn electronics in a club
>>>>environment using these and small breadboard-style peripherals.
>
>>> Sounds great.
>
>>> Maybe my concern is a prospective cutomer will take the stance that, a
>>> consultant would usually charge $80K to do a certain design,
>>> but with a "Maker Board" they can do it for $10K.
>
>>> My larger concern is .. they might be right.  :--)
>
>>Then we consultants should learn to do one-offs with maker boards!
>
>Certainly we should.  I have not yet used a Pi, but did propose 
>using one for a recent low-budget project.  The same project would have
>also needed an additional custom board containing mostly thru-hole
>components but some number of surface mount.  As was pointed out
>upthread, modern CPU's/RAM's cannot really be included on the cheap in 
>a custom board.  
>
>>My biggest concern about designing such a thing into a project is the 
>>quality and product lifetime of the board -- I'd certainly brief a 
>>prospective customer on said concerns if that's how they wanted to go.
>
>I believe the Pi design is open and you can copy it.  (Check on this
>first before doing it!) But you'd still have to worry about sourcing
>all the components they used.
>
>Steve

As far as I know only the Beaglebone and Orange Pi are open-source and
make the hardware design files available.   Beaglebone was an effort
by TI and Avnet to sell parts, so they're more than happy if people
hack it up and customize it.   I think Orange Pi may be the same sort
of thing, but with offshore suppliers behind it. 



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On 3/6/2017 5:21 PM, eric.jacobsen@ieee.org wrote:
> On Mon, 6 Mar 2017 16:41:11 -0500, rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 3/6/2017 4:22 PM, eric.jacobsen@ieee.org wrote:
>>> On Mon, 6 Mar 2017 15:58:09 -0500, rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 3/6/2017 3:18 PM, eric.jacobsen@ieee.org wrote:
>>>>> On Mon, 6 Mar 2017 14:45:47 -0500, rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On 3/6/2017 1:15 PM, Tim Wescott wrote:
>>>>>>> On Mon, 06 Mar 2017 06:37:01 +0000, Steve Pope wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Les Cargill  <lcargill99@comcast.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Steve Pope wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> I've recently seen in job listings, contract requirements etc.
>>>>>>>>>> references to desiring engineers who are "experienced with Maker
>>>>>>>>>> boards".
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> What exactly is a Maker board?  I gather it's not a brand name,
>>>>>>>>>> but some general concept ... it sounds a little new-age or something.
>>>>>>>>>> Is there a specific meaning?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Arduinos and Raspberry Pi are market leaders in "maker" market space.
>>>>>>>>> "Maker" is a sort of movement where kids learn electronics in a club
>>>>>>>>> environment using these and small breadboard-style peripherals.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Sounds great.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Maybe my concern is a prospective cutomer will take the stance that, a
>>>>>>>> consultant would usually charge $80K to do a certain design,
>>>>>>>> but with a "Maker Board" they can do it for $10K.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> My larger concern is .. they might be right.  :--)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Then we consultants should learn to do one-offs with maker boards!
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Who doesn't?  Why would anyone *not* use a production board for a design
>>>>>> if the volume isn't thousands?  But if the term "maker board" is limited
>>>>>> to the low cost units made for the hobbyist market, then I say there is
>>>>>> a much smaller market for commercial use than boards made by a
>>>>>> commercial vendor.  The Beagle Board and rPi seem to be stable
>>>>>> platforms, but you can't count on compatible units remaining in
>>>>>> production for a long time.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The cost of having to port software even between an rPi and an rPi 3 is
>>>>>> *much* more than the savings of not using a commercial unit available
>>>>>> for 10 years.  It all depends on the project requirements.
>>>>>
>>>>> A large number of the cheapie boards run Linux on ARM cores, e.g.,
>>>>> Beagle Bone, RPi, CHIP, Orange Pi, are essentially all software
>>>>> compatible.  i.e., executable developed on one will run on any of
>>>>> them.
>>>>>
>>>>> Even if they're not ARM, if it's a reasonable Linux distribution it's
>>>>> often just a recompile to port to a different platform.   This assumes
>>>>> that you've been careful about library usage, etc.
>>>>
>>>> It also assumes you are doing work that doesn't actually *use* the
>>>> features of the board such as I/O.  The TI chip the Beagle uses has
>>>> auxiliary processors.  You would need a cloned board to port that code.
>>>> There's often a lot more to embedded apps than network calls.
>>>
>>> That was essentially the caveat on libraries that I made.
>>>
>>>>>>> It's also good to educate customers on how, while our bit looks
>>>>>>> impressive as a line item, it's just one part of a larger whole, and we
>>>>>>> (hopefully) know how to do our work to minimize the rest of the life-
>>>>>>> cycle costs.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Mostly that comes from not buying low priced, but short lived hobbyist
>>>>>> hardware.
>>>>>
>>>>> This is a concern, but not a big one.   Even the mainstream
>>>>> development hardware is often a fast-moving target with short life
>>>>> cycles.
>>>>
>>>> And the short life cycle products are mostly the higher volume products.
>>>>  Short life cycles don't mesh well with high NRE like custom
>>>> development.  Most projects with limited production and significant
>>>> software development will either be long life cycle products or if short
>>>> life cycle have high profitability which we all know is not so easy to
>>>> find.  These are relatively infrequent or we here would all be
>>>> millionaires.
>>>
>>>>> I think the "maker" and hobbyist hooks in the cheapie dev
>>>>> platforms actually make them live longer.   For example, Arduinos have
>>>>> been around for how long now?   Way longer than most professional
>>>>> development platforms.   The Beaglebone has been around for a long
>>>>> time and was one of the first low-cost Linux-ARM platforms and still
>>>>> enjoys a lot of use, I'm sure patly because the hardware is totally
>>>>> open-source.   There are still people making special-purpose stuff
>>>>> that is pretty much just a Beaglebone board with a few hacks to place
>>>>> some specialized hardware on the board.
>>>>
>>>> Your definition of "a long time" is different from mine.  The BeagleBone
>>>> (BB) was introduced less than six years ago and is not totally
>>>> compatible with the BeagleBone Black (Black) which was introduced not
>>>> quite four years ago.
>>>
>>> Cycles move quickly these days.   Not keeping up means early
>>> obsolescence to competitors that do.
>>
>> Low volume designs can't afford to redesign every couple of years.  High
>> volume designs don't need maker boards.
>
> There are many low-volume applications that can afford frequent spins.
> There are a number of markets where the electronics are the "cheap"
> part of the system or the margins are high enough that the design
> refreshes are worthwhile.

You aren't making sense.  It isn't the hardware that we are talking 
about getting redone, it is reworking the software to match the 
hardware.  If it is a low volume app, it is hard to pay for NRE.  Jobs 
where the margins are high are few and far between because they get 
grabbed quickly and if competitive the margins drop quickly.

High margin jobs are usually low volume and are limited by how much can 
be spent on the NRE.  If they weren't high margin they wouldn't get done 
at all.


> Low-cost, low-margin applications can benefit even more from the
> cheapie "maker" board, because they update frequently.   So from that
> perspective it can be easy for a low-volume application to update for
> cost savings or other reasons.

Low cost low margin only makes sense with high volume.  Then custom 
hardware does *exactly* what is needed without paying for extra 
features.  This is basic economics.


>>>> Before the Black was introduced I inquired about the future availability
>>>> of the BB and was told to *not* design it into any products unless I was
>>>> willing to build my own hardware.  They were not interested in
>>>> supporting commercial apps meaning, they wanted to be able to make revs
>>>> to the design without worrying about maintaining compatibility.
>>>>
>>>> I haven't inquired about the Black in this same way, so I don't know if
>>>> they support commercial use or not.
>>>
>>> It's open-source, and TI doesn't care.   There really isn't a "they"
>>> any more.   Using the design means populating TI parts, so they're
>>> happy for people to run with it.
>>
>> You are confused.  My comments were about *using* the Beagle boards in
>> commercial work, not copying them.  They recommend you do your own
>> production for commercial work.  The design is open source, but for a
>> low volume project, why would you want to pay for ramping production,
>> debugging, etc???
>
> Using one or not will just depend on the requirements for the
> particular system.  I still don't know who "they" is, but there's
> nothing stopping anybody from sticking a COTS board in a box to do a
> job and this is done more than some people might expect.

No one said you can't use a Beagle board.  But Beagle (I specifically 
conversed with the guy behind it all) may change their boards at their 
whim and have.  They have removed some features.  That's why they say 
*don't use these boards for commercial work*.  The big name (and often 
big buck) vendors don't do this without advance notice at least if at 
all.  Even then they only make mods when required by a bug usually.


>>>> THAT is the big difference between "maker" boards and commercial
>>>> hardware.  With commercial hardware your app will continue to run for
>>>> the life of the product.  That is why companies like BittWare, Signatec,
>>>> RTD Embedded Technologies and many others exist.
>>>
>>> Actually, the "maker" boards generally *are* commercial hardware.  And
>>> my experience hasn't matched yours on "pro" platforms supporting
>>> legacy users.   You're always at risk to market forces, and if there's
>>> not continued money in supporting your chosen platform, don't be
>>> surprised to become an orphan.
>>
>> Which of the above companies ditched you?  I've had chips obsoleted, but
>> that was after more than 13 years in production.  I can still buy them
>>from a 1st tier disti who bought around 100k of them.  Commercial boards
>> are typically not removed from production until a chip is EOL'd.  Once a
>> board is in production the costs of maintaining that is minimal.  The
>> price may go up as the production volumes go down, but why kill a cash cow?
>
> I wish I could remember all of them to count how many times over my
> career redesigns or development path changes had to happen because a
> supplier or expected supplier unexpectedly dropped support of
> something.    This happens with big or small suppliers.

Sure, products have a finite lifetime.  But when you say "something", 
that is a big area.  Embedded boards from a reputable vendor just don't 
get EOL'd without notice just like chips.  I get advance notices from 
Lattice semi when they make a change in the way they make or package a 
chip!


>>>> If your application really only needs a few years of production or can
>>>> afford a porting effort, then low cost units suffice.  But if low cost
>>>> matters, you likely aren't in high volume and low price isn't a real
>>>> factor.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> So I think many of the cheap hobbyist hardware platforms actually wind
>>>>> up with longer life cycles than pro stuff.
>>>>
>>>> Only if you don't mind paying for the software over and over again.
>>>
>>> What software?   One big reason to use the Linux platforms is that
>>> much of the support and tools are open-source and free, not to mention
>>> the OS itself.
>>
>> The software that is written for the app!  If it is anything other than
>> simple networking code, it uses features of the board that may be
>> different in new versions.  Even the BeagleBone and BBB are not 100%
>> compatible in I/O etc.
>
> Again, that just depends on how careful you are on modularizing
> dependencies on libraries or various interfaces.  These days it's even
> easier to make things modular or platform portable, e.g., use a USB
> interface (or any standard interface with library support) to
> application-specific hardware.   The demodulator I linked was
> developed on a BBB, but so far has ported with no changes to a wide
> range of Linux/ARM platforms, and just recompiles to other platforms.
> A little bit of planning helps.

Modularize?  Sure, decision hiding.  But you still have to regression 
test the entire system when you make a change as large as replacing the 
hardware with an update.  That costs money.  Low margin or low volume 
apps have a hard time paying for this.  With commercial hardware you 
will be given notice and can plan for it.  With "maker" boards you find 
out when your last shipment starts failing in the field.


>>>>>>> My biggest concern about designing such a thing into a project is the
>>>>>>> quality and product lifetime of the board -- I'd certainly brief a
>>>>>>> prospective customer on said concerns if that's how they wanted to go.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Yes, exactly.  But there are applications with short product lives or
>>>>>> that are not very hardware dependent.  This is a factor that needs
>>>>>> careful consideration.
>>>>>
>>>>> For something like the BBB (Beaglebone Black), the hardware (board)
>>>>> design is open-source and free.   Even if the multiple vendors all
>>>>> stop making it, you can ramp it yourself as much as needed.
>>>>
>>>> Avoiding making a board is the whole point to using a COTS product.  I
>>>> made a lot of money supplying a custom board to a major networking
>>>> company, mostly because they didn't want to incur the cost of ramping up
>>>> production.  There's a lot more to building a board than having the BOM
>>>> and artwork.  BTW, they already owned the design, they paid me to do
>>>> that so it was theirs to begin with.
>>>
>>> Good for you, but there are many reasons to elect to use or not use
>>> any COTS or custom platform, and there are many reasons why even a
>>> tiny company may elect to do custom hardware rather than COTS, for
>>> large or small quantities.  It's a big world out there with lots of
>>> crazy stuff going on, so the solution spaces vary greatly.   The
>>> cheapie "maker" or "embedded" platforms are just one potential
>>> direction among many, but for some applications they're an easy way to
>>> get stuff done quickly and cheaply.
>>
>> Yep, there is a market for "maker" boards, but that is limited to
>> products at lower volumes and a short life span.  The basic tradeoff is
>> NRE vs. recurring costs.  Low volume jobs need to minimize NRE and so
>> can use "maker" boards as long as there is no need for a long life span.
>>  That usually means not much profit so again, a squeeze on NRE.
>>
>> If it isn't worth spending some money on, there isn't much money to get
>>from it.
>
> It's just another tool in the box that can be very useful.

Another tool for sure.  The issue is just how useful.  I prefer to hang 
my hat on commercial hardware where I have rapport with the vendor.  The 
jobs where that isn't practical due to cost are few.

-- 

Rick C

On 3/6/2017 5:18 PM, Steve Pope wrote:
> In article <o9kk5v$qtg$1@dont-email.me>, rickman  <gnuarm@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 3/6/2017 4:19 PM, Steve Pope wrote:
>
>>> I have not yet used a Pi, but did propose
>>> using one for a recent low-budget project.  The same project would have
>>> also needed an additional custom board containing mostly thru-hole
>>> components but some number of surface mount.  As was pointed out
>>> upthread, modern CPU's/RAM's cannot really be included on the cheap in
>>> a custom board.
>
>> Depends on what you mean by cheap.  BGA is not hard to use and
>> everything else is durn easy.  Cell phone type CPUs are BGA only, but
>> embedded ARM Cortex M type CPUs are easy to find in leaded (QFPs, SOIC,
>> TSSOP, etc) and non-leaded packages (QFNs).
>>
>> I think the bigger issue is simply do you want to roll a board or not?
>> Once you are rolling a board it is cheaper to ditch the through hole
>> stuff, they have to be hand inserted, and put it all on one board unless
>> there is a reason to modularize.
>
> Right.
>
> In the above I forgot to add the scope of the above project would have
> been like three boards -- not a product design.

What is on the custom board?  Are you sure you can't make something off 
the shelf work?  I'm having trouble understanding this mix of buy, make 
and surface mount/through hole.  In many ways the combination sounds 
like the worst of each.

I had a test fixture for a production product.  I only needed two or 
three made up.  The contract assembly house preferred to set up the pick 
and place machine and do them automatically rather than hand place 
surface mount parts.  The board didn't have that many parts either.

-- 

Rick C

In article <o9kpms$ht7$1@dont-email.me>, rickman  <gnuarm@gmail.com> wrote:

>What is on the custom board?  Are you sure you can't make something off 
>the shelf work?  

Definitely not, it would have been the analog front end for
a sensor device detecting single-particle events, and to my
knowledge the circuit I conceived for this did not exist
commercially, if at all.

> I'm having trouble understanding this mix of buy, make 
> and surface mount/through hole.  In many ways the combination sounds 
> like the worst of each.

It was suggested to me by one of the other engineers, he had some
(low-cost) software for creating the artwork for such a board,
and tools to hand-assemble a few of them.  All through-hole
would be easier but some of the amplifies etc. only exist as
surface mount (SO package or similar).   Hence the mix.

Steve

On 3/6/2017 6:27 PM, Steve Pope wrote:
> In article <o9kpms$ht7$1@dont-email.me>, rickman  <gnuarm@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> What is on the custom board?  Are you sure you can't make something off
>> the shelf work?
>
> Definitely not, it would have been the analog front end for
> a sensor device detecting single-particle events, and to my
> knowledge the circuit I conceived for this did not exist
> commercially, if at all.
>
>> I'm having trouble understanding this mix of buy, make
>> and surface mount/through hole.  In many ways the combination sounds
>> like the worst of each.
>
> It was suggested to me by one of the other engineers, he had some
> (low-cost) software for creating the artwork for such a board,
> and tools to hand-assemble a few of them.  All through-hole
> would be easier but some of the amplifies etc. only exist as
> surface mount (SO package or similar).   Hence the mix.

SO is no problem, they are large for SM.

-- 

Rick C

On 06/03/17 18:15, Tim Wescott wrote:
> My biggest concern about some pimple-faced goon designing such a thing
> into a product is that they'll make all the expensive mistakes that I
> learned not to make 30 years ago.

Many can be speedily dismissed by looking at the lack of ground
pins on i/o connectors.

rickman  <gnuarm@gmail.com> wrote:

>SO is no problem, they are large for SM.

Yes, I believe they were all SOT or SOIC.  This was about a year
ago, and it never got built, but it looked okay.

S.

Steve Pope wrote:
> Les Cargill  <lcargill99@comcast.com> wrote:
>
>> Steve Pope wrote:
>
>>> I've recently seen in job listings, contract requirements etc.
>>> references to desiring engineers who are "experienced with Maker boards".
>>>
>>> What exactly is a Maker board?  I gather it's not a brand name,
>>> but some general concept ... it sounds a little new-age or something.
>>> Is there a specific meaning?
>
>> Arduinos and Raspberry Pi are market leaders in "maker" market
>> space. "Maker" is a sort of movement where kids learn electronics in
>> a club environment using these and small breadboard-style peripherals.
>
> Sounds great.
>
> Maybe my concern is a prospective cutomer will take the stance
> that, a consultant would usually charge $80K to do a certain design,
> but with a "Maker Board" they can do it for $10K.
>

They may well take that stance. And I've seen a couple of
startups like that. I have No Idea how those will make it,
unless it's a precursor to consulting or something.

You get the vibe they're delivering pizzas between builds...

> My larger concern is .. they might be right.  :--)
>
>

They're pretty good little devices. But .... but! you gotta
watch 'em.

Especially with Arduinos, you end up doing a sort of dance
to keep all the plates in the air. With all due respect to
the kids at the Maker spaces, they may or may not have the
chops for that.

>
> S.
>

-- 
Les Cargill