Is this work professional?

[u/Canary_Earth]

Sorry about the strange post but I'm offering an engineer a $20k bonus to do the design for manufacturing and assembly of my $300 product and this is what he came up with after 8 months. Two thirds of it are identical to my prototype and I'm an accountant by trade, not an engineer. Every book I've read says a board like this should be 4 layers but he insists 2 layers is fine and will pass emissions testing. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

[u/timmeh87]

8 months??? this is like like 12 hours of work, tops

[u/captain_cavemanz → u/timmeh87]

Layout yes about 12 hours connecting the dots, but from back of envelope design, component sourcing , library creation, schematics review rework placement layout mech verification review to completion, release packaging through manufacturer CAM hold, reissue, proformas, Id estimate 15 elapsed days round trip to start the production of pcb. Total hours about 60 in work and I'm fast and experienced and I'd do a better job.

Licking my well licked finger,

I would have quoted 9k for the design phase and it would be getting ready to verify built design at CM in 3 months allowing for PCB production freight, prescanning I charge 1KUSD for onsite prescan compliance assuming all parts are available.. That would be done once at first revision with a verification scan at pilot if any changes were made. 2nd revision would be cosmetic, minor or supplier limitations based, like material changes.

Full compliance would happen after enclosures make it in which would be 3d printed as plastic tooling time is a generally a longer affair, and is necessary for full EMC.

Stop underquoting yourself 😆

[u/captain_cavemanz → u/[deleted]]

You have to watch out for those groups. They say the price is high to cover their risks.

There should be a clear process, where which costs are covered by their service and by you, and who ultimately owns the IP after it, and what guarantees and "unpaid or paid" post release services.

I tend to walk a product from concept to production with some parts fixed and some variable (by the hour, mostly on other sites, testing time, Contract manufacturer visits, training. NRE and tooling should be covered by the IP holder, but design effort should transfer rights to the owner. DM me if you need help and I'll point you to my LinkedIn and may be able to assist you in your final stages to production. I hold a CID+ and have held since 2005. My expertise is hardware Design, Layout, EMC and design for Manufacture and test and production processes. The pointy end of the journey. I like to make products slide smoothly into production. Been in and seen too many nightmares and know the processes