Taking A Public Transit Display From Project To Product

November 17, 2023 by Dan Maloney 16 Comments

We’ve noticed an uptick in “project to product” stories lately, which seems like a fantastic trend to us. It means that hackers are turning out projects that really resonate with people, to the degree that taking the leap and scaling up from a one-off to a marketable product is worth the inherent risk. And luckily enough for the rest of us, we get to learn from their experiences.

The latest example of this comes to us from [Stefan Schüller], who from the sound of things only reluctantly undertook the conversion of his LED matrix public transit sign into an actual product. The original project had a lot going for it; it looked fantastic, it was technologically simple, and it provided a valuable service. But as a project, it made certain assumptions and concessions that would cause problems when in the hands of a customer. Chief among these was the physical protection of the fragile LEDs, which could easily shear off the display modules if bumped or dropped. There were also firmware issues, such as access to the backend API that serves the transit data; requiring each customer to sign up for and configure their own API key is a non-starter for a product.

In the article, [Stefan] enumerates a long list of problems that going from project to product raises, as well as how he addressed them. The API issue was solved by implementing his own service, which acts as a middleman between the official API and his customers. A nice plexiglass and sheet-metal frame serves to protect the display, too. Design changes were made as well, not only to provide better functionality but to make manufacturing easier. [Stefan] also relates a tale of woe with regard to getting the display’s app into the app stores, something that few of us have to deal with when we’re just fiddling around with something on the bench.

All in all, [Stefan] does a great job walking us through the trials and tribulations of bringing a product to market. There are similar lessons in this production run scale-up, too, but with an entirely different level of project complexity.

Hardware Project Becomes Successful Product For Solo Developer

November 2, 2021 by Donald Papp 26 Comments

[Michael Lynch] has been a solo developer for over three years now, and has been carefully cataloguing his attempts at generating revenue for himself ever since making the jump to being self-employed. Success is not just hard work; it is partly knowing when the pull the plug on an idea, and [Micheal] has been very open about his adventures in this area. He shares the good news about a DIY project of his that ended up becoming a successful product, complete with dollar amounts and frank observations.

About a year ago, we covered a project he shared called TinyPilot, which is an effective KVM-over-IP device, accessible over the web, that could be built with about $100 worth of parts. [Micheal] found it to be a fun and useful project, and decided to see if he could sell kits. However, he admits he didn’t have high expectations, and his thoughts are probably pretty familiar to most hardware types:

I questioned whether there was a market for this. Why would anyone buy this device from me? It was just a collection of widely available hardware components.

Well, it turns out that he was onto something, and the demand for his device became immediately clear. He’s since given TinyPilot more features, an attractive case, and even provides a support plan for commercial customers. This is an excellent reminder that sometimes, what is being sold isn’t the collection of parts itself. Sometimes, what’s being sold is a solution to a problem people have, and those people are time-poor and willing to pay for something that just works.

It’s great to see [Michael] find some success as a solo developer, but his yearly wrap-up covers much more than just the success of TinyPilot as a product, so be sure to check it out if you’re at all interested in the journey of working for yourself.

Two hands on a book labeled "hardware crowdfunding"

Successfully Crowdfunded Hardware: Everything Behind The Scenes

September 12, 2021 by Donald Papp 5 Comments

Crowdfunding hardware has its own unique challenges, and [Uri Shaked] wrote a fascinating report that goes into excellent detail about his experience bringing a crowdfunded hardware project to life.

[Uri]’s project was The Skull CTF, an electronic hardware puzzle that came in the shape of a PCB skull, and his detailed look behind the scenes covers just about every angle, from original concept to final wrap-up, along with his thoughts and feedback at every stage. His project reached its funding goal, got manufactured and shipped, and in the end was a success.

[Uri] started with a working project, but beyond that was virtually a complete novice when it came to crowdfunding. He eventually settled on using Crowd Supply to make his idea happen, and his writeup explains in great detail every stage of that process, including dollar amounts. What’s great to see is that not only does [Uri] explain the steps and decisions involved, but explains the research that went into each, and how he feels each of them ended up working out.

The entire thing is worth a read, but [Uri] summarizes the experience of crowdfunding a hardware project thus: an excellent way to test out the demand for an idea and bring a product into existence, but be aware that unless a project is a runaway success it probably won’t be much of an income generator at that stage. It was a great learning experience, but involved a lot of time and effort on his part as well.

[Uri] really knows his stuff, and considering his skill at hunting down pesky bugs, it’s probably no surprise that this wasn’t his first hardware puzzle.

Pan And Tilt To A New 3D Printed Business Model

September 11, 2019 by Kerry Scharfglass 11 Comments

When shooting video, an easy way to get buttery smooth panning and tracking is to use a mechanical device like a rail to literally slide the camera side to side. These range from what is essentially a skateboard to incredible programmable multi-axis industrial robots, a wide variety of which have been visible in the backgrounds of Youtuber’s sets for years. But even the “low end” devices can run hundreds of dollars (all that anodized aluminum doesn’t come cheap!). Edelkrone has been building lust worthy professional (read, pricey) motion setups for a decade. But in the last year they’ve started something pretty unusual; lowering prices with their Ortak series of 3D printed equipment. But this time, you do the printing.

In the FlexTILT Head 3D, everything in red is printed at home

Since the RepRap we’ve been excited about the future of democratized at home manufacturing, but to a large extent that dream hasn’t materialized. Printers are much more useful now than in the early days but you can’t buy a new mug from Starbucks and print it at home. But maybe that’s changing with Edelkrone’s offering.

When you buy an Ortak product you get one thing: all the fasteners and hardware. So the final product is more durable and appears more finished than what would pop out of your Prusa unaided. What about the rest of the device? That’s free. Seriously. Edelkrone freely provides STLs (including print setting recommendations) with detailed step-by-step assembly instructions and videos (sample after the break). Nice hack to avoid piracy, isn’t it?

Why choose the do-it-at-home style product? A significant price reduction of course! The Ortak line currently includes two products, the FlexTILT head you see above, and a skateboard-style slide called the SKATER 3D. Both of these were sold fully finished before making it to the DIY scene. The FlexTILT Head 2 comes in at $149 when you buy it whole. And when the PocketSKATER 2 was for sale, it included a FlexTILT Head and came to $249. Now? Each hardware kit is just $29.

So is this it? Have we hit the artisanal DIY micro-manufactured utopian dream? Not yet, but maybe we’re a little closer. Edelkrone is a real company which is really selling these as products, right there on their website along with everything else. They refer to it as “co-manufacturing” which we think is a clever name, and talk about expanding the program to include electronics. We can’t wait to see how the experiment goes!

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2019 Hackaday Prize Hack Chat

April 15, 2019 by Dan Maloney 5 Comments

Join us Wednesday, April 17 at noon Pacific time for the 2019 Hackaday Prize Hack Chat!

The 2019 Hackaday Prize was just announced, and this year the theme is designing for manufacturing. The hacker community has come a long, long way in the last few years in terms of the quality of projects we turn out. Things that were unthinkable just a few short years ago are now reduced to practice, and our benches and breadboards are always stuffed with the latest and greatest components and modules, all teaming up to do wondrous things. But what about the next step? Do you have what it takes to turn that mess o’ wires into a product? What skills do you need to add to your repertoire to make sure you can actually capitalize on your prototype — or more importantly, to get your ideas into someone else’s hands where they can actually do some good? That’s what the Hackaday Prize is all about this year, and we want you taking your projects to the next level!

Majenta Strongheart will be hosting the Hack Chat as we discuss:

The importance of designing for manufacturing;
What tools we have available to turn prototypes into projects;
How the Hackaday Prize is set up this year, and why the theme was selected; and
Why you should participate in the 2019 Hackaday Prize

You are, of course, encouraged to add your own questions to the discussion. You can do that by leaving a comment on the 2019 Hackaday Prize Hack Chat and we’ll put that in the queue for the Hack Chat discussion.

Our Hack Chats are live community events on the Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday, April 17, at noon, Pacific time. If time zones have got you down, we have a handy time zone converter.

Click that speech bubble to the right, and you’ll be taken directly to the Hack Chat group on Hackaday.io. You don’t have to wait until Wednesday; join whenever you want and you can see what the community is talking about.

Smart Outlet Cover Offers Lessons On Going From Project To Product

April 25, 2018 by Dan Maloney 14 Comments

Going from idea to one-off widget is one thing; engineering the widget into a marketable product is quite another. So sometimes it’s instructive to take an in-depth look at a project that was designed from the get-go to be a consumer product, like this power indicating wall outlet cover plate. The fact that it’s a pretty cool project helps too.

Although [Vitaliy] has been working on this project for a while, he only recently tipped us off to it, and we’re glad he did because there’s a lot to learn here. His goal was to build a replacement cover for a standard North American power outlet that indicates how much power is being used by whatever is plugged into it. He set constraints that included having everything fit into the familiar outlet cover form factor, as well as to not require any modification to the existing outlet or rewiring, so that a consumer can just remove the old cover and put on the new one. Given the extremely limited space inside an outlet cover, these were significant challenges, but [Vitaliy] found a way. Current is sensed with two inductors positioned to sense magnetic flux within the outlet, amplified by a differential amp, and power use is calculated by an ATmega328 for display on 10 LEDs. Power for the electronics is tapped right from the outlet wiring terminals by spring clips, and everything fits neatly inside the cover.

It’s a great design, but not without issues. We look forward to seeing [Vitaliy] tackle those problems and bring this to market. For more on what it takes to turn a project into a product, check out our own [Lewin Day]’s story of bringing a guitar effects pedal to market.

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Shmoocon 2017: The Ins And Outs Of Manufacturing And Selling Hardware

January 17, 2017 by Brian Benchoff 29 Comments

Every day, we see people building things. Sometimes, useful things. Very rarely, this thing becomes a product, but even then we don’t hear much about the ins and outs of manufacturing a bunch of these things or the economics of actually selling them. This past weekend at Shmoocon, [Conor Patrick] gave the crowd the inside scoop on selling a few hundred two factor authentication tokens. What started as a hobby is now a legitimate business, thanks to good engineering and abusing Amazon’s distribution program.

The product in question is the U2F Zero, an open source U2F token for two-factor authentication. It’s built around the Atmel/Microchip ATECC508A crypto chip and is, by all accounts, secure enough. It’s also cheap at about $0.70 a piece, and the entire build comes to about $3 USD. All of this is hardware, and should be extremely familiar to the regular Hackaday reader. This isn’t the focus of [Conor]’s talk though. The real challenge is how to manufacture and sell these U2F dongles, a topic we looked in on back in September.

The circuit for this U2F key is basically just a crypto chip and a USB microcontroller, each of which needs to be programmed separately and ideally securely. The private key isn’t something [Conor] wants to give to an assembly house, which means he’s programming all these devices himself.

For a run of 1100 units, [Conor] spent $350 on PCB, $3600 for components and assembly, $190 on shipping and tariffs from China, and an additional $500 for packaging on Amazon. That last bit pushed the final price of the U2F key up nearly 30%, and packaging is something you have to watch if you ever want to sell things of your own.

For distribution, [Conor] chose Fulfillment By Amazon. This is fantastically cheap if you’re selling a product that already exists, but of course, [Conor]’s U2F Zero wasn’t already on Amazon. A new product needs brand approval, and Amazon would not initially recognize the U2F Zero brand. The solution to this was for [Conor] to send a letter to himself allowing him to use the U2F Zero brand and forward that letter to the automated Amazon brand bot. Is that stupid? Yes. Did it work? Also yes.

Sales were quiet until [Conor] submitted a tip to Hacker News and sold about 70 U2F Zeros in a day. After that, sales remained relatively steady. The U2F Zero is now a legitimate product. Even though [Conor] isn’t going to get rich by selling a dozen or so U2F keys a day, it’s still an amazing learning experience and we’re glad to have sat in on his story of bootstrapping a product, if only for the great tip on getting around Amazon’s fulfillment policies.