The Essential Guide to Prototyping Your Electronic Hardware Product

The new consumer product takes a lot of testing and prototyping before they are released onto the market as the end-product. This post will teach you what you should learn with every prototype version. Every stage of bringing the electronic product to the market has different prototyping requirements. Unfortunately, no single prototype is sufficient for bringing the commercial product to the market. Regardless of how advanced the computer-aided design is, the latest product may need several prototypes before getting ready for mass manufacturing.

Product prototyping is all about learning. Every time you form a prototype version, you should learn something new. It is best to start with the simple and cheapest method of the product. Then, with every prototype iteration, you must progress closer to the production-quality prototype. In the early stages of prototyping, it is best to separate the product into different prototype types, each with its own goal.

Proof-Of-Concept Prototype

When it comes to electronic prototyping, the proof of concept prototype is necessary. It is the basic concept of the product. A prototype process of POC serves as the end-product. And it never looks like the final product. There is only one goal for it. Their goal is to prove the essential concept of the product at the cheapest cost.

For most electronic hardware products, the POC electronics prototyping is built on an electronics development kit like the Raspberry Pi or Arduino. Most electronic products need either a microcontroller or a microprocessor. 

Proof of concept prototyping is usually used to determine the practicality of the new product idea. Customers rarely do it. Creating this type of prototype makes sense if you have fundamental questions about whether the product can solve the intended problem.

If there are several ways of solving the target problem, but if you are unsure about the best solution, the POC will provide valuable insight. The POC hardware prototyping can better determines fundamental questions like the basic solution options than with the help of the customized PCB. If you have a technical mind, you can create the prototype with the help of Raspberry Pi and Arduino. If you are not equipped with the right skills for creating your prototype, you will not have major questions regarding the feasibility of the solution; it is best to skip the POC altogether.

Look-Like Prototype

LLP is a common electronics prototyping process that separates the look and feel of the product from functionality. These are called work-like prototypes. This type of process focuses on optimizing the product’s feel, look, and aesthetics. For this prototype, you will use the prototyping process such as clay, foam, 3D printing, CNC machining, and injection. When doing electronic prototype manufacturing, you must separate the product’s look from the product’s function. 

Although it may seem obvious, do not neglect the old methods, such as clay and foam, it can be helpful in the initial stages. Both these techniques will allow you to cheaply and quickly transform the concept into something which can be held in hand. With the help of clay or foam, you can find the cheapest and easiest method and experiment the product’s shape, size, and feel.

With electronic prototype manufacturing, the initial prototypes should be made of clay. These clay models will provide essential feedback about the feel of the product in the eyes. Starting with clay prototypes will reduce the number of prototype iterations needed for upgrading to 3D printing. You must always start with the cheapest and simplest prototyping methods. Learn as much as possible from the low-cost hardware prototyping before migrating to advanced prototyping techniques.

Prototyping The Electronics

How you initiate the prototyping technologies are based on the questions you want to answer. Every time you create a new prototype, you must have well-defined questions that the prototype must answer. If you want to ask broad questions about whether the product will work or whether it will solve the intended problem, then you should begin with the early work-like prototype based on the development kit like Raspberry Pi and Arduino. 

If you don’t have big questions about the functionality of the product, then you must move in designing the customized PCB. Most of the large developing products start with customized PCBs. It is the fastest method to market, although it is not the cheapest. 

The prototyping technologies for the customized PCB have two steps:

• Making the bare PCB.
• Soldering the components.

Although there are methods for making PCBs at home, they are limited to simple designs. So, you will have to outsource the printed circuit board prototype production. Assuming you do not make your own boards, you will have to use a similar process for making the prototype boards and manufacturing the boards in high volume. 

Following Are The PCB Production Summary:

1. The process starts by laminating the core made p of woven glass epoxy. It will act as the insulator between conducting the layer and offering physical to the board.
2. Single-sided boards have one laminate core with copper on one of both sides. Double-sided boards have laminate cores with copper on either side. Several layer boards alternate the copper layers by laminating the core layers. Most boards use 2-8 conducting layers.
3. The layout design for every conducting copper layer is plotted on film, and light-sensitive resisting chemical is applied. The copper layers are exposed to high-intensity UV light that shines through the film. The UV light will solidify the liquid, and it will resist the layer over the copper pads and traces. 
4. The copper layering is processed through the chemical solution that removes any resisting layer not hardened by the UV light. It only leaves the hardened resist material over the desired traces. Another chemical removes the exposed copper and covers it by chemical resistance. The hardened resist layer is then removed; it only leaves the desired copper for forming the pads and traces.
5. The lamination process bonds all layers together to form the stacked PCB. 
6. Electronic prototype manufacturing companies drill holes through the PCB stack-up to form vias that connect signals on varying layers. It is best to use SMT components to reduce the soldering costs.
7. Copper is deposited on the exposed metal surfaces, including the inner walls of the holes. More copper is then electroplated onto the exposed copper surfaces.
8. When the bare PCB is completed, the following step is to place and solder the electronic components. Robotic equipment, known as a pick-and-place machine, uses a vacuum system for carrying the components and placing them onto the printed circuit boards. Solder paste is then used to hold the parts in place. 
9. Finally, the boards run through the reflow oven to melt the solder paste and make a permanent electrical connection between the PCB pads and components.

Conclusion

One of the primary things you may have learned from this article is that electronics prototyping is a hectic and long process needing several iterations. The prototype journey is complicated and underestimated. Do not be in a rush to move to advanced prototyping technologies till you have all the necessary information from less hectic electronic prototype manufacturing. The goal is to create a single prototype and go through the production for the best results.