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You reach over to plug in your phone, and you feel that spark – and not in a good “I love this product!” kind of way. The wire is broken, and yet another charging cable is about to make its way to a landfill, while you have to make a midnight run to the store […]

After ten years of working with hardware startups, the most common question we get is, “What do I need to provide in order to get a quote from a manufacturer?” Here’s a checklist of things we recommend you complete before speaking to a manufacturer.  Completing everything on this list will help you paint a very […]

You may have heard somewhere that Silicon Valley is a breeding ground of innovation, technology, and sophistication. Most startups here take one thing and iterate through near-infinity on that one thing until it’s the most perfect, elegant, and uber-functional “one thing” you can find. And often the most expensive. Trouble is, not everyone is necessarily […]

Designing parts for efficient product assembly is a primary hardware development consideration. Even if labor costs are a relatively small percentage of the final selling price, problems in assembly can generate tremendous costs, incur production delays, and result in suboptimal part quality. Since the largest financial impact in hardware development comes during the production phase […]

Scaling up a new product from the prototype or low-volume production stage into a high-volume manufacturing environment can be one of the most exciting and stressful stages of the hardware development life cycle. The decisions made during this transition will have significant implications for all aspects of a product, from tooling and manufacturing process control […]

We receive a lot of questions about how to reduce the cost of 3D printing. One of the best ways to do this is to ensure your model fits on a smaller build bed to ensure the fastest build time on the cheapest machine available to produce your part. In this article we’ll show you […]

Manufacturing is hard enough without knowing terms most manufacturers use. Here’s a quick resource to help you learn the most common terms around describing physical parts. DFM (Design For Manufacturing) Terms Undercut: In manufacturing, an undercut is a special type of recessed surface. In machining it refers to a recess in a corner or a piece of […]