Prototyping -- where the rubber first meets the road.

There comes a time in the life of every design when we have to turn it on and put it through its' paces. This is the first opportunity to see if things really work they way they were intended.

Fabricating a prototype is the first stage of the testing process. Fabrication of the first physical sample of the design used to be very easy (those were the days of point to point wiring and more recently through hole printed circuit boards THD). Things have gotten more interesting with the widespread use of surface mount technology SMT. With SMT pushing to ever-decreasing geometries "hand-builts" are becoming more difficult every day. Some SMT devices that have integrated heat sinks are nearly impossible to assemble by hand if their full performance capabilities are required. I will gladly work with you in any capacity you chose.

If you are currently working with SMT products you have probably already addressed this issue and have a process in place. If you are having your manufacturing done by an outside vendor you are already well aware of the costs involved in multiple design starts and I assure you that I am aware of this issue as well. Most SMT designs can be hand assembled if extreme attention to detail is employed and everyone realizes that the assembly is not an exact representation of a factory produced assembly. Hand-builts are generally good enough for functional testing, but true compliance or qualification testing should be conducted with factory built assemblies.