1)Marketing stunt: `For businesses, this is much lower than you’ll find with comparable do-it-yourself board designers, definitely less expensive than hiring a contractor or employee to design the board for you, and clearly more efficient than trying to do it on your own. We’ve been using it to run new product ideas and it’s amazing how much it saves us in schematic and hardware mistakes.`
Let's start from this.
Do you guys really serious about positioning yourself VS significant part of your customers base?
So you mean you make service that supposed to make EE unemployed and you think EE will keep buying your stuff and sponsoring your "activities"?
2)While it is fun and i enjoyed Sparkfun modules for prototyping, i would not consider them to second stage hardware development for functional prototype.
Let's talk about your MOSFET "block". You claim it is 50A, but thats it. No MOSFET model, means you can't really know absolute maximums, you can't know required Vgs to open it properly so it wont release smoke on load. Does it have any ESD protection? It claims to drive solenoids, but i dont see necessary protection for that.
And where gate pin is routed, to microcontroller? Or i need to break out header? If on MCU - which GPIO? How the hell it will be controlled?
I am supposed to play lottery and checkout (after many warnings of "NO REFUND"), pay $949 (or discounted 50%) and then hope for best?
And terminals offered in this block, looking to similar on your modules - can handle max 11A, nothing close to claimed 50A.
3)This "autoplacement optimized thingy that you can't change" placed GPS module right next to the MCU with Wifi /PLL. Deaf GPS module is no good.
Worse, on demo picture you provide on your own website, i can see module with RF antenna in the middle of board surrounded with solid polygons. This is embarassing.
Also i was able to add 16 potentiometers, while ESP32 have only 10 usable ADC inputs (second ADC will be off as soon as wifi turns on). This means customer dont really know where they will be routed even single one and chance that even single potentiometer will be connected to ADC input that wont work together with wifi.
Sure i am going to buy a cat in a sack and hope i can figure out how to make such board work.
And as you claimed in some tweets, "you did research" and you are positioning your device for stage on burning man, replacing $20k consultant.
Well, news for you, most likely in this $20k most are paid for not screwing up stage performance. And your ToS pretty clear about liabilities.
And if someone really want "constructor", everybody know there is way more superior service, Geppetto from Gumstix, way more flexibility and choice, for way more complex boards.
Your market research is ... bad.
P.S. Sorry for the angry post, but i cannot be kind when someone claims that he wants to take job away from my colleagues and probably me.
Instead of cooperating with industry engineers, you claim from the start that you are their competitor.
You literally shot yourself in the leg.
1)Marketing stunt: `For businesses, this is much lower than you’ll find with comparable do-it-yourself board designers, definitely less expensive than hiring a contractor or employee to design the board for you, and clearly more efficient than trying to do it on your own. We’ve been using it to run new product ideas and it’s amazing how much it saves us in schematic and hardware mistakes.` Let's start from this. Do you guys really serious about positioning yourself VS significant part of your customers base? So you mean you make service that supposed to make EE unemployed and you think EE will keep buying your stuff and sponsoring your "activities"?
2)While it is fun and i enjoyed Sparkfun modules for prototyping, i would not consider them to second stage hardware development for functional prototype. Let's talk about your MOSFET "block". You claim it is 50A, but thats it. No MOSFET model, means you can't really know absolute maximums, you can't know required Vgs to open it properly so it wont release smoke on load. Does it have any ESD protection? It claims to drive solenoids, but i dont see necessary protection for that. And where gate pin is routed, to microcontroller? Or i need to break out header? If on MCU - which GPIO? How the hell it will be controlled? I am supposed to play lottery and checkout (after many warnings of "NO REFUND"), pay $949 (or discounted 50%) and then hope for best? And terminals offered in this block, looking to similar on your modules - can handle max 11A, nothing close to claimed 50A.
3)This "autoplacement optimized thingy that you can't change" placed GPS module right next to the MCU with Wifi /PLL. Deaf GPS module is no good. Worse, on demo picture you provide on your own website, i can see module with RF antenna in the middle of board surrounded with solid polygons. This is embarassing. Also i was able to add 16 potentiometers, while ESP32 have only 10 usable ADC inputs (second ADC will be off as soon as wifi turns on). This means customer dont really know where they will be routed even single one and chance that even single potentiometer will be connected to ADC input that wont work together with wifi. Sure i am going to buy a cat in a sack and hope i can figure out how to make such board work.
And as you claimed in some tweets, "you did research" and you are positioning your device for stage on burning man, replacing $20k consultant. Well, news for you, most likely in this $20k most are paid for not screwing up stage performance. And your ToS pretty clear about liabilities. And if someone really want "constructor", everybody know there is way more superior service, Geppetto from Gumstix, way more flexibility and choice, for way more complex boards. Your market research is ... bad.
P.S. Sorry for the angry post, but i cannot be kind when someone claims that he wants to take job away from my colleagues and probably me. Instead of cooperating with industry engineers, you claim from the start that you are their competitor. You literally shot yourself in the leg.