The open house kicked off Monday morning, and in just two days guests have started a lot of new discussions. Here are a few of them:
One guest had picked an audio chip and wanted to know how to second source it, and whether to put it on a separate breakout board since he couldn't hand solder it.
The short answers: a true drop-in second source almost never exists for a chip like that, and don't design around what you can hand solder, just let the manufacturer assemble it.
Another guest posted his ESP32-S3 schematic and layout for review.
He got back a specific list of things to fix before he orders boards: missing pullups on one of his I2C buses, a bootstrap pin he should avoid, resistor values that would slow his bus down, and components spaced too tightly for the manufacturer.
A third designed a Bluetooth music player with a case meant for 3D printing, and asked how to get it ready for injection molding.
Our mechanical engineer and I walked him through what needs to change, starting with splitting the front into two pieces so the mold doesn't need side actions, which are extra sliding parts that drive up the cost. That's the type of conversation you want to have before you pay for expensive tooling.
This is the kind of help people get every day inside the Academy.
But you don't have to ask anything at all to get a lot out of this.
Every discussion above is open to you, along with years of archives covering design reviews, certification failures, sourcing problems, manufacturing decisions, hidden costs, and much more.
Other people have already asked the questions you haven't thought of yet, and the answers are right there waiting for you. Watching an experienced engineer catch someone else's expensive mistake is one of the fastest ways to avoid making it yourself.
It's $1 for full access through Sunday night. Ask your own questions or just read through everything:
Join the open house
This is the last email I'll send about it. Doors close Sunday night, September 20.
See you inside,
John Teel
Founder / Engineer
Predictable Designs
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P.S. So if you do have a question you want answered, ask it today rather than Saturday. That leaves time for a real back-and-forth before the doors close.
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