A Guide to Prototyping for Hardware Startups

15 years, 5127 prototypes is what it took James Dyson to create the DC01, his first upright vacuum cleaner with the patented cyclone technology.Dyson clearly understood the importance of prototypes and for anyone trying to develop a new product from scratch, prototypes are an integral part of the development process.This article gives an overview of the reasons you need to create prototypes and the types of prototypes at various stages of product development.

This is especially helpful for entrepreneurs who are looking for prototype development and going from idea to prototype to production, be it IoT, home automation or any other smart devices in general.WHY PROTOTYPE?Prototyping = ExperienceThe more prototypes you create, the more you learn about the challenges to overcome in your next version and ways to improve upon your original idea.

Prototyping is of prime importance when building something new from the ground up. Nothing instills more confidence in potential investors than something tangible that proves the underlying concept of your idea. Considering how accessible rapid prototyping has become, you cannot afford to not have a good prototype of your idea.

Apart from proving the concept, prototypes are a great way to get a feel of the form and finish of your product, test it under different conditions and get feedback from users. Not testing your product enough before shipping out is one of the 11 Reasons Why Hardware Startups Fail.Prototyping also gives you a good idea of what your BOM would cost, and accordingly an approximation on what the retail price of your product should be.

Types of prototypes at different stages of product developmentFrom a simple glued together cardboard prototype to a fully finished 3D Printed prototype with a custom designed PCB, there are all sorts of prototypes at different stages of product development. As the fidelity and quality of prototypes increase, the cost increases too.1) WORKS-LIKE PrototypeAs the name suggests, this type of prototype demonstrates the core functionality of your product.

For hardware startups this means using development boards like the Arduino or Raspberry Pi to demonstrate how the product is intended to work. It will look like a mess of wires initially, but thats fine since aesthetics are not the primary goal of works-like prototypes.Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform.

Its easy to use and can be used to create some hardcore electronic projects. With a whole lot of sensors, add-on boards called shields and compatible hardware, Arduino can be used to create almost anything you could ask for.Arduino has different variants that suit different projects, for example the Arduino Lillypad is better suited to e-textile and wearable projects, while Arduino Yun is targeted towards IOT projects.

Another popular development board is the credit card-sized Raspberry Pi which resembles more to your PC, with its own CPU, GPU, RAM, slots for peripherals like a monitor, camera and more. There are some projects which are more suitable for Raspberry Pi as compared to Arduino.There are a wide variety of boards available for prototyping hardware that makes hardware prototyping more accessible.

Here is a list of 12 Development Boards you can use for your next prototype. Though working with these boards wont require a degree in engineering, but it can still be overwhelming for someone just starting out.If you just want to get something that works, without fiddling with development boards or the programming, we at Outdesign.

co can help you bring your idea to life faster. Prototyping boards are not economically feasible when transitioning to mass production, so eventually after the functionality of your product is proven, you will need to graduate to a custom designed PCB for your product.A custom PCB trims down the unnecessary components of a development board and helps reduce the internal space needed in the housing, it also helps you replace electronic components with equivalent or better alternatives that help you streamline the supply chain and reduce costs further.

2) LOOKS-LIKE PrototypeThe end-user has limited interaction with the underlying electronics, the outer appearance and usability of the product are what they have to deal with everyday. The aesthetics of a consumer product have a major impact on the buying decision of the customer. It is therefore imperative to create Looks-Like prototypes that help you study the form, feel, ergonomics, usability and finish of your product in great detail.

At the most basic level, you can create physical prototypes using simple household materials like cardboard, duct-tape, papier-mache etc. Then there are modeling clay and foam prototypes created by designers. Even with the availability of highly advanced technologies of 3D Printing, VR/AR, 3D CAD Software, automotive designers still prefer clay for the initial concept explorations.

The flexibility of sculpting in clay or foam allows quick design changes in complex forms and collaborate with others intuitively. Working on something tangible helps in identifying the real-life scale and form of the objects, which becomes even more important in products that are meant to be handheld or wearable.This makes clay/foam prototypes irreplaceable in development of consumer products, yet often overlooked due to the availability of less manually intensive processes like 3D Printing.

For something like a set-top box for a TV, a clay or foam prototype can still be neglected, but for something like a PC mouse or a remote control, its absolutely critical. Useful Info: The HumanScale book consists of charts that collate ergonomic reference points and data selectors created by Henry Dreyfuss Associates(HDA) and first published in 1974. It lays out human body measurements and how it relates to the surrounding space.

The data can be a great reference when designing things for humans. 3) LOOKS-LIKE, WORKS-LIKE CombinedThe integration of works-like and looks-like prototypes into one.After the aesthetics and form of the device have been worked out using looks-like prototypes, its time to move on to 3D CAD Modeling and refine the design further.

The outer shell or housing design goes back and forth between the industrial designer who fine tunes the aesthetics & form, and the mechanical engineer who integrates the PCB into the shell and prepares files for prototyping using more advanced techniques like CNC machining and 3D Printing. Finishing techniques like anodizing, painting, electroplating, polishing and many more are employed to give the required aesthetics to the prototype and ensure that it resembles as much as possible to the final product.Below we have given a brief overview of some of the most common manufacturing processes that we use to create prototypes in a wide variety of materials and shapes.

i) 3D Printing3D Printing comes under additive manufacturing and the process inherently allows complex shapes to be formed. While it may be tempting to create some complex artsy shape for your product, remember that 3D Printing is not suitable for high volume production. The design ultimately has to be compatible for high volume techniques like injection molding.

Depending on the level of details and quality needed, different 3D Printing techniques like FDM (Fused-Deposition Modeling), SLA (Stereolithography) or SLS (Selective Laser Sintering) with their own unique strengths can be used for prototyping. 3D Printing is commonly used for prototyping plastic products and sometimes metals.ii) CNC MachiningCNC Machining is subtractive in nature, which means that it removes material to create the end product.

CNC Machining gives a wide choice in materials, like foam, plastics, woods and metals. CNC machined parts are expensive and the per part cost doesnt go down much even at scale, which makes it unsuitable for a cash-strapped startup trying to manufacture consumer products in high volume, unlike companies such as Apple.Trying to do things like big companies is one the reasons why hardware startups fail.

Find a way to replace your CNC machined parts with Metal Casting or Sheet metal for large quantities. iii) Sheet Metal WorkingThere are a variety of manufacturing processes like Laser Cutting, WaterJet Cutting, Plasma Cutting, Stamping for sheet metals which makes it great for prototyping as well as transitioning to high volume production.After cutting a pattern on a flat metal sheet, it can be bent and formed into desired shape to create enclosures for different products like computer cases, machine enclosures, home appliances etc.

or used in internal parts of consumer electronics that may be too fragile/expensive for manufacturing in plastic. iv) CastingResin Casting for Plastics involves a silicone mold to be created for your product from a pattern. This pattern is a one-off prototype of your product created using CNC or 3D Printing, with finishing that replicates production grade quality.

The pattern is used to create the silicone mold into which resin is poured. Resin Casting gives a quality that is very close to what the end product will look like and is a great technique to manufacture low volume prototypes for testing.Metal Casting is very similar in principle to resin casting but the mold is commonly made of steel(die-casting) or sand (sand-casting) and the parts are cast from different metals and their alloys.

Die-Casting and Sand Casting vary in their suitable production volumes, material options and associated costs. v) Virtual PrototypingIt is a quick and efficient way through which you can envision your product before making even a single physical prototype. It involves creating realistic 3D Renderings of your product which can be presented to investors or potential customers.

The flexibility of making quick changes allow you to try out different color, material and finishing options (CMF) for your product and help you decide which option you would like the actual physical prototype to be created in. 4) PRE-PRODUCTION PROTOTYPEThis is the closest you can get to replicating the end-product that you are going to manufacture at scale.At this stage the design is optimized for Manufacturability (DFM).

Depending on the design, the changes for DFM could either be minimal or it may involve a complete redesign of your product if DFM is not considered from the start. One often overlooked aspect is DFA (Design for Assembly). Design for Assembly is meant to ease the assembly process of a device and helps minimize time and costs at the assembly line.

A good design is not only the one that looks good but also the one which considers manufacturing and assembly, transportation, products pricing, usability, user experience, ergonomics, life-cycle, sustainability and a whole lot of different factors. For a startup, A poorly designed product can prove to be a good way to go out of business and it is therefore also important for startups to understand the importance of design beyond superficial looks.We hope this article gives you an overview of the different types of prototypes and prototyping methods at different stages of your products development and also helps you understand the importance of prototyping in product development.

OUTDESIGN.CO is a consumer product design and development company helping you bring winning products to market and outdesign your competition. We work with startups and manufacturers across the globe, all the way from a simple sketch of an idea to fully functional prototype and beyond.

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