Trying to find somebody to design a hardware project

Guys,

I am really sorry if this question comes off topic or is not in it's place exactly.

I played a lot with Arduino board and Raspberry PI and found them very interesting as a base for my future commercial project.

So, my question is - could you, please help me find a good hardware designer who can help me with building the schematics, then layout of the PCB. Then after the prototypes are live and working I will write the software for this project. It will be based on Raspberry PI with some modifications and additions to it.

Your feedback will be greatly appreciated.

Sorry once again for bothering you,

Thanks,

Evgeny

Top Replies

michaelkellett over 11 years ago in reply to Former Member +1

The RPi is a very poor platform for this kind of project. The hardware design is not open source and some of the key components are very hard to get in less than 10k+ quantities. This means that it is…

gadget.iom over 11 years ago

It might help if you can provide a little bit of information about what you are trying to achieve.
Most engineers have a particular field of expertise on which they can offer advice or support.
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igalloway over 11 years ago

Eugini - Beware that Rasberry PI is a bit of an issue. Its extremely inexpensive because the processor is piggybacked on very high volume manufacturing. You will find it very difficult to build a commercial product from the chip level. Meaning if you want to build an equivalent board to Raspberry PI. Alternatively you would want to look at readily available processors from other manufacturers, or a SOM (system on Module) solution.
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vsluiter over 11 years ago in reply to igalloway

I agree. If your product needs embedded Linus, I know a few companies that use 'Gumstix' as vendor for small SOM's. Their product line is impressive, and their products are made to be integrated in other products (lots of IO on expansion connectors). They ARE more expensive than Rpi.
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Former Member over 11 years ago in reply to gadget.iom

Well,

The design should follow approximately these lines:

1. Raspberry Pi board without the composite video which I don't need.
2. Mini printer - interfaced by TTL RS232 or similar serial protocol.
3. LCD connected - also serially.
4. Keyboard - I2C connected.
5. crypto card - TTL RS232 or similar

Of course, the interfaces could be changed but the idea is to use Raspberry only as software intensive board and to control all hardware by their own control chips.

Please, comment on this and maybe you could suggest some other solutions too.

Thanks
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Former Member over 11 years ago in reply to vsluiter

Could you, please, provide more info on these companies.

Thanks
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michaelkellett over 11 years ago in reply to Former Member

The RPi is a very poor platform for this kind of project. The hardware design is not open source and some of the key components are very hard to get in less than 10k+ quantities. This means that it is very hard to make a modified RPi with different interfaces so you are stuck with using an RPi with an add on board. If the numbers are small or there is a compelling reason to use the RPi this may be acceptable.
The BeagleBone Black and some of the Atmel ARM dev boards (amongst others) are designed to be cloned or used as a starting point for a new product.

The first question any hardware designer will ask you (more or less nicely and directly) is "Can you afford to pay for this kind of work" so you need to have a good idea of the economics of your project.

MK
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vsluiter over 11 years ago in reply to Former Member

The one that is open for contracting is Kitt engineering in Enschede, The Netherlands
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Former Member over 11 years ago in reply to michaelkellett

Thank you, I will look into Beaglebone Black also, thanks.
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