[Coco] Something of interest to the design people here

[Mark McDougall]

On 25/10/2014 9:00 PM, Gene Heskett wrote:

> TV engineering is a funny business, and I have in my time designed and
> built several very unique things to do a labor saving job at a tv station.
> Unfortunately, the market for such an individual device is also limited to
> other tv stations facing similar technical problems, which is a roundabout
> way of saying that to sell even 100 such devices is a resounding success.

I'm in a very similar position myself. I have a 'contract R&D engineering' 
company and we often design and develop prototypes for customers. That could 
mean as little as a single device. What's more, as far as the 'estimated 
production quantity per annum' that vendors and distributors are so keen to 
extract from you are concerned, we're completely at the behest of the 
client. If we're designing a specialised or niche product, production 
quantities could be measured in tens per annum. With these numbers it's very 
difficult to get any type of design support.

Fortunately for devices that aren't bleeding-edge, Digikey and Element 14 
usually come to the rescue. Where we're stuck is when we want to use a 
device that is new to the market. So generally, no samples, no inclusion in 
our design. Of course such small volumes means nothing to the vendors...

...but then there's the scenario where I want to use a bleeding-edge device 
in a prototype for a client in a niche market and a do get samples. No pay 
day for the vendor then, but what if our next client comes along with a 
commodity market design and we have the opportunity to use the same - tried 
and tested by us - device? They need to look at the bigger picture.

I was doing a small design years ago and was looking at using a particular 
analogue video chip that looked like it was exactly what I needed. Not only 
could I not get samples, I couldn't even get the data sheet for it, unless I 
was projecting to ship hundreds of thousands of units.

It's an unfortunate trend that I fear will only continue.

Regards,

-- 
|              Mark McDougall                | "Electrical Engineers do it
|  <http://members.iinet.net.au/~msmcdoug>   |   with less resistance!"