Ask HN: Where to get help with a hardware idea?

If you want to know whether a new type of material is feasible, you might try finding a materials scientist.

https://outer-space.co/

https://www.delve.com/services/engineering/electrical-softwa...

In general, for time and cost reasons I would recommend that you try to avoid materials science related R&D if you can, except in "accessible" (well documented / cost effective) areas of metallurgy and polymer chemistry available using, for example, commercial off the shelf industrial polymer additives (there are many available, generally with the goal of altering a specific aspect of the resulting material).

In addition, you need to understand that the fabrication and test methods used in prototyping hardware products are very often different to those used in final production owing to time/cost/volume concerns.

Or, just post your idea to hn. We will gladly tell you why it won't work, regardless of whether it will or won't.

Oh god. Unless you find a very good materials scientist, the answer is "no", probably after spending a lot of money.

https://youtu.be/2K5Gqp1cEcM

Not the biggest fan of LTT but the video covers some important points especially if you are going to follow through and commit with the project. I would say finding the right manufacturing partner is key.

Your post just reads like the equivalent of "I just need some nerd to do my app for like 50 bucks and then I'll be rich".

I think you should stop immediately. Please try to not take this the wrong way as much as you can, but you sound completely oblivious of what product design, hardware engineering and industrial production of something entails.

Obviously you don't know, but the worst part is I'm afraid you don't want to know and therefor you place little value/difficulty in the hardware part.

If you only spend your money, I would say go ahead, it would be a very valuable lesson.

Mechanical engineer here with a background in R&D and patents.

I would be happy to talk to you. You can email me at hackernewscontact2 at gmail dot com. I didn't want to dox myself on here, but will be happy to share my LinkedIn/resume with you individually.

The "new type of material" is probably going to be really difficult, but you can check out Material Connexxion [3] and MatWeb [4] to see if something is already available.

Also, there's a lot of product designers and engineers on UpWork / CAD Crowd [5] that will do quick consulting calls for like $20-$100/hr.

[1] https://wiki.hackerspaces.org/List_of_Hacker_Spaces

[2] https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1qwBGJ5jUOf-zquVw...

[3] https://materialconnexion.com/

[4] https://www.matweb.com/

[5] https://www.cadcrowd.com/

A word of advice though, be upfront with the idea, don't try and suggest meeting up without disclosing the idea beforehand. Just as software developers are used to people pitched them their app idea, product designers are used to having people pitch them ideas too!

Failing that, there are a lot of "Product Design Engineering" firms/consultancies that do this every day, I used to work for one (I'm a former Product Design Engineer, now Software Developer). Most of these firms are multi-disciplinary, they have Industrial Designers, Mechanical Engineers, Electrical Engineers, Software Developers all in house. They also tend to have a network of other disciplines that will regularly work with (optical designers or material specialists for example). They will be happy to give you and hour of their time to hear about the idea. But be aware, going that route will not be cheap once you move past an initial consultation.

I help inventors and startups navigate new product development every day. Feel free to email adam@swopedesignsolutions.com and we can get you heading in the right direction. There’s no expectation you’ll work with us, we just love the design engineering process and are happy to help.

- Adam

I just listened to a podcast with a guest from spindance.com (it's on IOT for All podcast if you want to look it up). verytechnology.com also looks interesting to me. I believe they can both help with the manufacturing and BOM sourcing which are not my strengths.

I help inventors and startups navigate new product development every day. Materials projects are notoriously hard, but I’ve done some. A great way to start is to build a prototype. Better, build 10. Some works like, somme looks like. Be willing to settle for performance on only one dimension. While it’s obvious these prototypes can be used to prove out the idea, the other big value is to use them to communicate the idea quickly to others.

Three groups of people you could communicate to next are 1) potential team mates 2) subject matter experts 3) design engineers.

I fall into category 3, design engineer. Feel free to drop an email at adam@swopdesignsolutions.com and I can get you pointed in the right direction. There’s no expectation you’ll work with us. We just love design engineering and are happy to help.

- Adam

Many sensible recommendations on this thread. The key differences between hardware and software-only projects usually boils down to cost and rate of iteration. Non-trivial hardware projects are capital intensive, plain and simple.

There are also costs and time-consuming aspects that tend to be very foreign for someone not in the space. A typical example of this is making molds for plastic parts and, in general, NRE's (Non-recurring Engineering fees). Sure, 3D printing can reduce these needs for some projects, however, at some point in time, most products require an investment in tooling and production hardware.

Beyond the prototyping stage it might be difficult or impossible to just build one or a few of anything. For example, if your product needs a custom aluminum extrusion you will have to pay for a die and then likely run somewhere between hundreds to thousands of pounds of aluminum through that die as a minimum order requirement.

It sounds like the project you are discussing is multidisciplinary. This could mean that a single engineer is unlikely to be able to help you. You might consider talking to an engineering/product-design company who could cover multiple domains. Also, because there is a software layer, regardless of the fact that you might do that work yourself, whoever you work with has to understand this as well. Unless you have dealt with embedded systems, you might actually need to have them explain how to approach certain aspects of a n IoT project. Here's a couple of options depending on the degree of help you might need:

https://www.starrapid.com/

https://www.algoshift.com/

Bottom line, if you have funding it should not be very difficult to find help. Trying to produce a non-trivial consumer-electronics product without money is nearly impossible.

Kickstarter?

The problem there is simple: If your idea is good, it will be cloned by some Chinese company before your funding period is over. There are many stories of entrepreneurs waking up to a bad clone of their product being sold in the open market for a quarter of the price they need to even begin to justify making it in the first place. I remember talking to a guy who listed an innovative 3D printer on KS. By the time the campaign was over, so was his business. The Chinese cloned enough of it from what he presented on KS that he shipped the units he owed and was forced to printing books about 3D printing. Be careful.

And then there's the regulatory part of every project. You will have to deal with UL, FCC, TUV, CE, etc. This is important and, yes, if you don't want to waste lots of time and lots of money, this requires expertise as well.

This brings me to intellectual property. I have a love/hate relationship with patents. However, in real life, in real business and in some industries, if you don't have them for protection you might as well not even enter. This is a tough realization for most engineers. Patents take time and are expensive to author. Patents might also cause you to delay introduction of your product (Example: If you disclose a product publicly anywhere in the world, you lose the ability to apply for and obtain a patent in Europe). Do you need one or more patents to protect yourself? If so, you might want to pay for an hour with a patent attorney and learn a bit about the realities of negotiating that landscape. The US Patent and Trademark office has a series of really nice webinars from which you can learn:

https://www.uspto.gov/about-us/events

Good timing, it looks like the series on patents starts tomorrow.

Here's a YC company in the IP domain, we've used them, they are good: