[TriEmbed] Advice Needed

[The MacDougals]

Hi Chip, we certainly encourage this kind of discussion on this forum.
I do not know which meeting you attended, but there were discussions at
recent meetings that certainly apply here.

The presentation I did on programming ATtiny's is a good way to avoid the
cost of a full blown Arduino.
See http://www.triembed.org/ for a link to slides and a YouTube video.
If you can use three AAA batteries, you will not need a voltage regulator.
I am working on a board at the moment that will turn on a drip irrigation
system using an ATtiny84 and a N-MOSFET to drive a DC motor.
I downloaded Eagle to design my own circuit boards and was quickly
disillusioned.  Electronic CAD software is made
by HW engineers and often lacks an intuitive user interface.  I switched to
Fritzing and was quickly productive (it too lacks
a good user interface).  After a bit, though, I went back to Eagle and use
it now to design small boards that I have fabbed by
OSH Park http://oshpark.com.  They charge $5 per square inch for quantity 3
boards and have really high quality double sided boards delivered within 2
weeks.
Most of my boards are less than three square inches.  My trick to getting
familiar with Eagle was to watch a series of YouTube videos (sorry
I do not have the URL at the moment).  They were very helpful.  SparkFun has
downloads of Eagle parts libraries for most of the stuff they sell.
I have designed a few of my own parts.

Bring what you have to the next meeting and we can all help you with
reducing your BOM.

Oh, I guess I should say that I think the free version of Eagle is not for
designing stuff you sell, so you should purchase a license with your initial
profits.

---> Paul MacDougal


-----Original Message-----
From: TriEmbed [mailto:triembed-bounces at triembed.org] On Behalf Of Charles
McClelland
Sent: Thursday, October 03, 2013 9:14 PM
To: triembed at triembed.org
Subject: [TriEmbed] Advice Needed

TriEmbed,

I have only been able to make it to one meeting but I hope to be in town to
make more going forward.  I hope it is OK for a newbie like me to ask a
question. 

I figured out one of the best ways to learn about the Arduino was to build
something that someone might actually want to buy.  For my first project, I
built a system that monitors soil moisture and will pump water to the plan
to ensure it is kept in an adjustable range.  I have a few (superfluous?)
extras to provide feedback on the soil moisture, sound an alarm if the soil
get's too moist, not water at night, allow adjusting of the soil moisture
level, prime the pump and sound an alarm when you run out of water.  It all
works the way I want it to.  

Now the part I need advice on - turning this into something I can sell -
unit of one is fine - on eBay.  I think the next steps are:
   	1) Cost optimization - I am using a Sparkfrun ProtoBoard and other
expensive components - how can I get the cost of the components down to
under $10?
   	2) Develop a custom circuit board - Though not required for a unit
of one production, I want to learn this process.  I tried downloading Eagle
but have not made much progress.
   	3) Develop / Buy an enclosure - All this needs to be packaged in a
way that looks semi-professional.
   

Any ideas on how to get smart about this process?  Should I simply bring
this little project to the next meeting?  I appreciate any and all advice.
   

Thanks,
   

Chip
_______________________________________________
Triangle, NC Embedded Computing mailing list TriEmbed at triembed.org
http://mail.triembed.org/mailman/listinfo/triembed_triembed.org
TriEmbed web site: http://TriEmbed.org