Getting stuff manufactured is tough. One thing I’ve struggled with is specifying parts in a way that Seeed knows which parts could be substituted with cheap local unbranded “cockroach” or “jellybean” or “duff” parts.There’s also a huge information asymmetry where it is almost impossible for a designer outside China to know how to spec parts that are common and dirt cheap.
In my “get stuff made” presentation there’s a couple slides about the level of detail I use to try to hit the sweet spot. Chips get full part numbers. Resistors and capacitors NEVER get a proper part number, there’s too much risk the sourcing agent will price based on buying that part number from a foreign source at 17% VAT.
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So, as with DirtyPCBs, I spent some time thinking about the assembly problem and knocking some poorly written scripts together. I wanted to make something to fix the information asymmetry, put the person most knowledgeable about the design in charge of part selection, and move the upfront cost of sourcing onto the buyer. DirtyBOM/DirtyAssembly is my interpretation of a solution.
DirtyBOM/DirtyAssembly is highly experimental and open only by invitation. We are not going into the assembly business, hell we aren’t even making our _own_ hardware, this was just an itch that had to be scratched.
http://dangerousprototypes.com/bom
