PCBWay sponsorship: full-size SD module for Arduino projects
colino.net
colino.net
pcbway and jlcpcb sponsorships, especially on hobby electronics YT videos, are quite interesting case.
On one hand they seem redundant at this point. Both companies are well known to the target audience to the point of saturation, there isn't really any serious competition (in terms of capabilities, speed and price) and yet they keep sponsoring more projects.
On the other hand, it's probably the sponsorship I tolerate the most. Both are genuine companies unlike all the borderline scams such as all the vpns, brilliant, mobile games, etc.
It’s not a lot of money - but there is an informal commitment that I will try and produce a video a month. It’s also very on brand for my content - hobby electronics with a focus on embedded (ESP32 range of microcontrollers).
I think the videos are entertaining and educational. Actual viewer numbers fluctuate wildly and despite over 50K subscribers - a “successful” video for my channel is around 3000 views (channel is in my profile).
I still find it amazing that I can get PCBs manufactured at such an affordable price. Even SMD assembly is reasonably priced. Short production runs are more than doable at the amateur level.
It's interesting perspective and I'm happy to hear it works well for you.
I watch all your videos by the way. By the PCB Way!
https://GitHub.com/oro-os/link
It probably wouldn't hold up super well to professional scrutiny but everything on it works.
I would not have been able to do it without companies like JLC. It made an entire industry approachable, which is old fashioned 'good business' IMO.
Have you thought about RISC-V implementations of the kernel as well (iirc you're on ARM and on x64)?
Also, what's that large five pin connector in the bottom left for?
Those are picked up by GitHub CI runners (could be anything but I'm using GH for now) that pull those image artifacts and send them over the internet to the board, which stores them on the microSD slot.
Then the board will boot the device-under-test (either by enabling a USB VBUS line, asserting PS_ON and pressing the power button, whatever the device needs) and will serve the image either a via USB mass device or by switching on access to the microSD card directly via a ribbon connector/custom microSD PCB and ribbon cable.
The kernel then communicates over serial back to the Link, which proxies that back up to the CI runner for evaluating test runs, etc.
Everything is configured using MQTT and mDNS. Using async Rust via Embassy for the firmware.
5-pin on the bottom left is for power - 5V 2A 'always on' supply (on the ATX24 adapters that's the 5vsb line), 5V 3A aux line (for VBUS, optional and not otherwise used to power the board itself), a sense line for the aux power (board will shut down and display an error on over-current of the main line if not sensed), active-low aux line enable signal (PS_ON for ATX24 sources), and ground.
This means that it's used to cut power on x86 machines, or to use a stock desktop PSU even for arm/riscv dev boards. In the future I want to make this all rack mounted and have a dedicated power supply for multiples of these.
Would be similar to the distributer/producer of a food item sponsoring channels to use their ingredient in recipes.
Makes a lot of sense.
New people enter the hobby every day, they are just advertising to "todays lucky 10,000" https://xkcd.com/1053/
Design critique - I would put the mounting holes further from the board edge, for added strength. The screw heads are going to overhang a certain amount anyway.
I suspect more and more hobbyists are using 3.3V microcontrollers like the ESP32, Raspberry Pi Pico, and countless Adafruit offerings. Unless you know your project won't need much processing power, I don't see much reason to use a 5V "ATmega..." -based Arduino these days. Much easier to use a cheap £2 32-bit overkill processor than to deal with running out of RAM, etc. Also, most advanced sensors I've seen have 3.3V logic levels now.
It's not about business (or being bought). It's about my hobby. This is the email they sent me:
--- Your BurgerDisk project is an ingenious way to modernize Apple II storage, showcasing your expertise.
This is Emily from PCBWay. I'd like to sponsor your projects with free PCB prototyping. A brief review would be appreciated in return.
Would you be interested? ---
This is my reply:
--- OK, why not, as long as my review is my own and honest :) What is the budget ? ---
I then published my post without them pre-screening it. It's a honest, factual review about how it goes to have PCBWay make an assembled PCB. They didn't even ask me to share it on any social media.
What I got out of it is a few hours of fun (because this is my hobby) routing a (rather simple) PCB, and a batch of twenty modules that I didn't have to use my pocket money for.
This is all. Don't overthink it.
I do sell my device. It's mostly as a service to the community members who don't have the equipment, time or skill to assemble it themselves, as it is a free software, open hardware project; it's not going to replace my salaried job in any foreseeable timeframe, and it's not the goal.
Hope that clears things up,
Colin
A PCB Way sponsorship pays $100?
You show their logo, talk about them thank them praise them for $100? And it’s not even cash?
All those tech guys getting the PCB Way sponsorship really don’t know business do they.
That is absolutely insane.
I'm not in the monetization business yet, but I'm thinking about creating a YT channel and stream some DIY/hardware related things, so I'm genuinely curious on how much such sponsors really pay.
And PCBway sponsors a lot of channels.
Eh.
For a hobbyist it's pretty neat. I don't expect to be extracting a lot of value from hobbyist PCB designs.
That some PCB manufacturer is willing to do a small batch of my PCB design & I don't have to pay for it, just give them a shout out & write about it, that seems pretty neat.
(I suspect they are more expensive only because they are nonstandard)
Getting a human involved in quoting makes it more expensive and it gives these vendors an opportunity to BOM substitute for cheaper Chinese alternative parts.
Part substitution is mainly a question of trust. As far as I understand it, you preorder parts through JLC's website, so JLC could easily automatically sub out your passives if they wanted to. For all that people worry about this a lot, I'm not sure if the incentive to do it is really there for shops like JLC or PCBWay. The components that are easy to substitute are cheap anyway, and these companies can easily just pass on any additional cost to the customer. I'm not personally going to haggle with PCBWay over a few additional pennies for a chip resistor or ceramic capacitor, given that the entire service is mind-blowingly cheap.