Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1426508
through facilitating reuse and really utilizing soware development techniques for hardware, to improve the efficiency of a team and to make sure that something is fixed, like Dan mentioned. You might make a mistake, but you only get to make it once. And then it's fixed aer that. Watson: How good a designer you are is dependent on your motivation and your goals. Let's be honest, there are some designers who are way beyond their expira- tion date. ey should have moved on, and now that we're getting over COVID, companies are turning back on again and designers are really pushed for time. I spoke about this in my July PCBDesign007 column, about companies now pushing to get things done. But often when you do that, the details are skipped. I hear that so oen, "We don't have time to double-check things here. We need to get this out the door." I've said this before—many good PCB designs are sacrificed on the altar of expe- diency. Oen, designers think, "I got it. I got a board through fabrication. I got it through assembly. It must be right." However, that doesn't mean it's correct. It just means you got lucky. I think it takes a lot of intestinal fortitude to push back on those peo- ple who are pushing the schedule. If you asked the sales department when they would like to have something done, what do they say? Last week? e mentality is, "Just give us some- thing to sell." When that happens, it's just like the whole process is pushed by an unrealistic time schedule. Shaughnessy: What data do you share with the other stakeholders in the process? Do you 16 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I NOVEMBER 2021 share everything, or is it on a case-by-case basis? Watson: e one document I never put out to either a fab house or an assembly house is a schematic. at's a pro- tected document that gives them an entire design and it's very important not to give that to them. But I've seen some companies who will put out some of those documents, and the fab house will actually change the Gerbers or certain spe- cifics about the board. ere is a little bit of a disconnect. ere is this symbiotic rela- tionship, we'll call it, between the engineer and the fab house and what they do with their Gerbers. I think every Gerber set gets changed a little bit. Happy Holden: Dugan, as a product developer, a product contractor, did people come to you for products or just for board designs? Karnazes: In my last company we designed low-volume products. ere's one customer who maybe needs about 20 units a year, but it involves sensors, a dedicated circuit board, RF module, and battery management. Other com- panies would just need a USBC power supply reformatted because they changed the packag- ing, and it was a different shape. I got into it first as an electronics engineer, designing boards for people, but then added on formal engineer and mechanical engineer. I've now moved on to this role at Bissell. But managing all the data and figuring out how to create that system was definitely one of the challenges that we faced. Watson: Was there anything out there that you could pick up as a model to start with? Do you have to start from scratch? Patryk Akhurst