Davy De Waele
New Member
Hi,
We're very new to the world of custom PCB but have created a piece of hardware (custom PCB) and "outsourced" that PCB design to another company because it is not our main focus. Our focus being the business logic that runs on the hardware.
We've given him the necessary input on the high-level component choices and the overal archictecture (an AVR based microcontroller with a gprs module). Nothing too fancy.
After some requirements gathering sessions we concluded on a set of requirements that we wanted to see in the design.
After having gone through the design with the PCB designer we placed an order for the first 5 prototypes.
As we're new to all of this , we did stumble upon a couple of things that we find "strange" :
1. The PCB designer who is using Altium Designer (as many designers do) only wants to release electronic files that allow us to "reproduce" the current PCB design. He refers to Gerber files that can be sent to a manufacturer.
He's not willing to deliver Eagle files or Altium project files that would allows us to make changes to the design .
2. The PCB designer feels that giving the project files violates his intellectual property. We find this strange as he has no use for our hardware product, and the only reason he would opt to not give us the project files is to force us to stay in business with him, even for the smallest design change.
3. The PCB designer cannot guarantee in any way that the first 5 prototypes will work at all. We're charged additional fees to get the board verified electronically (simply verifying that the thing won't blow up when applying power). If for some reasons the prototypes fail to work the design needs to be re-visitied (again additional fees) and new prototypes need to be delivered.
We're relatively new to the whole custom PCB world but I was wondering if this was normal behavior. Is it true that the Gerber files only allow us to reproduce the existing design without making changes to it ? Is it normal that a PCB designer never releases his project files ?
As we're dealing with our own hardware product, we feel we have a right to these project files, as we paid for the PCB design, and would like to see this design altered by any party we see fit (as opposed to our current PCB designer keeping us hostage).
Any thoughts on this ?
We're very new to the world of custom PCB but have created a piece of hardware (custom PCB) and "outsourced" that PCB design to another company because it is not our main focus. Our focus being the business logic that runs on the hardware.
We've given him the necessary input on the high-level component choices and the overal archictecture (an AVR based microcontroller with a gprs module). Nothing too fancy.
After some requirements gathering sessions we concluded on a set of requirements that we wanted to see in the design.
After having gone through the design with the PCB designer we placed an order for the first 5 prototypes.
As we're new to all of this , we did stumble upon a couple of things that we find "strange" :
1. The PCB designer who is using Altium Designer (as many designers do) only wants to release electronic files that allow us to "reproduce" the current PCB design. He refers to Gerber files that can be sent to a manufacturer.
He's not willing to deliver Eagle files or Altium project files that would allows us to make changes to the design .
2. The PCB designer feels that giving the project files violates his intellectual property. We find this strange as he has no use for our hardware product, and the only reason he would opt to not give us the project files is to force us to stay in business with him, even for the smallest design change.
3. The PCB designer cannot guarantee in any way that the first 5 prototypes will work at all. We're charged additional fees to get the board verified electronically (simply verifying that the thing won't blow up when applying power). If for some reasons the prototypes fail to work the design needs to be re-visitied (again additional fees) and new prototypes need to be delivered.
We're relatively new to the whole custom PCB world but I was wondering if this was normal behavior. Is it true that the Gerber files only allow us to reproduce the existing design without making changes to it ? Is it normal that a PCB designer never releases his project files ?
As we're dealing with our own hardware product, we feel we have a right to these project files, as we paid for the PCB design, and would like to see this design altered by any party we see fit (as opposed to our current PCB designer keeping us hostage).
Any thoughts on this ?