Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
It's a good idea to take samples from each batch of your product to retest and confirm
that the factory quality control process is effective. If you can catch problems before your
product goes out to customers, your product will be much more likely to succeed.
Creative Fixes
Sometimes, as with the Pen Type-A, things go wrong but the product is still salvageable.
This is where you might have to roll up your sleeves and perform a bit of manual labor and
maybe some heroics to ship a satisfactory product to your customers. There is a great and
underutilized term for this kind of manual repair in the electronics world. “Suck-muck” ap-
propriately describes the hand-modifications made to a circuit board after production to get
it working properly.
When the entire silkscreen is missing from a circuit board with many components,
there isn't much you can do other than use the boards for coasters. If the board is missing
only a positive or ground indicator, it might be easily repairable (though it might take a lot
of time). Tod Kurt and Mike Kuniavsky had exactly this experience when they accident-
ally left the indicators off the circuit board they manufactured for their BlinkM product.
To fix this problem, they used permanent markers to apply a red dot indicating power and
a black dot indicating ground on the front of their board (
Figure 13.6
)
. They fixed the er-
ror in the next production run, but the cost of a couple Sharpies and several hours was all
it took to rescue the initial production run of boards.
