Initially, I was very excited about adding wireless capabilities to my product, and I was even more excited to find a plethora of available solutions in China. I could get any kind of remote, receiver, transceiver, encoder or decoder, FSK, OOK, ASK, in any frequency band 315MHz, 433MHz, 900MHz, 2.4GHz, at any power level. I …
Permanent link to this article: http://engineerinshenzhen.com/fcc-spells-fun/
China is hazardous to your health. A good friend of mine with the startup Nomiku recently took ill while working on production in Shenzhen and had this to say: Ugh, just found out the meds I ate have lead in them from the doctor I visited today. China got me good, once again. There are …
Permanent link to this article: http://engineerinshenzhen.com/danger-to-your-health/
China is fraught with fake parts, but that’s not always a completely bad thing that will ruin you. Sometimes it’s something that will save you lots of money because it works well enough for your needs and is readily available. Two of the components for my product (the DigiTally, a portable electronic scoreboard) are DC/DC …
Permanent link to this article: http://engineerinshenzhen.com/useful-fakes-abound-too/
At the electronics market there are lots of booths of people selling iPhone cases, USB thumb drives, cell phone trinkets, and other useless but high margin plastic things. They prey on the thousands of visitors from around the world who are there to get useless “Made In China” crap for their families or get ‘amazing’ …
Permanent link to this article: http://engineerinshenzhen.com/fakes-abound/
Sparkfun has an interesting article on something they call, the “pit of despair.” It’s the point of volume production where you’re more than you can make easily at home, less than you can go directly to a contract manufacturer, and right at the point where you’re not making enough money to quit your day job …
Permanent link to this article: http://engineerinshenzhen.com/pit-of-despair/
Occasionally I get contacted by other people in or near Shenzhen who have also written about the craziness that is the Shenzhen electronics market. Here’s one such post. Mitch Davis has an interesting perspective about forming lasting relationships with people and how important it is to get a foot in the door and build a …
Permanent link to this article: http://engineerinshenzhen.com/another-perspective-of-the-electronics-market/
After reading this post about rioting workers at Foxconn, I thought I should respond with what I saw when I was in Shenzhen. The workspace where I’ve had my base of operations for the last two months has an employee who used to work at Foxconn as a test engineer. I asked him a few …
Permanent link to this article: http://engineerinshenzhen.com/interview-with-a-former-foxconn-employee/
I met Ian of DangerousPrototypes and Tully and Liao in Shenzhen, and just discovered they have a video tour of the electronics market that is much better than the coverage I gave of the place. This video gives a good sense of what the market is like. And here’s the link to his article.
Permanent link to this article: http://engineerinshenzhen.com/video-of-the-electronic-market/
For the past nearly three months, I’ve dealt with China and manufacturing in China. It has been stressful and interesting and exhausting and eye-opening. I don’t know nearly enough yet, but I know a lot, and what I’ve discovered agrees with what I’ve heard from others who have spent years and decades there. The following …
Permanent link to this article: http://engineerinshenzhen.com/initial-findings-on-manufacturing-in-china/
HKIA is cheaper than Shenzhen airport for flights, but it adds a layer of complexity to the voyage. Hong Kong is a special region of China; U.S. citizens don’t need a visa for stays of 90 days or less, but that doesn’t apply to mainland. The primary languages spoken are English and Cantonese, whereas Shenzhen …
Permanent link to this article: http://engineerinshenzhen.com/getting-from-shenzhen-to-hong-kong-international-airport/
