0 11 PCB Layout Rules to NEVER Break

Two boards can be built from the exact same schematic, and one works perfectly while the other fails EMI testing, resets randomly, or has almost no wireless range.

The schematic isn’t the whole design, because it’s really just an approximation … read more

0 7 Protection Circuits You Should NEVER Ship a Product Without

If you learned electronics through kits and tutorials, your prototype is probably missing every single protection in this video.

And that’s fine if it’s just for your own use.

But if you want to commercialize it, that changes everything.

You’ve … read more

0 9 AliExpress Components You Should Never Use in a Product

AliExpress is a great resource for a wide variety of Chinese-made components, but you have to be careful about the quality of what you actually get.

And there are nine of them I’d never let anywhere near a product I’m … read more

0 7 Batteries You Should NEVER Use in a Product

Years ago with my own product I decided to seal the battery inside to keep the cost down, and that same decision today would shut it out of one of the world’s biggest markets.

Every battery in this countdown works … read more

0 6 Hardware Decisions You Should NEVER Trust AI to Make

Someone building his first product asked AI to design a small circuit for him.

The answer came back in seconds, with every part labeled and every connection spelled out.

He built it exactly the way AI told him to, and … read more

0 7 Sensors You Should NEVER Use in a Product

If you learned electronics through beginner kits and tutorials, at least one of these sensors is probably sitting in your prototype right now.

One of them has been discontinued for years.

Another one can’t legally ship in products sold in … read more

0 Enclosure Decisions You Must Make Before Finishing Your PCB

Your PCB layout is making enclosure decisions for you right now, whether you realize it or not.

And most of them are wrong.

Most product creators finish their board first, and then plan to design an enclosure around it later.… read more

0 Why Your Manufacturer Won’t Catch Your Design Mistakes

Your manufacturer will build a thousand copies of a board that doesn’t work.

And they won’t warn you first.

That sounds like an accusation, but it isn’t, because catching your design mistakes was never their job in the first place.… read more

0 5 Reasons Why Your Prototype Isn’t Ready for Production

Your prototype works.

You plug it in, it does exactly what it’s supposed to, and your brain tells you you’re almost done.

That little voice in your head is lying to you, and it’s about to cost you months of … read more

0 How to Turn Your Proof-of-Concept Into a Custom PCB

If you’ve built an early working proof-of-concept prototype using off-the-shelf parts, then you’ve proven exactly one thing, that your concept works.

But what you can actually do with a prototype at that stage is limited, because in most cases it’s … read more

0 Is Your Prototype Ready for Manufacturing? 5 Gaps to Close First

Getting your prototype to finally work is one of the best feelings in all of hardware development.

You’ve been grinding on it for months, and now you’re holding something that actually does what you set out to build.

So it’s … read more

0 Which Voltage Regulators Should You Avoid in Your Product?

These nine voltage regulators show up all the time in beginner designs and early prototypes.

They work fine on the bench, but in a real product they cause thermal failures, blown EMC tests, and production problems that cost thousands of … read more

0 ESP32-S3 vs ESP32-C6 vs ESP32-P4: Which One for Your Product?

Most product creators pick the ESP32-S3 by default because it’s familiar, and then six months into development they realize it can’t do what their product actually needs.

The ESP32 lineup has exploded to over nine different variants, but three of … read more

0 Which Wireless Modules Should You Avoid in Your Product?

The wireless module you pick can kill your product before it ever ships.

I’m talking about FCC certifications that fall apart at the last minute, cellular networks that shut down mid-production, parts that go discontinued right when you’re scaling, and … read more

0 ESP32 vs RP2350: Which Should You Use in Your Product?

Pick the wrong microcontroller for your product and you’re looking at a full board redesign, fresh certification fees, and months of lost time.

The ESP32 versus RP2350 question is one I get asked constantly, and most comparison videos turn it … read more

0 STM32 vs GD32 vs CH32: Should You Trust the Cheaper Alternatives?

Pick the wrong one of these three microcontrollers and you either overpay on every unit you ship, or you save a few bucks per board and lose all of it in debugging time and a forced redesign right before your … read more

0 Should You Hire a Marketing Agency for Your Hardware Product?

If you’re thinking about hiring a marketing agency for your new product, I need to stop you, because I’ve seen way too many product creators blow through their budgets this way with almost nothing to show for it.

And look, … read more

0 Which Development Platform Should You Use for a Commercial Product?

Most product creators pick their development platform based on whatever they happened to learn first, and that one decision shapes every technical choice that follows.

The wrong starting point can cost you months of rework when you try to move … read more

0 Can You Sell a Hardware Product Before You Build It?

You can spend a year and tens of thousands of dollars developing a product that nobody buys.

I’ve watched it happen over and over, and it’s almost never because the product was bad.

It’s because the founder built first and … read more

0 Which Arduino Boards Should You Avoid for a Product?

These boards all work perfectly fine for early prototypes, which is exactly what makes them dangerous, because the chip underneath simply isn’t a foundation you can carry forward into production.

So I’m going to walk you through the seven Arduino … read more