Details needed for a PCB design

[ecworks]

Hello Robert and my other friends,

i have one doubt.If one company or or anyone else need a PCB and contact you,Then what are the information they give you? That is will they give you circuit diagram,datasheets of all components like so what are the information they give you ..I hope your reply, thank you....

[mairomaster]

It could be anything I guess, depending on what the company needs and what the company currently has in terms of design files. I can imagine different situations such as:

- They need you to do the complete design, including the initial research and everything, conceptual design, schematics, components selection, PCB layout, etc.
- They might already have a good idea of what the product needs to do and how this could be achieved, you do the rest.
- They might already have the design in some form, you need to do schematics in the software and all the rest.
- They might give you schematics and you just do the layout.
- They might give you already started layout, with a placement done lets say, you just need to finish it.
- They might give you finished layout, for you to check/improve it.
- They might give you previous version of the layout/project for modifications/improvement.

I guess the options are endless. Robert can give you more tips/real life examples, since he has much more experience with freelancing.

[robertferanec]

It's very different between clients. Usually we work with two scenarios:

1) Complete design: Schematic, Symbols, Footprints, Layout, Manufacturing data
2) Layout only: Layout

For the 1 we usually only take very interesting projects or very interesting clients with clear idea and finished specification. Number 1 is very risky and time consuming (of course depends on the project, we usually design processor boards).

We often do number 2, but still, be careful. We always ask the clients to have finished schematic, symbols and footprints. We are responsible for layout only. Normally you would only need their Altium project (that is what client usually sent) and you may want to study datasheets/design guides of the individual components.

Some clients are very good, some may be difficult. Recognise them on the beginning and drop the project if you do not feel right about the project, client or communication. You definitely should drop clients who really do not know real value of what you are doing (they think they will pay 2000 USD for custom motherboard design), they want you to be responsible for everything (always your client must be responsible, they have to approve your work by themselves), they keep changing specification (this is never ending project), communication is slow (they will eat 1 hour of your day and you will not be able to take another projects ... so you waste another 7 hours of your day by not working on any project), etc.