Articles
Lessons from the factory floor.
Hard-won notes on sourcing, costing, and quality from 13+ years making products in China — the things we wish every team knew before they wired their first deposit.
Field Notes from China
We have spent years making hardware in China, and these are the notes we wish we had on day one. They are hard-won and practical: how to find the right supplier, get a straight answer, prototype quickly and keep costs honest. Read them in order, or jump to whatever you are stuck on.
9 articles
Designing Moldable Parts: A Checklist Before You Send the File
Most injection molding problems are designed in, long before the mold is cut. A skimmable checklist for walls, ribs, bosses, corners, holes, text and finish, so the file you send is one a shop can actually mold.
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Cantilever Snap Fits: Ratios, Not Equations
Snap fits are some of our favourite features to design. The maths is nice, but a handful of thickness ratios gets you most of the way, and which way the hook faces decides whether the mold is simple or painful.
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One WeChat history for a dual-boot Windows and Linux PC
WeChat desktop doesn't sync history between computers, so a dual-boot PC ends up with two histories that drift apart. Here is how I pointed both operating systems at one folder, and what went wrong on the way.
ReadFast Injection Molds in China: Tooling in 10 Days
The standard story says a mold takes 30 days plus revisions. There is another way: 10-day injection molds, cheaper than regular tooling. Here is how they work, what the catch is, and when to use them.
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Taobao for Factory Sourcing?
Taobao looks like a shopping site for phone cases and sneakers. It is also one of the best places to find real factories, including specialised ones. What matters is the supplier, not where you found them.
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Lowest-cost manufacturing in China: Brian's Law
The factory with the polished English-speaking sales team is rarely the cheapest place your part can be made. Here's why, and how to find the people who actually make it.
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Fast Prototyping in China: Stop Asking Factories
Many teams prototype with the wrong supplier, then wonder why the replies dry up by revision three. Here's how fast prototyping in China actually works, and who to ask.
ReadWhy 'yes' doesn't always mean yes
Most manufacturing disasters I've seen weren't technical — they were communication failures. After 13 years here, this is how I keep 'yes' from becoming a $40,000 surprise.
ReadWhat 'landed cost' actually includes
The factory quote is the number everyone fixates on — and it's often barely half of what a unit really costs to land on your dock. Here are the line items teams forget.
ReadHow to vet a factory before you wire a deposit
A supplier's quote tells you almost nothing about whether they can actually build your product. Here's what I check — in person — before a cent moves.
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