e-Gizmo is now on its 8th year of serving the Filipino electronics and robotics geeks. Wow! Thank you! I really don’t know what to say. It is so unreal. Thank you so much for your continuing support!
Looking back, the early years of e-Gizmo is not much different from the tales and experiences often foretold in running a business the first time. The first three years was particularly hard. Everyday of our existence we have to deal with the prospect of bankruptcy (we were in fact bankrupt then by any measure). Every centavo we had were spent to keep e-Gizmo open for a day more. We could not even bring home money to feed our families. We depended mainly on the sustenance of our families to go through these difficult times
Nobody really thought e-Gizmo could make it or even continue operating for very long. After all, we, the cofounders of e-gizmo, are just a couple of dudes who knew very little in running a business. We are dreamers, armed only with a strong desire to do what we liked doing most: building circuits and gadgets. But what we lacked in business skill is compensated by our long history of experience in electronics design and manufacturing. And on top of that, we have your continued patronage. Thanks to you, we did the unlikely.
e-Gizmo Kits: Should our kits be made to look like, hmmn… kits?
During the early years of e-Gizmo, one major decision we have to make was how we want to present our kits. During those years, the prevailing mindset is DIY kits should be made to appear like one: a jumbled collection of parts soldered over an ugly printed circuit board. The uglier it is the better. Even up to the present, most local kit manufacturers built their kit around the cheapest Printed Circuit Board (PCB) base material available: single sided, paper phenolic base material. Not a problem, really, were it not for the fact they are manufactured using hopelessly ancient, crude and sloppy techniques. Don’t look for quality, you cannot even hope for one. The PCBs are so badly made that building a circuit out of these guarantees a little chance of success in making your kit work the first time. Yet, in a strange and mind boggling manner, this is what the customers actually want!
Being a hobbyist myself, I understood the reason why. We’ve been exposed with sub par kits far too long that we are conditioned us to believe that DIY kit should not appear professionally made. Otherwise, nobody will believe that you made it yourself. Should we conform to the current trend and simply do what everybody else was doing? We decided its time we change all this. Going against the advice of friends and close colleagues, we gambled and use high quality commercial grade PCBs on our kits. We are probably the first local kit provider that consistently used high grade FR4 plated through holes PCBs with our kits.
The next leap: Use of Surface Mount Devices SMD
A better PCB is just the start. The next questions is whether to go with another conventional wisdom that favors through hole components over surface mount devices (SMD) components. Through holes components are still preferred because they are easier to work with, and so they say. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Actually it is the other way around. The only reasons we hobbyists thinks that way is we never tried working with them in the first place. Soldering SMD components may difficult the first time, but once you got the hang of it, you will never turn back. Take this from a middle age man with failing eyesight, but still find more joy in working with SMD components.
So here, we took another “risk”, as we opted to use SMD components in our kits. We find it a lot easier and faster to assemble the kits resulting with the best quality. But more importantly, through-hole components are on their way out. Their days are numbered. Volume manufacturers don’t want them anymore. SMD is the future of electronics. You don’t want to hone your skill to a technology that is going obsolete.
Better Home Grown Kits
Those two decisions proved pivotal in the success of e-Gizmo and earning us a reputation as a high quality electronics kit provider, In fact, even those who had been in the kit business long before us are now following our lead. They too started using good quality PCBs to build their own kits; some are now even doing SMDs too. Finally, our local hobbyists and students are getting good quality kits they long deserved.
We will continue to work hard to give you better kits all the time. This will be our lasting commitment to you. Once again, thank you and happy building!
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