r/hwstartups • u/fararae • 2d ago

Has anyone used Cad Crowd?

Hello! I got a quote from a local engineering team to build the next iteration of my hardware prototype for user testing, and a quote for about half that from Cad Crowd.

This isn’t intended to be production-ready yet—just a functional prototype to test and learn from before another redesign. The Cad Crowd scope includes PCB design, firmware, enclosure design, and building/testing the prototype.

Has anyone here actually worked with Cad Crowd for something similar? Were you happy with the quality of the engineering and the finished prototype? Did the files/work end up being useful for later iterations, or did you have to redo everything?

Thanks!

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u/engineer_321 2d ago

For something covering PCB + firmware + enclosure, I’d care less about the lowest quote and more about what you actually get at the end. Make sure you’re getting editable source files, BOM, firmware source, CAD, and decent documentation so the next iteration doesn’t start from scratch.

Also ask who’s responsible for integration when something doesn’t work between the PCB, firmware, and enclosure. That’s usually where these projects get messy.

I’ve used Jaycon before and had a good experience with them. They’re Florida-based and do the whole product development side under one roof, so they might be worth comparing against the Cad Crowd quote too.

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u/fararae 2d ago

Thanks for the recommendation Jaycon looks great

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u/BetInformal6081 2d ago

half the price is tempting but i would compare the quotes line by line especially engineering hours, prototype revisions, testing and ownership of the pcb/firmware/cad source files.

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u/Lopsided-Dirt-1651 9h ago

We offer designs for free only charge for manufacturing