Using development board in production stage

[Zeni241]

Is it a good idea to use development board in production stage for first version of product (and you are just testing the market of your product), if:
1. It fulfils your requirement.
2. You are not very sensitive about size of final product.
3.
What are the benefits of using custom PCB board apart from saving in size? Does it saves lot of money?

[ESP_Sprite]

It depends. A custom PCB is usually better for large-scale runs, as you can control the components better (devboards may happily change around LDOs, flash chips etc, or even change pinouts without informing customers) but a custom PCB also incurs more development time, and for small runs that may not be worth it.

As an intermediate, you can use e.g. an ESP32-Wrover module. These modules are well-specced and assumed to go into mass-produced devices, but as they already integrate all fiddly high-frequency things in the package, they're a lot easier to integrate than a 'raw' ESP32 chip.

[Zeni241]

Thanks for reply.

. (devboards may happily change around LDOs, flash chips etc, or even change pinouts without informing customers

This didn't occurred to me.

As an intermediate, you can use e.g. an ESP32-Wrover module

How about WROOM with single core, it will use less power and suites for battery run.
Now that I am going for dev board, the big question which board to choose. It needs to be reliable as well as affordable. I was thinking about WEMOS ESP32. It's around $6 each. Other boards without battery inlet are cheaper but I don't know any reliable company which is also affordable. Any suggestions?

[ESP_Sprite]

As an Espressif employee, I'd suggest our own DevkitC boards, but obviously I'm slightly biased...

[Franco]

You can check the price of Espressif modules on the usual online distributors, and notice that the cost of an ESP32-WROOM-32D would be less than half the cost of an ESP32-devkitC. And you have more flash size options for the modules vs. ESP32-Devkits which have 4MB flash. Obviously the kit includes more devices like the LDO, USB to Serial converter etc.

[Franco]

This thread should be moved to Hardware

[ESP_Sprite]

This thread should be moved to Hardware

You're absolutely right; I moved it.

[TomWS1]

Another reason to use pre-existing modules in a product is that it is easier to get FCC, etc. approvals if you're using a module that is already approved.

[chegewara]

I have clients that are using devkit-WROVER-B, m5stack and other boards available on market in their products that also are on market or are in pre-production stage.