I have designed a RGB LED breakout board, and I'd like to make it commercial.
Where do I sell it, and how do I price it?
I designed this for a customer for a one-off project he built, but it would work for so many applications! It wasn't copywritten by him. Even though he has some of the PCBs, can I still patent/copyright it?
If you have a copyrighted logo for your company, you can put that on the copper of the board. If you can afford to defend your copyright or patent, go ahead and do it. You sell it for whatever someone will pay for it. Try Ebay.
Is it just a printed circuit board or does it have components?
@Paul_KD7HB
I have a non-copywritten logo and company name - I can't afford to defend anything.
What would sell better? I don't mind selling a plain PCB or a kit.
If you and the customer agreed that what you did was "work for hire" then your customer owns what you did. The literal phrasing is important. Or, if what you did falls into specific kinds of work then your customer owns what you did en lieu of any agreement. Searching for "copyright work for hire" will get you more details. Creating a PCB does not seem to be one of those specific things.
Browse Adafruit and SparkFun to get an idea of pricing.
Take a look at tindie.com for DIY electronics sellers.
Expenses + Desired Profit
can you tell a little more detail? if it is not a secret
I asked him if he wanted a PCB to mount it on and he said yes. I designed one and sent it to him:
What does that mean? Can I sell the PCB? If not, I'll "redesign" it.
@Icebuster Looks interesting! I'll try it out, if there aren't any upfront fees.
@killzone_kid Hourly rate for design/assembly? That would make it expensive... The PCBs themselves are like 80 cents each, excluding componants and design time.
I'm worried about someone stealing the idea... Is that likely if I post it here?
I actually have four PCB designs I want to sell - an arduino based battery tester, a custom weather station mainboard ( AtMega 2560 based - still in design phase), a custom SD card module for arduino, and the RGB LED PCB.
@b707
Here is one:
(just the top layer - I'm not displaying the whole board yet. This one is still in the testing stage)
This board is actually smaller and more compact than a commercially available battery tester that will test the same batteries!
in this case don't, i'm just curious
Thank you
I ca send you more info privately if you'd like.
Thanks, a general description is enough for me.
In my environment, people prefer to do such things themselves, rather than pay 10-20 dollars to someone else so similar offer unlikely to be successful 
Which things?
custom pcb, for example
Oh right. Yes well if possible I want to create the whole item and sell it as is - the RGB LED is sized to fit inside a globe for mounting on a display. It is a kind of special PCB made for this application.
I suppose I might not sell very many though - maybe more likely to sell the battery tester.
Unless it’s a super complicated multi layer design, there are so many people able to create a Simple 1/2 side PCB that it’s likely worth peanuts anyway as copycats will create clones pretty quickly if there is a market. Your margin is their opportunity and Far East can produce at cost you can’t compete with.
Think about value added. Populated boards ready to use, very efficient software library on top, consulting services etc…
I was thinking about selling the bare PCB for $3...
How did you come up with $3?
Shipping and handling included?
Dude stop being paranoid, there is nothing to steal there