It's about keeping risks low. If there is a solution that's close enough why not use that? That's what I am hoping for and where I now possibly have one in sight. It would mean laying out the board to that enclosure but that is no big deal. Once it flies another layout will be peanuts in cost.
If you go all out and barge into the market the cost can be significant. We had to do that on one device. A bit more mechanical but close. It became a success but that company had to sink 1/2 million into it before it turned a profit. That's not in the cards on this one.
'tis not how it works anymore. Not since the dot-com bust. You have to show them your numbers and then they tell you whether to stick around or catch the next flight home. So, the numbers have to look good. Really, really good these days.
"Joerg" schreef in bericht news:KG1of.33704$q%. snipped-for-privacy@newssvr12.news.prodigy.com...
Yes, but it doesn't make sense here. You say an initial low of 10-20K per year, that suggests a product life of more than a year, and an increase in numbers as well. So in the end you will be making perhaps 250K of these things. So why worry about the costs for a test batch? If it flies, you know you can have them custom made for a 10th of the price of a hammond box or whatever. I really don't understand why you want to scrape off a few dimes for your first run.
Ask the VC what his budget is. And if he has any balls left. Like a good scout would ask ;)
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Thanks, Frank.
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"Joerg" schreef in bericht news:od3of.33722$q%. snipped-for-privacy@newssvr12.news.prodigy.com...
I'd hoped it be their project. That your VC figured out how large the market is, at what price it can be sold, at how many trade shows it will be launched, in what magazines it will be advertized, to which customers they send the glossy brochure, which dealers will distribute the first products etc. The money spend on those initial efforts is 10-20 times of the costs of your first batch of 500. It doesn't make any difference if your box costs $2 or $4 in this stage. And if it did, any it was of any importance to you and believe that it can fly, you'd fork out the extra 500 x 2$ yourself.
Trying to figure out the costs of every step seems pointless. If you estimate to need 3 day to do the layout, but turns out you need 6 days, then 6 days it is. And vice verca. If drilling 500 boxes cost 15c per hole, 15c it is. Drill them yourself for 7.5c if you happen to like drilling...
If the 500 boxes fly as hoped, they have to give a forecast of number of units to make. At that time, they hopefully know better at what price it can be sold too. Get a price for 100,000 custom boxes. If your box costs 2$ at that quantity, it will cost $4 at 50,000 and $8 at 25,000 -> it is just that simple.
BTW, extruded aluminum for a casing is surprisingly cheap also. The die does not cost very much. It can be U-shaped, with a lid (or transparent frontpanel with silkscreen) that you slide in, and two face plates that are screwed to both ends. You can have round corners, have it anodized in many colors, giving it a nice professional look. And the puppy won't enjoy chewing on it.
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Thanks, Frank.
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I'm unclear as to why a row of square LEDs would be more expensive. I wasnt suggesting a ready made bargraph. The LEDs would be touching, so you might want to sequence colours to enable easy identification with poor eyesight. Also the differing colours would help prevent any light bleed from one package to another.
I'd talk to them, tell them how many other customers/apps want a box like you want, and ask if they'll sell you a load. Explaining of course that you're looking at larger quantities down the line. Who knows, they might have been wondering about expanding their range already.
There are ways to help turn those borderline 1 or 2 layer designs into
1 layer.
Good, its about time. I havent seen a phenolic board in a long time. Consumer gear is almost always equipped with OTT bomb-proof thick fibreglass boards, when its not needed. Having worked (a little) with phenolic, its fine as long as you're not doing repeat mods. Keep desoldering things and it falls apart.
I've always gone there whenever I need to get stuff in large production quantities. When you find interesting suppliers I'd recommend phoning them as some don't respond well to email.
It's not the VC's project. The VC is usually just the one or the group that needs to be convinced. Many are quite risk-averse these days (there was an interesting IEEE Spectrum article about that this year) so the word 'venture' is sometimes not quite so accurate anymore. Things have greatly changed during the last four years.
The distribution and advertising path is already in place since this will be added to another product that's already selling.
That is correct. It's just that $8 at 25k is going to be tough to sell to the VC. But it may have to be done. They understand the concept of loss leaders but they don't like it ;-)
I like aluminum a lot, very sturdy. Thing is, we'll need battery holders and stuff as well. To my surprise that is not often in the standard designs except for very small stuff. If we could run it off a couple coin cells (we can't) I'd already be home via these guys, in case anybody runs into a similar challenge:
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Pretty cool, and the prices are good. Even the buttons are already included (and lit!). Now I'll just have to find something like that for a price like that but with AA batteries. It'll be just a matter of time.
Square ones are usually a little more in cost. But not a lot so this is certainly an option.
For this app it would be better if they are spread apart a bit so that the lettering next to them could be large font, for people with not so good vision. It will be used by people with and without their reading glasses on but the unit will be close by. A short row of adjacent LED can be a challenge for folks that need reading glasses and I am pretty much on the way to become one of those myself ;-)
Certainly. I have a call into them and some others. They offer insert molding which allows for some level of customization on their standard cases at very moderate cost.
Yes, that's the way we might go on the initial run. You can also buy them with just the wires, no clip so nobody can accidentally connect a
9V battery and fry the innards.
Some enclosure mfgs offer cheap insert molding or you can glue in pins to hold them in place, plus some foam to prevent rattling. It's not the way to go for large volume but certainly for now.
Yep, I have used lots of 10ohm resistors in the past that had no electrical purpose other than acting as a bridge ;-)
However, this thing will have to work next to active cell phones so I might not get away with that here.
Actually I have seen more phenolic than FR4 while peeking inside cheap handheld consumer gear. Garage door openers, toys, remotes, you name it.
I was pretty content with phenolic when I grew into electronics. The only place where it isn't the material du jour is around large tubes. I remember refusing to repair one TV when I was a kid. The H-final tube had turned the phenolic around its socket into charcoal and then eventually lowered itself with a hiss and a puff. It dangled around in there hanging on the traces (only one had ripped). But that was beyond repair, I just would not do that.
"Joerg" schreef in bericht news:nnlof.38044$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr27.news.prodigy.net...
You probably know these black plastic battery holders, with a 9V clip on one side. You can get them in sizes for 2,3,4,6,8,10 batteries. They are quite cheap too, maybe 5 cents, and 2 cents for the clip with the red/black wires.
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Thanks, Frank.
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How about a metal battery holder that you either attach to your pc board or to the box, like Keystone makes (see Mouser part number 534-146)? A little pricy maybe but down to $1.29 each for 500. Hang the pcb on the front cover and the user snaps the entire box off of the front panel to replace the batteries.
-- Regards, Carl Ijames carl.ijames at verizon.net
That would be too much luxury here. I am more thinking along the lines of Digikey's P/N BC2AAPC-ND, around 35 cents at 200 qty.
Some of the more unusual stuff to think about is polarity reversal. You and I would never do that but consumers do. And then it's "oh, must be a warranty case". Then again, I guess that's why we studied electrical engineering, to deal with those things.
The "electronic products" and "electronic components" oversize trade journals have wall-to-wall ads for low cost stock and semicustom enclosures from dozens of major suppliers.
This particular problem has long since gone away.
Our approach many years ago was simply to glue fake naugehyde onto plain old aluminum.
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Many thanks,
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Synergetics 3860 West First Street Box 809 Thatcher, AZ 85552
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