Am 12.12.2011 um 11:05 schrieb Fernando Martins: > On 12/12/2011 10:04 AM, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: >> So we have to go the painful way of designing our own cases. But the >> good side is that we can improve on the outer shape and look&feel. >> > Yes, I think that makes sense, but the cost of the moulds seems to be a major > roadblock in the road of reasonably priced devices when done in small numbers. > > I was asking because my brother lives in a region in Portugal known for > manufacturers of moulds, China being one of typical destinations. I asked him > what he knew about this business and the main issue seems indeed to be very > high cost of the moulds whereas the plastic products cost merely cents. > Unfortunately, as mentioned by Patryck in the other reply, moulds also need > to be rectified after some time, and even this cost can be too high. > > And, it seems that to make a single mould, it can in fact require more than > one iteration. I was a bit surprised about this last one as I thought NPC > tools could make the mould exactly according to spec but he did not know what > were the issues. > > My brother did not know specific costs but he heard on past informal > conversations of costs on the orders of many thousands of Euros. > > Did you get to any figures yourself?
Yes - 20000 - 50000 EUR range. Or even more depending on surface quality and number of details. The main reason appears to be that the mould is a single unit production itself. I.e. all development cost is included in the price. And it is a mechanical masterpiece to get the plastics cool fast enough but not too fast and have the plasic parts finally fall out. I am in favour of Radek's wooden experiments. Anyone done 3D cutting with wood? Nikolaus _______________________________________________ Openmoko community mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
