On Monday 08 April 2019 17:10:26 Chris Albertson wrote: > Gene, > > It is 2019. The money is made today with the service sector. Yes I > could sell widgets and make $50 for each one sold. But it is better > to give away the widgets and then charge for widget services including > installation, training and consulting. The service pays far more than > does manufacturing, especially if the product is just a $3 chip on a > PCB. Or worse a $2, PCB from eBay that has been flashed with > software. > > Price controls demand. so the demand for free open source widgets > much higher then if I charged a fair price. Consulting and install > service pays better if my widgets have dominant market share. So it > pays to give them away a lot more then if I charged. Designers and > engineers have learned to do design and engineering, not > manufacturing, leave that to China. > > Seems wrong but there is many times more tpo be made by giving things > out then trying to sell them. The scales only tip to manufacturing > is the volume is VERY high
How does that work when the Chinese send a 600mm x 390mm x maybe 120mm gantry machine over here, and sells it to some dealer who doesn't read Chinese, and he, the dealer can sell it for $1295 USD. There is no one who can read or service the electronics supplied and they refuse to fix poor choices in equiping it. So there is no aftermarket traceable back to them, but I am forced to replace the 24 volt stepper psu because it goes into foldback when the 4th axis is plugged in, running cool at 14 volts. The vfd is a pcb bolted to a 7"x7"x1" block of alu, and no docs on how to tune it, and its changed the direction it turns the spindle motor 3 times now since I first ran it in mid January while refusing to respond to any voltage applied to its rev terminal. So I am replacing it with a twin but one notch higher powered and 110 volt version of the 220 volt vfd I used on the Sheldon. I was unable to run down any specs on the brand new TB6560 stepper driver, so I just went to the shop in the back yard and got the whole driver kit off the old HF micromill, which has 4 2m542's and a 28 volt 15 amp supply & hooked it up, works great. So that whole 50 lb box of crap will be off the shelf above the mill and out of service by the end of the week hopefully. Its purty, I'll give it that, but if it doesn't work, its outta here. So if I had to run all that stuff down new, I'd had at least 2 grand in it by now. If one could buy that mill without that box of crap for $800 USD it would be a decent buy, but no one offers it that way. What I'm trying to say is: I see no way for the Chinese maker to share in the aftermarket created by his selling the machine this side of the big pond for any price. Zero support. So while that scenario you describe might work locally, it fails miserably globally. My actual out of pocket expenses for major stuff are maybe $400 so far, the replacement vfd will bring it to maybe $540. The holddown clamps and bolts are crap, not even carriage bolts so to tighten you must grip the bolt shank with vice grips to keep it from spinning, the finish is so poor it takes the vice grips and a pair of pliers to run the wing nuts onto the bolts. So I replaced the bolts with 6mm metric carriage bolts & bought a bag of plastic & brass nuts that can be run with fingers. Just that by the time I got them, was around $50. Those nuts are about $3.95 at Lowes, but only in inch sizes, and the slots are about 10 thou too narrow to take the square of a 1/4" carriage bolt. Metric fits nice. The cable chains are too small to even get home switch wiring into them with what was already there, so 2 meters of the next bigger cable chain were needed. Another $30. As was some woven wire harness to replace the fixed and too small run of corrugated plastic conduit from the front end of the cable chain to where ever the electronics are stashed. Had to buy a 25 foot roll on 1.25" stuff, another $20. Replace the mach only bob with a couple small psu's and a mesa 7i76D, around $155, and a $20 box to keep the mice out of it. So far the 20 dollar bill every 3rd day till I'm broke hasn't stopped. Not their fault because it wasn't supplied, but I've at least another hundred in a sorta works mister coolant kit when you count the electric air valve, and I am still using an 8oz coke bottle, broom handle holder engineered to the left gantry riser for a reservoir. I'm using 16 feet of coiled up on the back of the gantry capillary tubing to control the flow as the mister I bought wouldn't self prime an 8" lift at less than 100 psi and enough air flow to keep my 2hp air compressor running continuously, so the coke bottle is now pressurized. 20 psi seems usable now, as its wetting the tool but it slobbers & drips too. Bad internal nozzle design IMO. The internal stinger should be about 1/8" longer to really make an annular air flow that would carry the coolant with the air. I may see if I can solder on an extension of 1/16" ID brass tubing to make it long enough to actually reach the face of the nozzle, getting the fluid into higher velocity air before its released. I've rattled on and bore you all enough for one day, so I'll do an Andy Capp and shaddup. Take care everybody. [...] Cheers, Gene Heskett -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene> _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
