On Jul 5, 10:52 pm, David Forbes <[email protected]> wrote: > The total supply of the B7971 tubes was on the order of 10,000 tubes. > That would be 2 or 3 years at your proposed production rate.
That's interesting to know. But that tube had a very specific market too. Perhaps it was even just produced for the stock ticker display application? > I think a rate more like 1000 per year is more realistic, and may be > high. Note that at $35 per tube, this is the amount of money a single > person makes at a medium-level job in the USA. Gosh, I know we are in a depression, but are US folks really working for less than the Chinese factory workers these days ? ;-) Are you talking hourly? I was thinking that if 3000 tubes per year at $35 could be sold, then one or two workers in a small shop in Thailand or somewhere like that could produce 12 tubes per day, and require payment of perhaps less than 20% of the revenue stream. One person might be enough, or two part time. Good grief my wife just said that 7000 Baht a month would be unskilled factory labor rates, which is only about $2800/yr. So the shop could employ two full time workers at $14000 Baht/mo (this is a high-skilled, low-educated rate) ie. $11200/yr, which is only 10% of the revenue stream! The factory would be set up with a one-time capital outlay of about $100-120k, so that just over one year of revenue would pay for the initial outlay. Considering the ingenuity I've seen people employ in setting up high quality low budget vacuum and filling systems for neon signs, etc., I think $120k might be enough to buy the necessary equipment and procure most of the small custom parts and supplies that would be needed to make several years worth of tubes, say 10000. This seriously seems doable for a retiree with an extra bit of cash and with an Asian wife who wants to get back home. Or 6 tubes a day one might just do themselves here in the west. > That's why factories aren't interested in this work. But I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to get the parts made cheaply by factories when you are talking 10000 pieces. Heck, you can get custom laser-cut gaskets from a place in Philly PA for less than $200 set up charges. Like I've said before, the key is to leverage modern agile manufacturing technologies to get the component parts made, then set up a low cost, production quality assembly and gassing station. Then all that matters is if the labor per tube can be made cheap enough. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/neonixie-l?hl=en-GB.
