On Fri, Jul 29, 2011 at 1:43 PM, Jeff Walther <[email protected]> wrote: > Unless someone is going to do all the design and assembly free of > charge, one quickly finds that the unit price of these projects > quickly approaches the price of what is commercially available. > > Even if you assume there is a market for 100 of something, the printed > circuit board alone will still run $10 - $20 (depending on size and > layers). Add some kind of microcontroller or FPGA for another $10. > Connectors, either SCSI or PDS can add up. And then one usually > finds that there are a handful of other chips at $.50 to $2 each that > are needed to tweak and/or isolate the buses, and before you know it > the parts alone are up in the $30 - $60 range. > > And that's not allowing anything for assembly. Soldering this stuff > together and testing it easily runs to an hour or two per unit for a > simple project. One can pay for assembly, but that adds to the cash > outlay, and the units still need testing. > > So the person doing the project is looking at putting in $3000+ up > front plus a huge amount of time and effort with no certainty that 100 > of them will sell. Even if one writes the time off as good-hobby-fun, > It make sense to try to get one's money back out of the first 50 > units. > > And now the price is up at about the same price as the expensive stuff > already on the market.... > > I'm not saying this is a good thing. I'm just pointing out the > unfortunate economics of these kinds of projects. > > If one can be reasonably certain of the demand, it's easier. If the > volumes were larger, it would be much easier. > > Jeff Walther
Absolutely true. I just bought several SCSI-CF adapters from artmix.com for $99 each. A little expensive, but the guy probably isn't making much money on them. -- ----- You received this message because you are a member of the Vintage Macs group. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/vintagemacs.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To leave this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/vintage-macs Support for older Macs: http://lowendmac.com/services/
