Hi All, > Like Kirk I also think there is indeed a lot of value in doing it yourself. > > I just started to investigate all the opportunities but there is a real > market for people who can do both design and prototyping/production.
Most people who approach me about prototyping have no idea about the market and margins and how to proceed from an idea. The secret is a flatter distribution model. Like direct to retail from manufacturing. > Last weekend I retrofitted my fully faired recumbent bicycle with a Rohloff > hub, I needed some constructions to mount the hub into the existing frame > (see http://www.myvoice.nl/quest/). There looks to be a very small market > for this because there are only 200 bicycles of the type it's designed for > but this is a nice item to show to other 'customers'. Yay, a bike person! My website http://www.organicengines.com > To get from "I have a dream" to a product you do need people like us to do > design and prototype the whole thing. > I'm not sure there is big money in production but there definitely is money > in design, prototyping and handover to mass production. > Small series 10-20 pieces I can do myself but for larger series I rather > have this done by another machine shop in my neighborhood specialized in > production. They, in turn, send customers to me for design - the perfect > symbioses. A niche market is the best place to be. > There is just this one problem: what is the price of a machined part? The > aluminum plating shown on the website cost less than US$ 10 on rough > material but due to the complexity it takes a while to machine them. I > calculate about 50 Euro (about US$ 75) per hour resulting in a price of > around US$ 300 for the milled components - seems expensive for two 6x15" > pieces of 1/4" sheet plus some small parts but it looks like this price is > well accepted by the customers :-) If they will pay then good, given the price of a Rolhoff and a Quest, that's peanuts in the grand scheme of things. > Someone told me you have to be schizophrenic to do this kind of work. > This comes in handy since now I am the team of scientists making the really > cool stuff :o) Yeah right. Which hat am I wearing today? Computer scientist? Industrial designer? Shop foreman? Heh. >> I needed some swaged stand-offs, so I spent some time Googling. After a >> while I found what I wanted and was just about to put in an order. Then >> I thought, I am going to have to pay for shipping and wait a week ... >> scr___ it, I'll just make them. It took way too long to do the program, >> but at the end of the day, I had more parts than could use, and now I >> can make more in no time. There is allot more cost to an item than just >> the purchase price. I think there is allot of value to being able to do >> it yourself. That part is going to be exactly how you want it to be, not how someone else wants it to be. The next parts will be better, faster and the programming goes goes easier the second time too. Too bad, it takes a team of scientists to make the really >> cool stuff. Well, yes, but they are all just an email away! I would love to come to EMC fest one year. Dan -- Please note my new shipping address. -- Daniel Kavanagh Phone (850)443-3284 Organic Engines http://www.organicengines.com 1888 Mills St., [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tallahassee, FL 32310 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great prizes Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/ _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
