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39c3: In-house electronics manufacturing from scratch: How hard can it be? [video]

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Re: 39c3: In-house electronics manufacturing from scratch: How hard can it be? [video]

#121

Post by Joel_Mckay »

nebula8804 wrote: post #115
crote wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pipeline is a massive one - especially for PCBA. Being able to get an instant quote and order in 5 minutes is worth a lot . Nobody wants a 2-week-long back-and-forth with sales and engineering for a basic prototype run.

I don't know how much real innovation can happen there that the Chinese haven't done. In fact the Chinese haven't really innovated, that have optimized existing processes. Think about it: If you break it down: a "2-week-long back-and-forth with sales and engineering for a basic prototype run" is the same stuff happening in the background as the "get an instant quote and order in 5 minutes"...just much faster. Thats n…

China is a tough place to do business even for domestic small firms.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQrEDq8KPiU

>I don’t know how you could possibly truly innovate the pipeline process more than it has already been done

There are things China does well, things the US does well, and a lot of people building stuff for fun. Yet doing business in North America can be just as challenging for different "reasons". =3

Re: 39c3: In-house electronics manufacturing from scratch: How hard can it be? [video]

#122

Post by nebula8804 »

Joel_Mckay wrote: post #120
nebula8804 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Consumer hardware like the iPhone would not do well when the next model is 20% slower with a 35% retail price reduction. Yes, American companies know this already: Apple managed to ship $1000 phone even the Chinese coveted for a long while and their innovation at the time was Face ID and the applications it enabled like Memoji. Just improving spec sheets is a race to 0 profits. >Don't worry about it... =3 There has…

>Just improving spec sheets is a race to 0 profits. If and only if people chase the low-margin markets. Some people want the best value they can afford, and the ones that don't usually are not worth the sales effort. Note, most current Apple products are just information-appliances tied to their media service businesses. >Im not knowledgeable enough to know what this magical innovation will be Whatever a unique imagi…

I think you're doing Apple products a big disservice. This is a company that produces a lot of very polished products that don't directly tie into the services, for example the AirPods and the Apple Watch and even their computers continue to drag the industry kicking and screaming into some sort of minimum expectation of performance and efficiency. If you look at just their phone or their Apple TV products, fine that makes sense.

But even if you do just look at their phone,tablet and TV sales, it's not entirely a great argument because Apple is not actually prioritizing services as much as their hardware and although those services constitute a decent percentage of their sales, they are still way below the hardware sales. So you could argue that their service business is a complement to their excellent hardware.

>Whatever a unique imagination comes up with will probably be just as good or better. Don't worry about it... =3

You seem to have a similar very consistent style of speaking in all your comments. I don't know if I am conversing with an AI or not. If not I apologize for the accusation. Take care for now... =3

Re: 39c3: In-house electronics manufacturing from scratch: How hard can it be? [video]

#123

Post by Joel_Mckay »

nebula8804 wrote: post #122
Joel_Mckay wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Just improving spec sheets is a race to 0 profits. If and only if people chase the low-margin markets. Some people want the best value they can afford, and the ones that don't usually are not worth the sales effort. Note, most current Apple products are just information-appliances tied to their media service businesses. >Im not knowledgeable enough to know what this magical innovation will be Whatever a unique imagi…

I think you're doing Apple products a big disservice. This is a company that produces a lot of very polished products that don't directly tie into the services, for example the AirPods and the Apple Watch and even their computers continue to drag the industry kicking and screaming into some sort of minimum expectation of performance and efficiency. If you look at just their phone or their Apple TV products, fine that…

>I don't know if I am conversing with an AI or not

I take time to chat with people in good faith, and while I have authored several ML Patents it would be disrespectful to poison discourse with slop.

My point was Apple shifted into an integrated media service business years ago, and few other firms were able to give consumers the same value due to Jobs early work securing a content portfolio. It is not just the gadgets that drive their revenue model.

Have a great day, =3

Re: 39c3: In-house electronics manufacturing from scratch: How hard can it be? [video]

#125

Post by nebula8804 »

Joel_Mckay wrote: post #123
nebula8804 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're doing Apple products a big disservice. This is a company that produces a lot of very polished products that don't directly tie into the services, for example the AirPods and the Apple Watch and even their computers continue to drag the industry kicking and screaming into some sort of minimum expectation of performance and efficiency. If you look at just their phone or their Apple TV products, fine that…

>I don't know if I am conversing with an AI or not I take time to chat with people in good faith, and while I have authored several ML Patents it would be disrespectful to poison discourse with slop. My point was Apple shifted into an integrated media service business years ago, and few other firms were able to give consumers the same value due to Jobs early work securing a content portfolio. It is not just the gadge…

Ok again, I apologize for the accusation. It is getting more difficult to discern between AI and non-AI and normally I just let it be but the strange pattern I see with your comments made me pause.

I am in agreement with your thesis, im just not convinced that it is their main priority at this time. A company like Sony would also match your description and more so than Apple.

Re: 39c3: In-house electronics manufacturing from scratch: How hard can it be? [video]

#126

Post by utopiah »

nubinetwork wrote: post #87
utopiah wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh... well yes CS is not cheap but also... CS is Mouser. They got acquired 7 years ago https://www.crowdsupply.com/announcements/crowd-supply-has-b... . You can buy the exact same products if they have enough in stock on either platform so price should be about the same e.g. https://www.crowdsupply.com/mouser-electronics and the opposite https://eu.mouser.com/manufacturer/crowd-supply/ They might have big margins on…

Ah... good to know... I don't have anything to shop for right now, but if they're the same, I'll just go to the source.

Well the "source" is arguable. If you want stock parts it's definitely Mouser (or their suppliers) but if you want a project, namely something new made out of parts provided by Mouser then it's still CrowdSupply. I didn't take the time to compare but I imagine prices are roughly comparable and maybe you get projects slightly faster on CS, I'd hope so at least. You definitely get to follow the evolution of the project though, which is positive (your learn how it goes) and negative (you can get frustrated by delays).

Re: 39c3: In-house electronics manufacturing from scratch: How hard can it be? [video]

#127

Post by Joel_Mckay »

nebula8804 wrote: post #125
Joel_Mckay wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't know if I am conversing with an AI or not I take time to chat with people in good faith, and while I have authored several ML Patents it would be disrespectful to poison discourse with slop. My point was Apple shifted into an integrated media service business years ago, and few other firms were able to give consumers the same value due to Jobs early work securing a content portfolio. It is not just the gadge…

Ok again, I apologize for the accusation. It is getting more difficult to discern between AI and non-AI and normally I just let it be but the strange pattern I see with your comments made me pause. I am in agreement with your thesis, im just not convinced that it is their main priority at this time. A company like Sony would also match your description and more so than Apple.

Sony had tried to leverage their Film/TV portfolio in the past with limited success, as they were fixated on selling physical media. Yet in Game publishing, the PS5 has taken a great deal of market share from the Microsoft Xbox new "rental" model from the 1990s.

"Steve Jobs - The Lost Interview"

https://youtu.be/TRZAJY23xio?si=u9Dm3u8HDPOfHZpx&t=1751

Controversial guy at times, but understood business content well. =3

Re: 39c3: In-house electronics manufacturing from scratch: How hard can it be? [video]

#128

Post by joe_mamba »

f1shy wrote: post #118
joe_mamba wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Wait for it… they offered 80k/year. I don’t know… seems little bit low somebody with like 20 years experience. In which country? The sad thing is the state of supply and demand in the economy, doesn't really care how many years of experience you have, or how hard you worked, or how difficult the job is. It'll pay as little as they can get away with. Sucks, but welcome to being a tax cattle in Europe, where someone o…

> In which country? South Germany. In a capital city. And that was “tops” And as you say, 40% is out of the bat off. Then you have expensive energy also plagued with taxes… plus of course 19% VAT, etc, etc, etc… if somebody in USA could tell me what would you earn for that there would be nice.

If you're open to being mobile right now you might consider relocating to work in the EE industry of Linz, Villach or Graz in Austria or the aerospace/defence industry Toulouse in France.

Someone with your experience wouldn't earn much less there and you'd have much lower housing CoL than the big capital cities in southern Germany, and better food and weather.

Re: 39c3: In-house electronics manufacturing from scratch: How hard can it be? [video]

#129

Post by _moof »

ProllyInfamous wrote: post #113
_moof wrote: post #111

If you're interested in assembling PCBs at home, but you're looking at all this expensive hardware and thinking it's impossible, I've had great success with: 1. Stencil jig: two bare boards taped to stiff cardboard (the kind stencils are shipped in) 2. Squeegee: an old debit card 3. Pick and place: ESD tweezers, a magnifying glass, and some tunes 4. Reflow: a toaster oven modified with a kit (the expensive part: http…

I've been an early employee at two separate small-scale US manufacturing facilities, each making only a few hundred products annually ($x,xxx, each). Their PCBs contain several hundred components, mostly surface-mounted. Making PCBs outside of SE Asia is not economical. You cannot afford to train labor on such a small scale, and would be foolish to manufacture more than a few of your own prototype boards. >2. Squeege…

Oh, I would never recommend my setup for assembly of actual products. I've spent enough time in avionics to know where that line is. :) My "lab" is strictly for side projects.

Re: 39c3: In-house electronics manufacturing from scratch: How hard can it be? [video]

#130

Post by jacquesm »

abielefeld wrote: post #99
pikkoloassembly wrote: post #96

This is the approach we're taking at Pikkolo! (pikkoloassembly.com). Heavy focus on low-capex and machines we can easily scale and hack up specifically for high-mix/low-volume work.

Hey! Don't hesitate to get in touch with us, I read your website but there isnt so much information yet, but Alex and I would love to hear more :)

What I really loved about the talk is that you got a good insight into the actual complexities of manufacturing and drew all the right conclusions from it, rather than to throw your hands up and ordering stuff from China after all.

Friends of mine - with a bit more practical experience - are doing something similar, they realize that if there ever is a real demand for their product it might be at a time when the cheap alternatives simply are no longer available and have set up from day #1 to do everything in Europe. They are - like you - quite talented but the difference is that they have access to a lot more funding and if they need a particular machine they will simply go get it rather than to make their own.

You are resource constrained and that brings out a lot of creativity, which in the longer term will turn into a competitive advantage.

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