[sdiy] Knobs/pots/jacks suggestions

[Tim Parkhurst]

Hi Peter,

In my experience as a mechanical designer, I've seen three main factors that
determine the price of a part:

1) The quantities involved. This is listed first because it has a HUGE
bearing on the price of a part. You can get something like a 1GB USB memory
'flash disk' for well under $100 because of the massive quantities involved.
We recently competed for a bid of designing and manufacturing a similar
part, and the customer wanted pricing for quantities of 200,000 pieces a
MONTH to start, and this was to ramp up to 1 MILLION PIECES A MONTH over the
period of about a year. At these quantities, the price for a single stamped
metal part went from about twenty cents to less than half a penny.

2) The manufacturer's willingness to make the part. A manufacturer who is
'hungry' or who thinks the part will be a good long-term investment will be
much more willing to bid competitively. I've had quotes from local machine
shops vary by a factor of 4 to 1. The reason? A very busy shop will often
give an outrageously high quote rather than a 'no bid.' 

3) Manufacturability. The ease of making the part. This has some bearing on
the part price, but it is far from the most important driving factor. I
pride myself in keeping 'DFM' (Design for Manufacturability) in mind when
designing parts, but the lure of high potential profits will often make a
vendor willing to undertake a more difficult design. 

Just my $US0.02


Tim (a more difficult part) Servo

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." - Albert Einstein

********************************************


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Peter Grenader [mailto:peter at buzzclick-music.com]
> Sent: Monday, May 16, 2005 11:31 AM
> To: Christopher Randall; synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
> Subject: Re: [sdiy] Knobs/pots/jacks suggestions
> 
> Sorry, but  I've never understood the price of knobs in general, but
> especially these things.  The Rean soft touch, the ones I use are no less
> complicated (requires two moldings instead of one, although they are push
> one so there's no threaded insert or lock screw) - they only run 48 cents
> each at a quantity of 1.
> 
> 
>  iChristopher Randall wrote:
> 
> >
> > On May 16, 2005, at 12:29 AM, James Patchell wrote:
> >
> >> My favorite knob... Davies 1900H....Status....seemingly unobtainable
> >> :-(
> >
> >
> > Allied has 1113 in stock as of today. They're $2-something a whack,
> > though.
> >
> > http://www.alliedelec.com/cart/ProductDetail.asp?SKU=543
> > -0400&SEARCH=Davies+knob&ID=&DESC=1900H
> >
> > Chris Randall
> > http://www.analogindustries.com
> >
> >
> 
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