All,
>Right. Exactly what I'm saying. CHEAPNESS. TAWDRY. EASY TO GET BY.
It's not that black and white...
Having been on the other side of the problem -- I've designed products for
years -- I can understand the reason for the shift to wall
warts. Personally, I hate them, but it's a necessity brought on by the
short product design cycles in modern consumer electronics.
If you make a line/mains-powered product, and plan to sell it in more than
one country, the power supply is going to have to acquire a series of
certifications from regulatory agencies. For the most part, each country
is reluctant to just "rubber stamp" their approval on top of another
country -- sometimes because of differences in the power distribution and
grounding schemes between countries; sometimes because different countries
put a higher or lower merit on certain designs and design flaws; sometimes,
just good old politics -- so samples of the products have to be submitted
to each agency.
Afterwards, the samples have to be tracked and the results monitored, in
case a problem arises. (A sad truth: If a locally-developed product has a
certification problem, the agency will likely call the manufacturer to
discuss the issues; if the product is from another country, it may just end
up in a big "hold" pile until the manufacturer takes the first
initiative.) This requires a full-time compliance group within the
company, who are aware of all the subtleties (and personalities) among the
various agencies, and who have the bandwidth to keep tabs on the open
certifications. Or, it requires contracting with an outside agency to do
the submittal and monitoring. Most of these agencies get $1,000US/day or
more for their services.
Either way, the process can take months; occasionally, a year or more, and
the costs get passed on to the customer. In the case of mass-produced
products like CD players and PCs, the cost is small per unit sold, but
musical instruments rarely sell at the same levels, so the cost adder could
end up being significant -- maybe 5% of the total product cost. And, it
means that a product could be late to market, if it gets stuck in an agency
queue for some reason.
OR, a wall wart design passes off all of the above unpleasantness to the
power supply manufacturer. In most cases, the power supply is already in
production, so the delay between development and production is greatly
reduced, often to a paper-only submittal. Finally, power supply design and
manufacture is a "mature" industry, where several companies may make
suitable designs, allowing the musical equipment manufacturer to select
product based solely on cost and availability. Can you see why so many
manufacturers have gone this route?
We all enjoy the fact that musical electronics today produce great
sounding, flexible products at comparatively cheap prices. (How many
performing acts in the 60's and 70's could afford to carry around even ONE
delay/reverb unit? Most bands today have a dozen or more, counting the
built-in effects in keyboards and guitar amps.) There is the down side of
the equation, however; it's call the wall wart.
Regards,
-BW
--
Bruce Wahler
Design Consultant
Ashby Solutions™
www.ashbysolutions.com
CloneWheel Support Group moderator
978.386.7389 voice
978.964.0547 fax
bruce@...