Originally posted by starshipeleven
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I still think the 150k$ you're asking are a tad high tho. I know mass-producing small runs is horribly expensive, but I would have gone with a lower goal so that even if it does not cover all at 100% you still get something at all, and moving something to stretch goals to compensate.
over the past few months (and in some cases years) i had to negotiate with the suppliers, many of whom have 2,500 MOQs and one even has 30,000 MOQs (minimum order quantities), because the components are only $0.13 each, it's silly for them to take an order worth only $25! i had to make a decision - a cut-off point - of 250 units. if you go down even to 100 units, the setup costs, tear-down (cleanup) costs and transportation costs for the components still remain fixed, but still have to be paid for.... you see where this is going?
so if we were to set a lower goal, the cost per unit would be so high that i can guarantee to you that we wouldn't even get *any* pledges. we're *already* getting people saying "but it's so expensive!!!" well, dUhuuuuhh
i've outlined the actual cost of the components (roughly) at http://rhombus-tech.net/crowdsupply/ - see section "Pledge Levels and Costs" - the laptop housing's parts (MOQ 250) are amazingly only around $166... but that's in no way the full picture. cost of getting to taiwan and back for three people (myself and my family): estimated $USD 3,600. prototyping needed before production: estimated $5,000. and so on - all of which need to come out of the available funds. we're barely going to end up with *anything* left at the end of this as it is!
we think of comparable electronics in terms of the pricing from mass-production. because this is a laptop "housing", it equates in people's minds to a "laptop" (unfortunately a throw-away one....), people think, "i have a $300 laptop, this is $500, therefore it's "expensive!!!!!" wtf???", not realising that the NREs are enormous for a small production run. [and ignoring that this is an upgradeable design concept where that $500 is spent *ONCE*, not every few years]
so we really really couldn't make it any smaller. also, anticipating the next question, why not make it higher? well, if we do reach stretch goal points, what i plan to do is split it into phases, so that the very early adopters receive the first kits, and they can help the next batch of people - just like with the 3d printing reprap community. if it gets _really_ big we can look at doing injection-molding, and many other things - do some of the quad-core Computer Cards that we'd really really like to include (and have been discussing and evaluating processors on here and other forums).
hope that helps.
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