FREE DIY open source BOOST driver!!! Tested & working!!

true, any saving the individual person gets would be eaten up by teh cost of reshipping, if not make it more expensive.

It really only get profitable if you've got maybe 1,2, or 3 people and you're going to buy about a 1,000pcs of each component.

Mohrenberg said:

true, any saving the individual person gets would be eaten up by teh cost of reshipping, if not make it more expensive.

It really only get profitable if you've got maybe 1,2, or 3 people and you're going to buy about a 1,000pcs of each component.

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Honestly, I don't see how you make a profit on some of the stuff you do Moh - or at least not enough to make it worth the work!

I get home from four gruelling hours of work, get on the computer and think about maybe going out to the garage and soldering up a laser, then find myself on pinterest, lpf or facebook for several hours. Eat a snack. Come back up and do some other diddling around on the computer.

Yell at the kids and tell them to go outside and play. No, I can NOT come out and push them on the swing set, it is too hot out there!

Come back up here with an RC Cola and Moonpie and read some more and then wow, it is 11:30pm. I better go to bed.

Maybe I'll get to that laser tomorrow. :crackup:

tsteele93 said:

Honestly, I don't see how you make a profit on some of the stuff you do Moh - or at least not enough to make it worth the work!

I get home from four gruelling hours of work, get on the computer and think about maybe going out to the garage and soldering up a laser, then find myself on pinterest, lpf or facebook for several hours. Eat a snack. Come back up and do some other diddling around on the computer.

Yell at the kids and tell them to go outside and play. No, I can NOT come out and push them on the swing set, it is too hot out there!

Come back up here with an RC Cola and Moonpie and read some more and then wow, it is 11:30pm. I better go to bed.

Maybe I'll get to that laser tomorrow. :crackup:

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I do pretty well profit wise. I don't really want to divulge what i pay for stuff, but i've managed to work my way up the chain to the source for most of my stuff over the past 3 and a half years.
I would say the least profitable is the boost drive when you count in the time/costrofit ratio.
I have no "loss leaders" on my website, everything there bring in twice as much as I've paid for it.

As for the hours, that's a different story. I probably put in more hours in this stuff than I would in a full time job, and it brings in a LOT less money than a second job would. but at least i get to do this at home and i enjoy it.
plus if i get REALLY behind, I can pack up all my stuff and bring it to work with me to help catch up

I've got about 2-3 months before I am completely done with school, and assuming I remember what I've learned & pass the written test, I will be a licensed Paragod. Once that happens, I will have 2 full time jobs.
I'm trying to switch everything over to CNC machined so that when I'm busy with 2 jobs, I can force my wife to handle the shipping aspect.

I'm tempted to try and source out driver assembly to some chinese factory as well.

I'm tempted to try and source out driver assembly to some chinese factory as well.

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Owch!

They can do great work if you find a good assembly house.
Just got to find the right company willing to work on a small volume.
I have thought about adding a pick and place machine to one of my tools.
Seen a few videos and have 2 pdf on how to build them.
The only new thing besides a basic cnc is the rotation of parts, plus web cam to check alignment.
Would be a fun thing to have.
Maybe ill have a use for the set of bread toasters with the conveyor belts after all.
Ill setup a tiny line.
But yeah GB are not going to help much for things like this unless you made the min order around 25 drivers, then it would be worth the time.

I'm going to have to bow out from offering these drivers.

The order placed thus far will get processed, but I am done taking orders for these, and can't sell them in the future.

They are just way too time consuming to assemble. Not only are the boost driver orders taking forever to fill, but all other orders are suffering from it too as I am spending every moment of spare time trying to assemble these things.

I simply don't have enough time to juggle a project of this scale.

If someone has the time, there is definitely money in these things to be made. I'll be looking to get rid of the ~1200 boards I have. If anyone wants them, you can have them for $35 for a panel of 100 boards, or $300 for all 1200 of them. I'm basically just going to try to get my money back on them.

but at the rate these sell, the 1200 boards will only last you a couple months.

That's a real shame, actually. Not that it hurts me much - I make my own like many here. But it does mean that some others won't get the benefits of these. I would pick up the slack there, but I have my own school to worry about and I am designing my own drivers :\

Bummer to hear that

But there should be money to be made here if someone can streamline. When I do multiples at a time, it takes me a minute and a half per driver (ie, 20 per 30 minutes). If you can do 40 an hour, at $3 profit each, that's a decent return on time.

But frankly, it's the multiple current options that would have killed it for me. I would have offered two currents. One for max single driver current and one at 900 for paralleling.

Yeah :\ Maybe we should look into arranging a group-buy of sorts with some sort of Chinese company? People pitch in to get a production run made of these (say, 100-200 or so) and then someone runs the order to the Chinese, and sends 'em out?

if you going into production you are going to want at least 500 units to out weight the setup costs.
Anything under that and the cost is going to be to high.
Even still at 500 units you will need to increase the price by about 35%

It's better than nothing though, yeah? Maybe even do a production run of 1000. Or, just give the design to Clif from Cajunlasers. I am sure he could set up something.

I want to help take over all 11 panels, but that's the ambitious side of me talking. I think I'll take 5 first and someone else can take the other 6.

But I'm serious about this. If all goes well, we can fulfill this vacuum for these 1100 boards, and potentially more in the future.

rhd said:

Bummer to hear that

But there should be money to be made here if someone can streamline. When I do multiples at a time, it takes me a minute and a half per driver (ie, 20 per 30 minutes). If you can do 40 an hour, at $3 profit each, that's a decent return on time.

But frankly, it's the multiple current options that would have killed it for me. I would have offered two currents. One for max single driver current and one at 900 for paralleling.

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Don't you think $120.00 per hour PROFIT is a bit high for these
FREE DIY drivers built by members that don't have the expenses
of a PCB assembly Company...:thinking:


Jerry

You can contact us at any time on our Website: J.BAUER Electronics

lasersbee said:

Don't you think $120.00 per hour PROFIT is a bit high for these
FREE DIY drivers built by members that don't have the expenses
of a PCB assembly Company...:thinking:

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Potential profit of $120 per hour is a bit high?

HELL YES!

That's my point.

Sorry to hear that Moh. I think if you got a co to make them for you and just leave off the 2 resistors then people can make what they want just by adding them. I thaught about buying some boards from you moh but I'm too new at this to even know if I can make them for myself yet and I dont have the setup to do it right atm.

lasersbee said:

Don't you think $120.00 per hour PROFIT is a bit high for these
FREE DIY drivers built by members that don't have the expenses
of a PCB assembly Company...:thinking:

Click to expand...

Sounds ok to me! If you can make them at what is still a very reasonable price for other members and make $120 per hour doing them, then more power to you.

And that doesn't include the hassle of setting up shop, mailing, keeping up with it all and losses from bad parts, errors and whatnot.

It is capitalism at its finest!

If your price is too high, they won't sell or someone will come along and undercut you. The invisible hand works its magic!

Of course you guys are from Canada so you aren't used to this idea of making a profit! :crackup:

P.S. I think RHD knows me well enough by now, but you may not Jerry. So let me please be clear that my last sentence is entirely in lighthearted jest - inspired in part by a funny "I'm a Canadian" post that RHD made in another thread. :yh: