One thing I still don't understand is this whole harvesting from projectors business. From an economics perspective it seems very out of whack as it's so wasteful.
E.g. the infamous c___o projector that's currently being harvested for its 445nm 1W+ diodes. Say the projector retails for 500 and has 18 diodes (does it have 18 or 24, can't remember). A person can make a dollar by buying this projector, harvesting the 18 diodes and sell them on ebay / LPF etc for 50 a piece. His revenue would be 900 and cost would be 500 + labour, so a very nice profit.
From the manufacturer's perspective: the projector retails for 500, costs probably 300 to make, the complete optics / control modules / power supply / case etc (all components except diode) costs 150, and the 18 diodes cost max 50 from whatever supplier they get it from, and the rest of the cost is due to marketing / warranty / distribution costs.
Now what I don't understand is whichever factory makes these diodes by the thousands, if they see these are being harvested and sold on the secondary market (ebay, lpf and other places) for like 50-60 a piece, why don't they find a way to sell these directly to the public as a component? Even if the diode factory sells these for like 10 bucks each, it's still probably a 500% profit margin.
Alternatively, why hasn't anyone been able to identify the maker of this diode and organise some sort of bulk buy to resell on ebay or whatnot? Basically this whole harvesting business is extremely wasteful and does not make sense in a free market world.
E.g. the infamous c___o projector that's currently being harvested for its 445nm 1W+ diodes. Say the projector retails for 500 and has 18 diodes (does it have 18 or 24, can't remember). A person can make a dollar by buying this projector, harvesting the 18 diodes and sell them on ebay / LPF etc for 50 a piece. His revenue would be 900 and cost would be 500 + labour, so a very nice profit.
From the manufacturer's perspective: the projector retails for 500, costs probably 300 to make, the complete optics / control modules / power supply / case etc (all components except diode) costs 150, and the 18 diodes cost max 50 from whatever supplier they get it from, and the rest of the cost is due to marketing / warranty / distribution costs.
Now what I don't understand is whichever factory makes these diodes by the thousands, if they see these are being harvested and sold on the secondary market (ebay, lpf and other places) for like 50-60 a piece, why don't they find a way to sell these directly to the public as a component? Even if the diode factory sells these for like 10 bucks each, it's still probably a 500% profit margin.
Alternatively, why hasn't anyone been able to identify the maker of this diode and organise some sort of bulk buy to resell on ebay or whatnot? Basically this whole harvesting business is extremely wasteful and does not make sense in a free market world.
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