Re: What's the market for the 1 Watt 445nm diodes from the XJ-A140?
Heck, go for it. I'm sure if you're creative and possess sufficient skill, patience, and perseverance that you can have success doing this.
I started doing this myself back in July, and it was kind of scary investing $800 and not knowing if I would make it back, but buyers just snapped them up like candy and I couldn't buy a second projector fast enough.
It is a lot of work though. To harvest the diodes and lenses, test each diode, make all the antistat bags, and package all the diodes and lenses takes me just under 2 hours. And the harvest is the easy part.
The real work comes in when it's time to process, pack, and ship each order. International orders will need a 2976 Customs Form. I ended up writing my own software to print these instead of filling them out by hand. I also don't use adhesive labels (though I probably should). I instead print on plain paper, cut it to size with a paper cutter, and use shipping tape to affix all 4 edges to the envelope. It takes me about 10 minutes to process each order (on average). And then there's the daily trip to the post office.
In addition to this, there's all the communication that has to happen with customers. Questions about shipping, payment, discount inquiries, technical questions, etc.
There are also a handful of little things that eat into your profits. Things like envelopes, paper, toner, shipping tape, paypal fees, ebay fees (if you sell on eBay like I do), ESD foam, fuel to drive to the post office, and of course postage itself. All of these things cost money. Also, in theory, you are supposed to pay taxes on any profits made. If you sell enough and don't pay this could become an issue. Beginning in 2011, paypal and other payment processors will now be reporting to the IRS any customer who receives more than $20,000 in 200 or more transactions in a year.
Don't let anyone discourage you from doing this. Success can be had if you put the right efforts into it, but also realize what you're getting into, and that it does take a good bit of work to manage.
