36k each?

[Chris Csikszentmihalyi]

http://news.yahoo.com/pollution-hunting-robot-fish-sea-050157142--sector.html

[Coby]

I see this response a lot in the DIY community.  I used to have the same feeling before I started selling stuff I was building.  I don't know anything about this particular project, but here is a rule of thumb for manufacturing pricing:

(hard costs + soft costs) x 2 = a price that may help keep the lights on

If you are doing low volume prototype work like we do you have to recover your costs in one or two units vs many, which allows you to reduce hard cost by buying volume and soft costs can be spread over many units.

Add in things like rent, liability insurance and the cost of regulatory requirements and things start getting expensive relative to a DIY effort.

Just some food for thought and a few things I have learned the hard way the last few years.

R,

Coby

On Wednesday, May 23, 2012 1:52:52 AM UTC-6, robotic wrote:

http://news.yahoo.com/pollution-hunting-robot-fish-sea-050157142--sector.html