Apache MFD from Total Controls

[JackFlash]

Total Controls is right now cooking up something new. An Apache MFD frame sized as the real deal. The buttons will be backlit with adjustable lighting. The VID-knob will have a center detent just like in the real helicopter. There will be an option to use it to the left or to the right to avoid input conflicts in Windows.

The image shows a mock up, but it is very close tho the final product, however it will be more polished.

We can not say an exact price rigth now, but we aim at around 100-120 USD per unit and release it planed to sometime this spring. We will sell discount bundles and separate table mounts.

 

[hannibal]

100 to 120 is a good deal.. looking great

[fargo007]

I like the tactile stubs (dot, dash). Especially for VR users like myself that still want this type of interface.

Definitely staying tuned on this one.

Edited December 20, 2021 by fargo007

[jabbabzh]

As on discord/FB , good job

 

[Bedouin]

Very nice, an instant buy

[Sarge55]

I'm in for a two unit bundle.  Looking forward to this.

[Coyote_One]

Instant buy for me, I'll be following this thread closely.

 

 

Just make sure the power input isn't on the left or right side so we can mount them flush with each other as needed too!

Edited December 22, 2021 by Coyote_One
Added comment

[JackFlash]

3 hours ago, Coyote_One said:

Instant buy for me, I'll be following this thread closely.

 

 

Just make sure the power input isn't on the left or right side so we can mount them flush with each other as needed too!

 

The only place to fit the USB-port is to the right. You can see the cable in the picture. Hope you can find a way to sort it out. 

[Alleluia]

100-120 USD per unit is way too expensive imho.

 

Without me

[Bedouin]

Gotta hope that MonsterTech will be making a solution for this for my rig, but will be looking forward to following this project..

Will there be at some time a possibility for pre-order ?

[Coyote_One]

5 hours ago, Alleluia said:

100-120 USD per unit is way too expensive imho.

 

Without me

Not at all honestly...

 

Nothing like this exists in the consumer world.

For what it is, I'd say that's extremely fair pricing. The flight sim world isn't cheap. The market is way too small to be profitable. Margins aren't very large with this stuff. 

I'm excited to put these on my standby screen just like my other MFDs

7 hours ago, JackFlash said:

The only place to fit the USB-port is to the right. You can see the cable in the picture. Hope you can find a way to sort it out. 

Will it be possible to interchange the USB cables to a 90 degree male end? Depending on which port type you use, can we do something like that afterwards?

Mini-USB-90-Degree-UP-Down-Left-Right-Angle-to-USB-2-0-A-Male-Cable.jpg_Q90.jpg_.webp

[Vakarian]

26 minutes ago, Coyote_One said:

 

Nothing like this exists in the consumer world.

For what it is, I'd say that's extremely fair pricing. The flight sim world isn't cheap. The market is way too small to be profitable. Margins aren't very large with this stuff. 

 

While this is tehnically true, I really struggle to justify that I should pay 200-240 USD for two of these when I can get 2 TM MFDs and I get practically the same thing minus the encoders for ~80 USD. I really doubt that in total 6 encoders justify that price.

If they would sell 2 of these for 150-180 USD, then I'd give them a shot. 

[Coyote_One]

17 minutes ago, Vakarian said:

While this is tehnically true, I really struggle to justify that I should pay 200-240 USD for two of these when I can get 2 TM MFDs and I get practically the same thing minus the encoders for ~80 USD. I really doubt that in total 6 encoders justify that price.

If they would sell 2 of these for 150-180 USD, then I'd give them a shot. 

Well let's be real here the TM Cougars are really really REALLY low quality in every aspect so if these are anything better than those, I'd say they justify the price.

 

I can't speak for what these Apache buttons are made of. But the MFDs are low grade plastics with membrane buttons.

Again, I think if they're even just slightly better build quality then the Cougars they're worth the price. Not only that but they're bigger too so don't forget that as well. Much bigger

[Vakarian]

Well yeah, Cougars are not something I'd say are the pinnacle of latest tech, but let's be honest, it's a button box, nothing else. If a button gets registered when I press it, I really don't care if it's an el cheapo no-name switch beneath, ALPS, Omron or even an OTTO switch behind it. It's a button, nothing else. It's a frame with 28 buttons on it, just formed in a logical shape to accomodate better muscle memory.

Now, with the Apache MFDs, we have a bit more buttons and a 3 extra encoders (I presume those are encoders, might be wrong) placed in a slightly bigger frame. Now, I don't think that the size of the frame matters as much in the terms of the pricing, it's a plastic after all and at the first glance looks 3D printed. PCB can also be done fairly cheaply from jlcpcb or any other manufacturing. So, 3 extra encoders, 4 extra buttons and a larger frame result that there is a product that's more than a double of price of a single Cougar MFD and a tad more than a price of the both of them.

 

TM Cougars (Kit of 2 frames)	TC Apache MFD x2
56 buttons	64 buttons and 6 encoders
80 USD	200-240 USD

That's why it's a hard sell for me

[Coyote_One]

T

6 hours ago, Vakarian said:

Well yeah, Cougars are not something I'd say are the pinnacle of latest tech, but let's be honest, it's a button box, nothing else. If a button gets registered when I press it, I really don't care if it's an el cheapo no-name switch beneath, ALPS, Omron or even an OTTO switch behind it. It's a button, nothing else. It's a frame with 28 buttons on it, just formed in a logical shape to accomodate better muscle memory.

Now, with the Apache MFDs, we have a bit more buttons and a 3 extra encoders (I presume those are encoders, might be wrong) placed in a slightly bigger frame. Now, I don't think that the size of the frame matters as much in the terms of the pricing, it's a plastic after all and at the first glance looks 3D printed. PCB can also be done fairly cheaply from jlcpcb or any other manufacturing. So, 3 extra encoders, 4 extra buttons and a larger frame result that there is a product that's more than a double of price of a single Cougar MFD and a tad more than a price of the both of them.

 

TM Cougars (Kit of 2 frames)	TC Apache MFD x2
56 buttons	64 buttons and 6 encoders
80 USD	200-240 USD

That's why it's a hard sell for me

M Cougars are MSRP $90+ but sure I get it.

This just leads back to my profit margin discussion.

You're more than welcome to make your own. You seem to understand that button boxes are simple but I'm willing to bet you don't want to take the same time these guys did to design your own from scratch. 

This is what I'm talking about, the average consumer will not know/want to build something from scratch. If you can deliver a built product you'll sell more. And you have the freedom to charge what you see fit based on the work investment and time spent on design and manufacturing.

you can look at this as a consumer but I'm looking at this as a business. Not to mention they're not a mass producing company like TM that can push a thousand units a week off the line

My suggestion is that if it's out of your price range, build your own and share it  when it's finished and how long it took. And we can compare

[Schwarzfeld]

When your consumer demand is about a hundred people, half of whom still live in their mother's basement and think they're a fur real pilot etc, you (the business manufacturing this stuff) will have to jack some pricing up a tad to make your ROI (return on investment) within a reasonable timeframe. In addition, your startup cost to design and manufacturer (also underwrite a warranty, which is not free) a proprietary piece of gaming hardware that nobody else makes (read: you can't buy it off the shelf) is relatively high, plus your business risk is high due to the niche nature of the demographic, and the fact that the LTV (lifetime value) of said customer is quite low for you the mfr because once you've bought a set of Cougar MFDs or Apache MFDs, the chances of that customer coming back for a second set are pretty much zero.

There's more, but business is business, and if I'm making and selling products, I'm in business to make money. Therefore, I will price my product as  high as the market will bear (the highest price the target customer is willing to pay) and then try to sell as many as possible. My startup cost to manufacture and ship all over the world, even it if its a proprietary "button box" is still high, and I probably borrowed that money from a bank. The bank wants that money back by date X, there's a minimum monthly payment I'm obligated to make for debt service, and the sooner I pay that loan down the sooner I stop losing money to them paying interest, and the sooner I can actually pocket money to put a roof over my head, food on my table, and then reinvest in making more cool products that also turn a profit, repeat until golden brown.

If the essay above still doesn't help on why this stuff is priced the way it is, remember that when I make a controller for an XBox or a PS4, or perhaps a generic gaming controller for PC, the number of potential customers I can advertise to is in the millions, which means I can become a volume seller - e.g., I can sell at a lower price and still make the target ROI %

If you STILL wanna gripe, I can't help you. 

[Baldrick33]

Pretty much what @Schwarzfeldsaid though I might suggest it is more likely middle aged men with a decent disposable income that are the market

It is basic pricing elasticity economics. Tiny niche market with low production runs. They could half the price but not sell twice the volume so would lose out and probably not be worth making them in the first place and the tiny niche market lose the opportunity.

[JackFlash]

55 minutes ago, Baldrick33 said:

Pretty much what @Schwarzfeldsaid though I might suggest it is more likely middle aged men with a decent disposable income that are the market

It is basic pricing elasticity economics. Tiny niche market with low production runs. They could half the price but not sell twice the volume so would lose out and probably not be worth making them in the first place and the tiny niche market lose the opportunity.

This is spot on. Just the molds for the buttons and the housing sums up to around 10k USD. Sure, if we sell 5000 the price would go down, but that’s not in reach I recon. 
I think i.e Virpil has a markup at around 50%. We won’t make that much in this device. We do it because it’s fun and hopefully we make a small profit, but it won’t make us millions. You could compare to the TekCreations frame on their homepage, and I still think we have a better product. 
The device have 2 potentiometers and a three position switch. 

[hannibal]

right now i am soldering hats for a 3d controller project

u guys wana complain about 100-120$

if you ever tried to build your own joystick you appreciate more that things like the mfd from total controls or thrustmaster are even at all available..

if you spent two hours to even attempt to make an MFD, you pretty much would have easily bought total control's mfd.

it took me a month and a half to build the Apache TEDAC MFD... a month and a half..

i would have easily paid 100-120$ for time saved.

Edited December 23, 2021 by hannibal

[jnr4817]

I'm in for a set day 1. Even better if you get the desktop mount sorted, before release.

[Vakarian]

Seems like my comments might have missed the point as I probably forgot to say some things I had in mind... Sorry for that.

My underlying point was that as the owner of Cougar MFDs I do not see the point of upgrading to this as the price is just to high for the marginal benefit. That being said, I'll probably still do it anyway  . The current owners of Cougars probably won't see this as something awesome, and someone that has neither will look at them both, start to compare and will probably get to same conclusion I did.

I mean, what some of you guys commented is true, I do understand why they need to set the price they do because they do it in low volume and are not mass producing it. But, as a customer I really don't care about that. Sorry if it's too blunt, I just think that everyone will think for themselves to get the best stuff they can for the least amount of money spent and I don't see these Apache MFDs as a way to do that. TC Multifuction box on the other hand seems to hit the sweetspot (both pricing and functions available) and that is the product that I would definitely buy if I'm not already deep in building a Harrier UFC myself. 

[Baldrick33]

The Cougars are always going to be a compromise, using modifiers or short/long presses to simulate the extra buttons on the real MFD. If the Apache is really your thing and you want a realistic control method I can see the attraction. Plus I think the Cougars fit inside, so will be handy for someone using multiple aircraft. I think you need to be pretty set on using the Apache a lot but given the fan base I would expect there to be a number of hardcore sim pilots who would go for this, Cougar ownership or not.

[Lixma 06]

Would you consider, if there was sufficient interest, doing an ABRIS 'strip'?

One standard rotary, one infinite encoder with push, and five buttons. Just velcro the thing to the edge of the desk or wherever.

Edited December 26, 2021 by Lixma 06

[JackFlash]

7 hours ago, Lixma 06 said:

Would you consider, if there was sufficient interest, doing an ABRIS 'strip'?

One standard rotary, one infinite encoder with push, and five buttons. Just velcro the thing to the edge of the desk or wherever.

 

I use the Total Controls button box for the Abris. Works like a charm!

[Vitallini]

Nice! I’m going to get me two of those when they’re available