The Production is on....

[Milli]

Thats alot of money. Out of my league.

 

Regards,

Milli

[frank]

this is knob quality for the final product :thumbup:

[frank]

I redone the TISL panel

[metalnwood]

this is knob quality for the final product :thumbup:

 

Certainly a lot smoother but the acetone vapor has taken away a lot of the definition. Any issues with some of the other buttons?

[frank]

Smooth and nice

[metalnwood]

yes, they look nice.

[hegykc]

price - the CDU right now i think it ends up around 690 USD - plug'n'play

 

All due respect, but, how exactly is that cheaper than what's already out there?

 

You really should have pointed out what you consider cheap/affordable.

That's a bit more than everyone expected.

2 or 3 times more than I expected actually.

[frank]

If you do a caltulation:

 

CDU components

 

VGAscreen 120 USD

PCB 120 USD

SW 50 USD

LEDs 6 USD

CONN 2 USD

WIRE 1 USD

STICKER 15 USD

ACRYLIC 10 USD

PAINT 15 USD

ABS 25 USD

BOLT 5 USD

SPACER 5 USD

JOY.CTRL 100 USD

MASHINERI 100 USD

 

TOTAL 574 USD

 

Yes i think 690 USD is a good guess for the price on the CDU

right now - don't you guys know what things coast out there ??

[metalnwood]

Iff you wanted to get really competitive, I think you can go for the same screen others have which works out about half. I dont know how you are getting charged $120 for the PCB, it should be a fraction of that.

 

Good switches cost some money so I wouldnt skimp there either and that cost should get you ones with 1M cycles.

 

Why is a joystick controller $100, why not just an arduino placed on the custom PCB, it will talk to helios and cost practically nothing.

 

The pcb and controllers should really run for under $50 together.

 

I guess you own the machinery so that just adds in to labor but I see you could knock off $220 by just selecting better parts/design.

 

If you dont own the machinery and are paying someone for it then why not just do the laser and have a better looking CDU? Look at waaxys CDU. $60 parts cut including materials?

 

Dont take my post as too much of a critiqe but as soon as I saw the cost I knew a lot of people who wwere looking forward to it would be dissapointed and I really think there are areas you can shave off big $$

[Gadroc]

Wow. This is why I always caution forum goers about thinking about entering a business selling to this market place. This is going to sound like I'm defending frank, but it's not. I don't think a $700 item will sell, but I FULLY understand that it has to be at that price point right now.

 

This forum is flooded at times with people promising super cheap parts. Mainly they do them out of a labor of love. They are gung ho on building their dream cockpit and start buying the tools to do it. Bright idea comes - "I'm going to let everyone else in on this awesome tool. I'll recoup cost of tool and maybe more all the while getting everyone else pits for cheap.". Problem is they price the product on what they'd want to pay, how easy it was to make for them and over estimate the market. Except something funny happens. After you make the third one you realize it actually took longer than you remember. All those money saving shortcuts traded out cost for your build time. But now that these parts aren't for your baby time goes much slower. Next you know you're spending all of your free time building other peoples parts and make about $1.50 an hour to do it. You start to dread opening up the forums as they feel like work and knowing there are still "orders to fill" makes you feel guilty about working on your own pit. Several of them have dropped off the scene because of this killing their passion.

 

There is a HUGE difference from bodging together stuff and making something you can sell over and over again. There is an even greater difference between drawing something in CAD and actually making it. For those capable of making one already, buying a part will never be cheaper, because you are also paying for someone else's labor. Unfortunately those who are capable are usually the ones who speak up about how expensive something is.

 

On to specifics of franks BOM and my interpretations of the decisions:

 

PCB

I imagine this is a fully assembled board from a PCB shop where it is delivered with all 64 TACT switches and all back-lighting LED's already soldered onto the board. This is mandatory for anything aside from building your own or a few buddies. Soldering 128+ joints per board is mind numbing and slow. If you actually want to remain interested in doing this over more than two weekends, plan on having this done or shipping as a solder your own kit. Solder your own is suicide by angry customer who thinks they know more about electronics than they do.

 

TFT Screen w/ VGA Board

While cheaper TFT's have been found they use composite input. This requires someone to buy an additional $25-$50 VGA to composite adapter. This drops signal quality and also adds more support calls. Much better in my opinion to have a TFT with VGA. As a matter of fact I would prefer one that has HDMI/DVI. VGA ports are getting much harder to find and many newer video cards only have one DVI-I port that can support a native VGA singal.

 

Joy Stick Controller

For off the shelf use this really needs to support joystick output. It's fool/full proof so you don't have to instruct people on setting up potentially complicated software (Helios can still be complicated, but it's still significantly less than many options.). That being said you are not going to find controller boards with 64 inputs cheaper than $100. Most joystick boards have <50 inputs and all cost between $30 and $60. Custom arduino shield is going to be nearly the same price $20 arduino Leonardo or teensy w/ $50+ custom shield (see soldering statements above) to make a joystick controller.

 

There are many "home cockpit" boards that all would require significant work to make them consumer friendly. This adds a "second mouth to feed" with the profit as there are not many mechanical engineer / programmers combos that have enough of both skills. Writing polished software for this space is a non-winning challenge. You will not be able to support a software developer with the necessary skills. They will have to be "in the community" and the problem is they'll scratch their own itch for usability WAY before it's consumer friendly. (Even though I original charged what people considered an exorbitant rate for Helios I've only made back 1/8th my normal per hour wage in software development. That's not a solicitation for anything! Just stating facts as an example of over estimating a user base.)

 

Laser Cutting vs 3D Printed Buttons

Laser but buttons will have better light transmission and feel, but require you to glue a flange, paint and engrave. This translates to a lot of labor. Making the buttons for my CMSP panels was the biggest pain. I can definitely see the appeal of 3D printed buttons.

 

Machine Time Charges

This is an absolute must. None of the machines are cheap to do this work. They are not tools you run down to the local hardware store and replace for less than $300. The absolute cheapest one is a $1000 3D printer. And if you are using a DIY 3D printer like that there is "endless" tweaking to make sure it's printing well. You have to charge money for the wear and tear on these machines. If you don't budget and put that money away for replacing these machines at some point you have worked yourself out of business.

[frank]

Thanks Gadroc for a deeper explanation - i did not find the time for that - but just my words -

 

Frank

[Flim]

I agree with Gadroc... Between him and I over the past few years, we have learned this from experience. Trying to pay for the machines and keep others pleased is really tough with this crowd! I would love to see cheap panels and structures, but cheap is going to be around a min $6000+ for a good quality wood pit with panels and electronics. I would say a 10,000 budget is pretty realistic if you buy all of your parts ready to go...

[hegykc]

The thing is, this seems to me to be mixing cheap and expensive together and it's a mix few will like.

 

Cheap switches, cnc over laser, fdm printed knobs... and yet very expensive controller, very expensive lcd etc.

 

I actually think the panels are amazing, but with the CDU being 700$, I guess panels will be around 300? But why use fdm printed knobs, which is the cheapest solution possible, on a premium price panel like that. Why not get Deadmans replica knobs which would be what, a 10% increase in cost.

 

Why use a premium price LCD and controller, and then have printed labels on the cdu buttons?

 

Now I have no problem with expensive, it usually means quality and that is what I plan for my pit. But if you're gonna do it commercially I would have thought you would go either one way or the other, pleasing either one crowd or the other. Not right down the middle so that both sides have something they don't like about the product.

 

Anyway, that's just my opinion. I still look forward to seeing sim parts being made...

[agrasyuk]

to summarize what Gadroc said - the estimated final price is quite explainable. and comparable to existing stuff , like the ready 747 FMC modules from Opencockpit . Frank is running a business and as such incurs many more costs that home builder doesn't take into account.

 

whatever the build cost might be Frank is entitled to set the asking price at whatever number he pleases be it 6.90, 690 or 6900. his business plan i hope included some sort of market analysis where he calculate that at what price how many units will sell what the income might be and found it plausible.

 

Flim, tough crowd? well, not tougher then many other hobbies. i think its the "I BUILD FOR ALL OF YOU OUT THERE! "premise Frank made that had people going to draw whatever price picture they drew. in reality ballpark price of pro made panels and modules is well outlined at places like open cockpits.

[Gadroc]

hehe... yea that's the short version agrasyuk! The one thing people need to keep in mind when comparing to things like open cockpits is market size. You can drive down some of these costs by pre-buying items in bulk to drive up your margin. The FSX / 7x7 cockpit builder market is probably much more sizable than the A-10C.

[hegykc]

The FSX / 7x7 cockpit builder market is probably much more sizable than the A-10C.

 

While researching opencockpit forums, I remember someone stating that there are around 2.000 privately held 747 simpits

[frank]

While researching opencockpit forums, I remember someone stating that there are around 2.000 privately held 747 simpits

 

And there is more than doubble on 737 and A320 - I personaly talk to the people behind CockpitSonic - and they send 4-5 full cockpit on the market every month......

 

When you do that with A10 the price will go down

[basset]

Frank - looking forward to seeing your site go live!

 

Your work looks excellent!!

[frank]

Frank - looking forward to seeing your site go live!

 

Your work looks excellent!!

 

You are so wellcome - thanks - :pilotfly: back to works

[paddyman]

wow - these modules look great, hope this endeavour works out for you!.

 

When you have finalised your plans/tooling for the A10 modules, do you think you will expand into other aircraft such as the KA-50?.

[metalnwood]

Gadroc has very wise words that I would agree with 100% but I would do it with a couple of caveats :)

 

I could have been my post (probably was) that kicked off the thread while I was in bed dreaming of daisies.

 

If you are going to get in to a commercial business you have to take in everything that Gadroc has said!

 

I also agree that you can set your prices to whatever you want and let the market dictate how many you sell, in fact I would never have commented if you hadnt put a price breakdown which made me think there are areas that could reduce material costs.

 

When manufacturing your material costs is often a big issues and the lower they are the lower you can sell to be more competitive or the more profit you make, which ever way you can swing it :)

 

Now, I dont make any comment either way on the profit but I saw a potential opportunity to reduce costs.

 

Gadroc makes a point about making it easy for the user and that is fair but at the same time there is a level of complexity that someone has to undertake anyway and most people who are here know what they are going to be in for.

 

This means a joystick is nice for the end user but at the same time you could be throwing $70 at a supplier that could be coming off the price of your product, you dont make that money and the customer doesnt save it. That was my general argument. I do concede though, if thats the best price on the PCB and it is fully populated then it could be a moot point when the alternative is charging for the time doing it yourself, plus you are free for other things.

 

 

BTW When I said machine time being labour, I fully mean it is getting costed out, I just happen to cost it out at the same rate as labour and unless I send it out to another shop I dont add it as a different item, thats all.

 

Opencockpits will sell many more but remember, they still need to make a profit on every one that they sell.

 

Anyway, I wish you luck Frank, if people buy them then there are more happy simmers and as always thats a good thing for the hobby.

 

Now that I have said something in the discussion I will add a disclaimer that I myself have said in the past that I will build and sell panels, something that I have not put the time in to or may ever get around to doing but I will say it so any bias can be noted. There is none though.

[Deadman]

 

Flim, tough crowd? well, not tougher then many other hobbies. i think its the "I BUILD FOR ALL OF YOU OUT THERE! "premise Frank made that had people going to draw whatever price picture they drew. in reality ballpark price of pro made panels and modules is well outlined at places like open cockpits.

 

I would disagree the crowd here can be very unpredictable when purchasing items I never thought as many would have purchased an unfinished copy of a landing gear handle as did. Or as many would order very thin control panels.

 

I offer copies of the ballistic quick disconnects for the ACES II at a very reasonable price and there is no interest.

 

Perhaps the community is more impulses purchase driven. IE if it looks cool it sells Frank definitely has the advantage with experience and equipment hereto rapidly produce a panel or any part and show it off on the form.

 

So you really never know how a product will sell or how many.There for making it very difficult for me to make replicas as i would wish to do to the cost of cnc and laser engravers

Edited May 30, 2013 by Deadman

[Rockeyes]

Thanks for the PM DM :love:

 

Gee Rockeye I am sorry your sick perhaps you should take a break or actually just lets know how you really feel.

 

Reply

 

I subscribed to Franks thread to enjoy reading his thread and constructive comments to those posts. Please don't pick a fight or continue to make other users feel uncomfortable and don't tell me to clear off! Its not helpful or nice, lets just try and support each other in the spirit of the forum. PEACE MAN :flowers:

Edited May 5, 2013 by Rockeyes

[Deadman]

Rock eye its a form I can express my option if i like. If you don't like my opinion state your if your feel uncomfortable you might want to find some way to deal with that your self . have a nice day

Edited May 6, 2013 by Deadman

[Rockeyes]

Rock eye its a form I can express my option if i like. If you don't like my opinion state your if your feel uncomfortable you might want to find some way to deal with that your self . have a nice day

 

As always deadhead you are right I'm so sorry :cry_2:

 

PS Please put me on your ignore list so I don't upset you anymore like I have put you on mine. I apologise to all.

Edited May 6, 2013 by Rockeyes