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On Wed, Jun 20, 2007 at 08:22:32PM -0700, Vasile Surducan wrote:
> > $0.50 - 10f200 SOT23-6 (maybe DIP is better..)
> > $0.10 - led of some sort (a low-cost LED is more like 0.05)
> > $0.01 - diode
> > $0.10 - capacitor
> > $1.40 - 1"x1" pcb, qty 100 (Olimex) (seems a bit large for just these
> > components, and it is the largest cost factor)
> > $?.?? - conformal coat of some sort
> > $0.00 - student labour to assemble it all...
> 
> Both the teacher and the student are making the same mistake.
> The labour price is bigger than materials used for the project.
> Maybe at the 100'th project you'll say I have right.

Let me tell you, I'm *no* stranger to the idea of labour costs. Heck,
I'm always made fun of at my school for getting pcb's made rather than
etching them myself, or horrors, doing up a vector board. I'll do
anything to save on labour costs, why do you think all my projects use
18f parts supporting good C compilers rather than "cheaper" 12f parts?

But in this case the grant very explicitly doesn't include labour costs,
the situation doesn't include labour costs. This is the arts, labour is
free, even when it really shouldn't be. Not to mention that we are
conducting research, IE building systems so that *others* can reproduce
them, if we succeed this cheap simple system might very well be made 10x
over, each time by groups operating with volunteer labour and
practically no capital.


If I were building it, of course I'd be worried about labour costs, but
that's not the situation right now.

And put another way, if we spend $10 a node, or $1 a node, our labour
costs are going to be the same. Quite possibly the "more robust" feature
full design with an extra transciever chip and other crap will actually
have *more* labour involved due to the extra soldering. The only
difference with a one-wire system is my development time, and I'm on a
salary until the end of the summer, and I get paid a pittance.


BTw I'm not actually a teacher by any means, I'm a student at the
university too, I've just been hired on to the research group as a
consultant as I'm the only student at the university who has
elctronics/programming skills.

- -- 
http://petertodd.org
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