The price is a killer.
If my memory wasn't wrong, I am curious how far-east factory can make it so fast, so cheap but with a decent quality.

Here is what I have learned from one of my clients in CT:
A custom made mold and sample in own factory at CT USA: time: 7 weeks after CAD drawing is done. All in-house. Internal cost/quote: US$7K-15K;
>From a Factory in Guangdong China: time: quoted 7 days after CAD drawing send out via email, samples were actually delivered in the 5th business day to CT USA. cost: <US$3K; Quality are good. volume is about 1K/first year, 3~5K/2nd year, 30K maximum. Unit price (including shipping) after model cost is about 1/10 of in-house made price. And that quantity doesn't sounds a lot to me.

I met the gentleman from New York city, who cooperates my clients and the factory in China. He visited the factory who made the mold and enclosures. and I was told all he saw were modern equipment, nice building, well-trained staff.

Is outsource the only way to get custom designed enclosure/box done in a reasonable price?
Can Mexico be a good alternative instead of sending orders out of this continent?

 Funny N.
Au Group Electronics, http://www.AuElectronics.com
http://www.AuElectronics.com/products
http://augroups.blogspot.com/




________________________________
From: M.L. <m@lkeng.net>
To: Microcontroller discussion list - Public. <piclist@mit.edu>
Sent: Thu, January 14, 2010 8:46:59 PM
Subject: Re: [OT] plastic box mfgs

Any medium size city has a plastics house near it. Universal Plastics
in Holyoke, MA does thermoforming which is cheaper in tooling than
injection molding but limited to certain styles - and higher in unit
cost.

Almost all of the plastic cases you see are injection molded where the
tooling starts at around $10k and goes astronomically upward from
there. This is why you see most people struggling to find an
off-the-shelf case that will work for their application.

Even spending $10 to have a case machined is going to be a better deal
(up to a point...) than paying a mech. e. to design your case and then
spend $25k for the injection tooling.

I know a guy in upstate NY who owns an injection molding place if
you're interested.
-
Martin K

On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 7:18 PM, Funny NYPD <funnynypd@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Good job. Thanks for your time and contribution.
> By the way, anyone know a good low cost plastic box mfgs who delievers molded (special made) enclosure (starting qty 1k) in North American. So far, all suppliers I found are from Far East.
>
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