Author Topic: WTF wallet attack !!  (Read 26094 times)

Offline John Stevenson

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WTF wallet attack !!
« on: August 27, 2016, 07:48:23 AM »
http://www.element-cnc.com/cyclone

$22,500 for a Syil crappy CNC with a Mach screen on it ????

For $7K more you can get a Haas TM1 or two Tormach's and change.

Anyone local able to pop round and see what they are smoking because I need some bad.
John Stevenson

Offline Brass_Machine

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #1 on: August 27, 2016, 09:49:53 AM »
The extra $$$$ is for the paint job and "special version of Element Machine Tools' Carbon CNC control "

lol.
Science is fun.

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Offline Joules

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #2 on: August 27, 2016, 10:18:59 AM »
That screen is just asking for getting clonked...
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Offline AdeV

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #3 on: August 27, 2016, 05:02:13 PM »
That vice stop has to be worth $1000 all by itself  :lol:
Cheers!
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Offline John Stevenson

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #4 on: August 27, 2016, 05:24:35 PM »
John Stevenson

Offline chipenter

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #5 on: August 28, 2016, 02:29:56 AM »
What would they charge if they converted a Deckel FP ?
Jeff

Offline nrml

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #6 on: August 28, 2016, 04:29:35 PM »
Just to give them the benefit of doubt, they might be out of stock and have put ridiculously high prices to stop people ordering online without contacting them before hand. Several vendors do this to avoid having to take down a listing; for example £922 for a Dickson T1 tool holder http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/371551492707?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

I do agree that some vendors live in cloud cuckoo land. I nearly spilt my pint the other day when I saw this listing http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Colchester-lathe-Bed-Way-Wipers-For-Chipmaster-and-Bantam-Mk1-2-/252509986285?hash=item3acac49ded:g:-IoAAOSw-RRXCANw.
£15 for 4 minuscule bits of 3d printed plastic :jaw: - and they don't even include a pair for the tailstock. What is the profit margin on that? If ebay is not joking, two idiots actually paid for and bought this :bugeye:

Offline John Stevenson

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #7 on: August 28, 2016, 05:36:08 PM »
£15 for 4 so £3.75 each.
Now take filament into account and wear and tear on possibly a £700, shipping and what you you sell something that is out of production for ??

Possibly they don't sell a set for the tailstock as they were never fitted.
John Stevenson

Offline awemawson

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #8 on: August 29, 2016, 03:07:06 AM »
I agree with John. £15 is very reasonable in my view. The chap does a set suitable for my Colchester
Master 2500 for the same price and I may well get a set - thanks for posting the link  :thumbup:
Andrew Mawson
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RobWilson

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #9 on: August 29, 2016, 03:31:00 AM »


I do agree that some vendors live in cloud cuckoo land. I nearly spilt my pint the other day when I saw this listing http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Colchester-lathe-Bed-Way-Wipers-For-Chipmaster-and-Bantam-Mk1-2-/252509986285?hash=item3acac49ded:g:-IoAAOSw-RRXCANw.
£15 for 4 minuscule bits of 3d printed plastic :jaw: - and they don't even include a pair for the tailstock. What is the profit margin on that? If ebay is not joking, two idiots actually paid for and bought this :bugeye:.

Hi nrml

Just out of curiosity how much would/could you make a set for ? 

Rob

Offline nrml

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #10 on: August 29, 2016, 04:38:26 AM »
A roll of average quality ABS filament costs between £10 to £20 depending on where you buy it from.  The size and thickness of the parts are not big by any description so filament consumption and print times will be minimal compared to the average print. The parts are not very complex and the fit not absolutely critical. Besides, it is a direct copy of the OEM design so cost of design is not a significant factor. Even a completely non technical noob like me can draw that up in one of the freebie design programs from measurements in not too much time.

I would very conservatively estimate that you could get more than 50 sets out of a reel of filament even after practice prints (100 - 200 would probably be more likely). This would more than cover the cost of a kit printer, filament and postage even before the reel is finished. At the end of the day, things are worth what people are prepared to pay for them. Some might feel that it is a reasonable cost but for me, it is way overpriced. I am one of those who would rather buy something rather than make it if I felt it was close to a reasonable price because I quite often can't be bothered to make the effort, but not in this case.

I cut mine out of a 4mm nitrile rubber sheet with a stanley knife. The rubber sheet (125mm X 125mm) cost me £1.86 including postage and I have enough left to make another 4 complete sets of wipers should I need it in future. It took me about 10-15 min to make and fit them. My 3D printer is packed away at the moment, so printing it was not an option. Also, I felt rubber would work better than ABS. The original wipers were made of a hard rubber

I don't know about Colchesters, but Harrison M250s definitely come with tail-stock way wipers.

Offline Joules

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #11 on: August 29, 2016, 05:00:56 AM »
nrml, cost of filament has nothing to do with cost of final item, it is minimal.  However the time and effort invested in proper CAD and software then the 3D printer can be huge.  Driving one accurately is not just press a button and leave it.   I show a lot of prints I do for myself, however if you paid my rate they are expensive items. I am sure others who have seen my work would testify it isn't like the normal stuff you see coming off a cheap printer.  3D printing shouldn't be confused with injection moulding.  Speaking of which price up a mould for producing, say a few hundred items, 3D printing wins hands down.  No moulds, no associated costs.

I think the cost is reasonable it you don't begrudge them some profit.
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Offline awemawson

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #12 on: August 29, 2016, 05:48:07 AM »
If you do a proper cost analysis on making almost anything it get quite scary - don't forget it is a completely different game being in business rather than enjoying a hobby. For the business scenario (which is where the fellow on ebay is) you have to consider:

a/Premises - ok it may be his back bedroom but it comes at a cost.

b/Equipment - he may have bought it as a hobby, but now it's a business so capital cost is relevant

c/Materials - as NRML says fairly minimal in this case

d/Selling Costs - ebay fees, paypal fees, postage.

e/Time - someone has to order the filament, set the machine going, keep an eye on it, unload parts, pack them, handle the eBay and Paypal transactions and take them to the Post Office.

I very much doubt he is even making minimum wage doing this, and that is the case in an awful lot of small / one man band businesses where the proprietor works long into the evening making product and doing paperwork, rarely truly taking his time into consideration. Almost certainly he'd make more stacking shelves in Tesco's  :med:
Andrew Mawson
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Offline Joules

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #13 on: August 29, 2016, 06:00:27 AM »
YES    :(
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Offline AdeV

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #14 on: August 29, 2016, 07:29:59 PM »
d/Selling Costs - ebay fees, paypal fees, postage.

In my experience, this is the part that everyone fails to take into account.

For starters, every item sold at £15 = £1.50 to eBay (=£13.50 left).

I've no idea what the material costs or the running costs of the printer are, or what (if any) fettling and other work is required; but even if you were to say it was 15 minutes per set of 4 pieces, at £10/hr (which is way undervalued IMO) that's £2.50 in time, so £11.00 left. Let's guess at £1 for material and electricity costs, so £10 left. We'll assume he's got the printer set up in his kitchen, so will waive any property costs.

Postage is built into the price, and judging purely by the pictures, I don't think he's going to get that into an envelope; so the small parcel rate will be charged. That's £2.85; let's allow him 15p for packing materials (£3) and assume he lives within easy walking distance of a post box (15 min round trip @ £10/hr is a rather convenient £2.50), so £5.50 on P&P

That leaves just £4.50 "profit", of which HMRC is going to stiff you for around 20% of that in tax. I'm assuming the guy isn't VAT registered (if he is, take £2.50 off the price before we even get started), so another 90p gone, so the final profit (excluding anything I might have forgotten, and excluding any consideration for the time it took to program the printer, feed it the filament, etc.) is just £3.60 per set.

Obviously, economies of scale could increase that profit (I'm assuming he has to make the trip to the post box for every item sold; of course, if he sold 100 of them, then the cost of getting to the post box reduces to 2.5p per unit instead of £2.50), but since he's only sold 2... I reckon he's probably going in too cheap at £3.60 profit.


Costs are a bitch, and outside of running a business, almost no-one seems to understand them. Yet they rack up pretty sharpish, especially on low volume stuff.
Cheers!
Ade.
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Offline gerritv

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #15 on: August 29, 2016, 09:03:36 PM »
We lose money on every sale but make up for it in volume.
« Last Edit: August 29, 2016, 10:22:53 PM by gerritv »

Offline gerritv

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #16 on: August 29, 2016, 09:22:05 PM »
It gets better.

http://www.element-cnc.com/torrent
You are paying for Made in U.S.A. quality so well worth the price. Part of the Make America Great Again movement. Because machinery made anywhere else is c..p according to some. http://madmodder.net/Smileys/default/kaffeetrinker_2.gif

Offline John Stevenson

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #17 on: August 29, 2016, 10:49:03 PM »
I question the made in USA after someone on another forum sent me a link to a near identical machine on Aliexpress for $6K.  It is rather a distinctive frame design. 
John Stevenson

Offline AdeV

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #18 on: August 30, 2016, 04:54:47 AM »
I question the made in USA after someone on another forum sent me a link to a near identical machine on Aliexpress for $6K.  It is rather a distinctive frame design. 

Chinese clone? They've shown plenty of willing in the past to make straight copies of other machines.

Either that, or they're getting around any "Made in the USA" rules by (for example) assembling the machine from parts in the US; plenty of European companies do that to get a "Made in [EU country]" tag, even though it was just a kit of parts made in China.
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Offline mattinker

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #19 on: August 30, 2016, 06:43:55 AM »
We lose money on every sale but make up for it in volume.

If you loose money on every sale, you can't make up for it in volume, loosing money is by definition loosing money!

Regards, Matthew

Offline gerritv

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #20 on: August 30, 2016, 07:18:13 AM »
We lose money on every sale but make up for it in volume.

If you loose money on every sale, you can't make up for it in volume, loosing money is by definition loosing money!

Regards, Matthew
I guess you don't see the joke :-) : http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/we_lose_money_on_every_sale_but_make_it_up_on_volume/

Offline mattinker

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #21 on: August 30, 2016, 08:00:45 AM »
We lose money on every sale but make up for it in volume.

If you loose money on every sale, you can't make up for it in volume, loosing money is by definition loosing money!

Regards, Matthew
I guess you don't see the joke :-) : http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/we_lose_money_on_every_sale_but_make_it_up_on_volume/

Unlike the spoken word where you have context, if you write something without any indication that it is tongue in check, It doesn't come across as a joke!! I cannot know, where your at!

All trhe best, Matthew

Offline tom osselton

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #22 on: August 30, 2016, 02:06:24 PM »
Still shipping is extra or you could find a Makerspace or design one made online like  http://www.shapeways.com/  has 50 different materials to choose from.  I have seen some of their metalprinting and was impressed.

Offline nrml

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #23 on: August 30, 2016, 06:30:54 PM »
I don't want to start an argument here but from my perspective as a consumer I would expect the cost of an item to be proportional to the effort required to create it, test it and the cost of actually producing it. Of course postage , advertising costs and a reasonable profit margin to make it worthwhile are to be included in the final price of the item.

 I feel that something like this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Kossel-Mini-Plastic-Printed-Parts-for-RepRap-Rostock-Delta-3D-Printer-PLA-Red-/161747713780?hash=item25a8ea3ef4:g:roQAAOSwLVZVkDGd is underpriced. I would quite happily pay a lot more than the seller is asking if I was looking at buying an item of that description. By the same yard stick, to me the wipers are overpriced for the reasons I mentioned earlier. Obviously others have different opinions.

I am not a business person so I might be wrong here. If I was investing in a 3d printer and premium CAD / Slicing software, I wouldn't have this as my main product on which to regain my investment and make a living on. I'd be offering an array of products and services and this would be a minor sideline (probably a commercial spin off a favour done for a friend). In which case I'd price it accordingly as I wouldn't have spent huge amounts of time or effort developing the product.

I am not expecting him / her to almost give it away for free but compared to the complexity of design and printing time required for most other 3d printed parts sold online, this seems disproportionately expensive. Just my 2 cents worth. No intentions of opening up a prolonged debate.

Offline efrench

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #24 on: August 31, 2016, 12:43:17 AM »
I don't want to start an argument here but from my perspective as a consumer I would expect the cost of an item to be proportional to the effort required to create it, test it and the cost of actually producing it. Of course postage , advertising costs and a reasonable profit margin to make it worthwhile are to be included in the final price of the item.

 I feel that something like this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Kossel-Mini-Plastic-Printed-Parts-for-RepRap-Rostock-Delta-3D-Printer-PLA-Red-/161747713780?hash=item25a8ea3ef4:g:roQAAOSwLVZVkDGd is underpriced. I would quite happily pay a lot more than the seller is asking if I was looking at buying an item of that description. By the same yard stick, to me the wipers are overpriced for the reasons I mentioned earlier. Obviously others have different opinions.

I am not a business person so I might be wrong here. If I was investing in a 3d printer and premium CAD / Slicing software, I wouldn't have this as my main product on which to regain my investment and make a living on. I'd be offering an array of products and services and this would be a minor sideline (probably a commercial spin off a favour done for a friend). In which case I'd price it accordingly as I wouldn't have spent huge amounts of time or effort developing the product.

I am not expecting him / her to almost give it away for free but compared to the complexity of design and printing time required for most other 3d printed parts sold online, this seems disproportionately expensive. Just my 2 cents worth. No intentions of opening up a prolonged debate.

The kossel mini parts are all opensource, so the person printing them has no investment in time or money, just material and printer time.  The 3d printer forums are filled with reports of poorly printed parts for delta printers, so one should be wary of very cheap ones (and expensive ones to :) )The way wipers were most likely reverse engineered, modeled, and sliced by the seller, so would have more time invested in the product.

John: Do you have a link to the $6000 machine.  I didn't see anything on Aliexpress at that price.

Offline PK

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #25 on: August 31, 2016, 02:41:31 AM »
I think this group is ahead of the pack here, mostly because we all have some level of understanding of what goes into making something. Even if we subsequently accept the asking price as being fair for whatever reasons, some things initially stand out as incongruously expensive at first glance.
This is much less an issue for most consumers.
I've come across a lot of evidence supporting this as we have gone down the path of renovating our kitchen.

Sites like alibaba expose the channel distribution model for what it (mostly) is, and we are entering into a new age of global direct selling.

 At least I hope we are because I just sacked our US distributor and am just about to add a 'buy it now' button to our website...

Offline John Stevenson

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #26 on: August 31, 2016, 02:44:15 AM »
Bit limited at the moment as I'm out the country, just popped over to Luxembourg to look at a vintage racing bike. I can post when I get back.
However let me say that the Chinese one is the original and any clone or copy will be the USA one. What will have happened is that lumps will be sourced from China to be finished in the US. No matter what explanation is forthcoming for the pricing, with the Tempest it's possible to buy on off the shelf mini VMC like the Haas TM1 for less money.
John Stevenson

Offline Jasonb

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #27 on: August 31, 2016, 05:12:41 AM »
I would not under estimate the amount of work that goes into designing the bed wipers even if reverse engineered.

I was asked to draw some up at the end of last year and given some 2D drawings taken from originals. I think we ended up at revision F by the time they worked as hoped after tweaks to the 3D design. Each design was printed, fitted to the machine and tested then revisions made to the model before going through the same proceedure. And don't forget you need two designs, one for the flat part and one for the Vee

So take my time drawing, somebody printing, cost of trying a couple of different fillaments, fitting to machine, testing, removing, etc. That lot adds up to quite a bit of time and money which on a low volume item will push teh price up.

J

PS John it does come in a nice looking cabinet :thumbup:

Offline tom osselton

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #28 on: August 31, 2016, 05:02:37 PM »
I think it just boils down to what resources are available to the buyer and how busy they are. I wouldn't buy the wiper its basically just flat plate while the 3d parts are more complexed it can justify the cost.

Offline Will_D

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #29 on: August 31, 2016, 06:33:33 PM »
When it comes to the cost of making things:

When I worked in southern Germany there was Lidl and I think a similar chain called Norma.

One week the had 4 1/2" Angle grinders on sale for €9.99

I disn't want an angle grinder that day - what I wanted were some brown paper bio bags for the kitchen waste bin in the apartment. You HAD to to use these or the Bio Police would be onto you.

So questions 1:

If a working, gauranteed grinder costs a tenner then how much for brown paper bags?

WRONG!! Fot 3 packs of bags (3 * 10) it was more than €10 !!

Explanations please!

On a similar (personnal) vein:

Why are hearing aids so effin expensive??

A mobile smart phone is crammed full of silicon and software and costs say €700. A pair of hearing aids are very small and full of silicon and software so why do I pay €2800??

And they are the unbranded ones!! Branded names like Siemens just add another 1k!!
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Offline John Swift

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #30 on: August 31, 2016, 06:44:26 PM »
I guess its supply and demand

since you had to use the bio bags the will be in high demand  so they have you over a barrel

same with the hearing aid I don't think you have many options where to buy them and you need it

   John


Offline PK

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #31 on: August 31, 2016, 07:15:02 PM »
This relates back to an earlier post about business fundamentals.
As a consumer you hear terms like, profit margin, and markup. These are all expressed as a percentage of some input cost.
eg, Gary the green groces buys apples at $1/kg. marks them up 30% sells them at $1.30 and makes 15% profit.

This is a myth. Any business that's still operating after 10 years prices their products relative to what everyone else is charging. Input costs don't even come into it unless you are making a loss (which someone is on a $15 grinder). 
If frank is selling apples at $2.50 a kg then Gary is an idiot if he charges $1.30 its not ethics, it's survival.

The other aspect is that people underestimate retail margins.  A non global, bricks and mortar retailer needs to put on 400-1000% to make a net profit of 10-20%. Like I said though, they don't think that way.  McDonalds are awesome at pricing, try tracking the price of one item over a year, it'll go up and down (but mostly up), they'll have specials on other items to distract you from price rises, add new products just to change the anchor point etc. its impressive to watch..

In my industry (electronics) the rule of thumb is that you need to be able to retail at 500% of your manufacturing cost to have a viable product. Its one of the things that drives innovation in consumer electronics. You can only really charge a lot when you have the newest or the best widget,

You can see why the channel model withers in the face of factory drop ship retailers like bangood.

Offline hermetic

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #32 on: September 01, 2016, 11:23:37 AM »
The problem I had with the bed wipers was that although they fit the bolt holes, they do not actually wipe the bed, and did not fit to the V way either. I have a Mk1 roundhead Colchester Student, which had 3 wipers missing anyway. the one that was there had a felt insert inside a folded or pressed steel enclosure. I solved the problem by super gluing some thin felt to the bottom of the plastic wipers, which are now ok, but they could be better. Still have very little faith in 3d printing!
Man who says it cannot be done should not disturb man doing it! https://www.youtube.com/user/philhermetic/videos?

Offline Jasonb

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #33 on: September 01, 2016, 11:56:56 AM »
Now if you had wipers that were printed in something more flexible and actually contacted the bed like a windscreen wiper blade, made to allow for deflection when up against the vee, etc then they would work without felt but you would have to pay for the cost of the extra developement that I mentioned earlier.

Offline Fergus OMore

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #34 on: September 01, 2016, 06:10:29 PM »
When it comes to the cost of making things:

When I worked in southern Germany there was Lidl and I think a similar chain called Norma.

One week the had 4 1/2" Angle grinders on sale for €9.99

I disn't want an angle grinder that day - what I wanted were some brown paper bio bags for the kitchen waste bin in the apartment. You HAD to to use these or the Bio Police would be onto you.

So questions 1:

If a working, gauranteed grinder costs a tenner then how much for brown paper bags?

WRONG!! Fot 3 packs of bags (3 * 10) it was more than €10 !!

Explanations please!

On a similar (personnal) vein:

Why are hearing aids so effin expensive??

A mobile smart phone is crammed full of silicon and software and costs say €700. A pair of hearing aids are very small and full of silicon and software so why do I pay €2800??

And they are the unbranded ones!! Branded names like Siemens just add another 1k!!

I think that you are probably talking up Aldi Sud and Hofer but be that as it may, you were talking about a grinder which cost 10Euros and this has tripped its way from -say- HK docks in a container and has travelled the equivalent of 12 hours in air miles at Mach .85 which is a helluva long way and to get to the till it has attracted a sales tax.-say 20%.

In other words, some Chinese bloke is paying to come to a factory- make it and has to scrat around for a bowl of imported rice.

This, my friend is a or was a loss leader. Herr Grubby Hof sold you below cost so that you would buy your schinken whatsits or then and in the future. Perfectly normal sales tactics but as a single item- a BIG Nein.

What you did - and I have done have advertised Lidl and Aldi Sud and Hofer and Southern Germany- for free.

Danke! you fell for it.

Prosit

Norman


Offline John Stevenson

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #35 on: September 02, 2016, 12:53:03 AM »
When these opportunities come up then play th at their own game. Last time the £9.99 gringers came up, made in Holland BTW, I decided that these were consumables and a new Bosch would be about £100 so bought ten of them and still running off stock. Funnily enough they have never repeated the offer around here again.
John Stevenson

Offline nrml

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #36 on: September 03, 2016, 05:35:46 PM »
The problem I had with the bed wipers was that although they fit the bolt holes, they do not actually wipe the bed, and did not fit to the V way either. I have a Mk1 roundhead Colchester Student, which had 3 wipers missing anyway. the one that was there had a felt insert inside a folded or pressed steel enclosure. I solved the problem by super gluing some thin felt to the bottom of the plastic wipers, which are now ok, but they could be better. Still have very little faith in 3d printing!

I would recommend cutting them out of nitrile rubber (4-5mm sheet works well) and using a hole punch to  make the mounting holes. Mine seem to be holding up well so far and work very very well. Even if they wear out I still have enough left from a £1.85 sheet to make another 4 or 5 complete sets.

Offline wagnmkr

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #37 on: September 08, 2016, 04:36:33 PM »
This is an interesting thread. It certainly shows the different attitudes that prevail in our hobby. I am not disagreeing with anyone at all.

As far as the cost of 3d printing goes ... I have had one for a couple of months and I am nearing the 200 or so hours on it. It took near enough to two weeks to get it dialed in to the point where I can start a print, and leave it to it, allowing me to work on the mill or lathe, or go for a swim.

My friend owns a pet store that specializes in aquariums and reptiles. You guessed it ... soon as he heard I had a printer, He wanted stuff printed. Simple things like little perforated trays for starting plants on. Nothing to it, right! First prototype drawn up and printed ... 2 hours. Not quite right so revise the drawing and reprint. Better, but no cigar, even though it was exactly what he asked for. Third iteration of said shelf ... perfect, but not quite good enough quality, so I reduced the extrusion thickness ...

The long and short of it is that he can get what he needs from regular distributor for $1.50 and wants to cut that cost. He wanted to pay me $1.00 each and he wanted 100 at a time. My printer will do 9 at once at the size he wants, but at the quality he wants, that takes 4 1/2 hours per 9! Do the math and I would be printing for a long time to fill the order. I politely declined the business, gave him the samples that I made, and decided that a commercial venture as a 3d printing firm is not on my cards.

In my humble opinion, the fellow doing the wipers was losing money.

Tom

Offline tom osselton

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #38 on: September 09, 2016, 01:54:41 PM »
Have you thought of a vacumformer this one I am building will live at protospace for the maker comunity.

Offline PK

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #39 on: September 09, 2016, 06:43:36 PM »
OK, so given the meandering nature of this thread, it seem utterly appropriate to start talking about Vac formers.
Here's one I prepared earlier. 
Built our 'usual' way, from laser cut steel, tacked together. 
It has a pneumatic ram pushing up the plenum table.

Vac forming is one of those rare process' that seems to be tolerant of a wide range of operating conditions. Whilst we definitely got better at it over time, we sold the very first part we pulled on this machine.


Offline PekkaNF

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #40 on: September 10, 2016, 02:28:09 AM »
Very nice thread...I am agreeing pretty much with everybody too.

OT: Vac forming....One guy I know made a very modest production line to produde dome shaped lamp shades....they found out that domes come a little unbalanced out. When you hang them, they tilt and some procentage of people see it....therefore they cut and finished the rim first and then found the centre (where it hangs straight) and drilled the hole for light fixture....who would have quessed.

Pekka

* Fixed typos
« Last Edit: September 10, 2016, 03:57:10 AM by PekkaNF »

Offline tom osselton

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #41 on: September 10, 2016, 03:14:30 AM »
I just finished mine tonight although I'll have to mod the slides a bit I'm thinking the arms that are fixed above the tray are flexing inwards when lifted I've picked up some small bearings to keep it true.

Offline PK

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #42 on: September 10, 2016, 03:47:34 AM »
One guy I know made a very modest production line to produce dome shaped lamp shades....they found out that domes come a little unbalanced out, when you hang them, they tilt and some procentage of people see it....therefore they cut and finished the rim firs and then found the centre and drilled the hole for light fixture....who would have quessed.
Interesting...
Cutting out is certainly the tricky bit if you are making lots of parts. We laid up some glass (as if we were taking a mould) over the part, then used that as a vacuum fixture to hold it upside down in the CNC router which milled the part out of the sheet.

Offline PK

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #43 on: September 10, 2016, 03:50:02 AM »
I just finished mine tonight although I'll have to mod the slides a bit I'm thinking the arms that are fixed above the tray are flexing inwards when lifted I've picked up some small bearings to keep it true.

I reckon you did a pretty good job of it.  What are you using for heating elements?  We cut up some toasted sandwich makers, but they didn't heat by direct IR.  Good because we got uniform heating, bad because we had a 10 minute cycle time on 2mm ABS....
PK

Offline tom osselton

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #44 on: September 10, 2016, 06:09:56 PM »
I found this at a tool store from a school art dept.
It does take a bit to heat up so am hoping to have a preheat then full power with arduino you can see the vacum behind it.
Heres a pic of it finished. I'd type more but the battery is beeping! :beer:

Offline tom osselton

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #45 on: September 16, 2016, 04:56:49 PM »
Well we did a test last night to see how the heat distributes seeing as how the heater does not  go to the edges. I even picked up some tinfoil on a second attempt ( using the same piece ) that helped but still not enough it looks like I will have to put some nichrome wire around the edges!
Any thoughts?

Offline PK

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #46 on: September 16, 2016, 05:48:50 PM »
Or forced air circulation.

Offline tom osselton

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Re: WTF wallet attack !!
« Reply #47 on: September 17, 2016, 03:03:06 PM »
I was thinking that too a chamber to heat distributed by recirculating fans. I was also thinking about winding nicrome wire on the lathe amd making a custom heater.