4 ms·

If they list $25 and $35 as price points, then how much could it cost to have all the components sourced from within 500 miles of where I live? Surely twice as

by rch 15y ago

If they list $25 and $35 as price points, then how much could it cost to have all the components sourced from within 500 miles of where I live? Surely twice as much, once such a thing is even possible, but something in the neighborhood of that price point could still move at sustainable volume given the embedded product opportunities. I spend around that much every time I stock up on local produce, bison steaks, the latest micro-brew, etc. - why not hardware too?

mhd 15y ago
I'm not sure if you're serious (Pollan vs. Poe's Law), but local electronics manufacturing doesn't particularly strike me as ecologically and economically sound. Never mind that you could take this ad absurdum and demand local mining, which simply isn't possible (as opposed to e.g. local hops, which is often just bad, but at least feasible).
- rch 15y ago
  Well, not too serious of course -- but with the right approach to manufacturing, it would be both possible and desirable [1]. I'm similarly interested in using 3d printers to build enclosures for small electronics like this. In fact, I would appreciate being able to head down to some future kinkos and print out a replacement cell phone case, even if I could have one for pennies on the dollar if it was shipped over from Malaysia. I'm not (just) being an eco-hippie either. but I will just ignore the bit about mining. [1] http://www.innovaelec.com/ http://www.innovaelec.com/
  - mhd 15y ago
    3D printing and electronics manufacturing strike me as two totally different animals for most applications. There's a lot of variation in cases and the like, so this is great if you need it right now, nobody has to keep a warehouse of that stuff and if you're doing something new (i.e. iterative design and development), the immediacy can't be beaten. This has a lot in common with POD books. For a computer like this, you simply don't gain a lot. It's mostly prefab components, with a bit of PCB and soldering. No big need for made-to-order, built from scratch items. You'd get almost nothing out of this, apart from a "support your local automated shop" deal. The eco impact of transport for electronics is negligible. Now, I'm not saying that there isn't a spot for "local electronics", but that would involve other devices, ones that are highly experimental, customizable and/or short run. If you'd get things like this (or an embedded systems) with oodles of different connectors, memory options, different processor subtypes, or open source hardware (probably FPGA based, to make it more reproducible). I've been dreaming about stuff like that since I read about "nano-facs" in the Cyberpunk RPG… But again, I don't see the big deal for the Raspberry. It makes sense to print a sole copy of "Best fly fishing sites for Llarregub Creek in late autumn" in your Kinko's, not to get a copy of the Bible or Harry Potter.
    - rch 15y ago
      I see your point, but I'm specifically arguing in favor of supporting local shops, and I would be more than willing to pay more to do so. It is just a guess on my part, but I assume a custom fabricator might appreciate being able to produce a moderate, steady volume of commodity parts, based on open hardware specs (if they command a premium by virtue of being 'local'). And that same fab would then be more likely to be able to offer a custom model with, for instance, an integrated FPGA. I wouldn't expect many people to pay $6K when they could pay $3K, but $150 vs. $60? I think there's room for that.
      - eropple 15y ago
        I think you're well beyond optimistic and into wishful territory. Very, very few people are going to pay a 150% markup for their gadgetry because "it's local." You can't get people to pay a 100% markup on food, and that's going from four to eight bucks, not sixty to one-twenty. And whoever owns all that big expensive fabrication hardware has to be able to keep the lights on. (Yeah, a lot of tools have come down in price, but most of them don't manage the same level of quality of output and now you're asking them to pay multiples of what they could get elsewhere, for lesser-quality stuff.)
        mhd 15y ago
        I think the markup would be even higher for this kind of manufacturing. What you'd need for truly "local" production is some kind of cheap shortcut. 3D printing uses this "bits of molten plastic" process, which isn't exactly industrial injection moulding, but workable enough. Book print-on-demand doesn't use offset, it uses relatively cheap and crappy laser and inkjet printing (and e.g. no hardcover as of yet). I can't think of any universally acceptable equivalent for electronics (common processor or FCPGA only work for a certain subset), and the plethora of different connections are beyond any sane automatic manufacturing concept. In addition, this would to be highly automated to be profitable, laden with patents and still quite huge. So it's quite likely that this will be run by a international chain, which kinda makes the "support your local electro-plutocrat" argument moot. Haven't seen someone calling for support to their local McDonalds… This needs some really big manufacturing breakthroughs to properly work, and given those, the whole world would look quite different. And we haven't even talked about regulations…
gravitronic 15y ago
Unless you live in Asia there is probably no existing mass manufacturers for most of these parts within 500 miles of where you live. They are not just a killed animal or fermented grains. Interesting idea, but impossible for most people today.
- rch 15y ago
  I live in Houston, so it is more feasible for me than for most, but I tried to leave the location vague for discussion purposes. Bringing some manufacturing capacity back to the regional level is exactly my objective. Specifically, product runs on the order of 5000 units, with a modest bill of materials, using open specs that lend themselves to lower cost redesign and re-purposing.
  - gravitronic 15y ago
    At least we now have the ability to cut PCBs or print enclosures locally or even personally. I have a CNC enroute for my garage fab lab. Still a long ways and orders of magnitude of complexity away from local chip fab though, but it's a start.
    - rch 15y ago
      Hacker spaces have come a long way too. If you're ever in Houston stop by: http://www.txrxlabs.org/ http://www.txrxlabs.org/
eru 15y ago
Why do you care about this local stuff? Is there anything special about the particular part of the earth you are living in?
- rch 15y ago
  For me, it's just an economic opportunity, and entirely separate from the idealogical 'made in the USA' notion. General purpose, trivially priced computing devices based on open source software and hardware... There is no reason to rely exclusively on established logistical chains at this point, and I think it would be beneficial to establish new (regional) ones.

by rch 15y ago

mhd 15y ago

I'm not sure if you're serious (Pollan vs. Poe's Law), but local electronics manufacturing doesn't particularly strike me as ecologically and economically sound. Never mind that you could take this ad absurdum and demand local mining, which simply isn't possible (as opposed to e.g. local hops, which is often just bad, but at least feasible).

rch 15y ago
Well, not too serious of course -- but with the right approach to manufacturing, it would be both possible and desirable [1]. I'm similarly interested in using 3d printers to build enclosures for small electronics like this. In fact, I would appreciate being able to head down to some future kinkos and print out a replacement cell phone case, even if I could have one for pennies on the dollar if it was shipped over from Malaysia. I'm not (just) being an eco-hippie either. but I will just ignore the bit about mining. [1] http://www.innovaelec.com/ http://www.innovaelec.com/
- mhd 15y ago
  3D printing and electronics manufacturing strike me as two totally different animals for most applications. There's a lot of variation in cases and the like, so this is great if you need it right now, nobody has to keep a warehouse of that stuff and if you're doing something new (i.e. iterative design and development), the immediacy can't be beaten. This has a lot in common with POD books. For a computer like this, you simply don't gain a lot. It's mostly prefab components, with a bit of PCB and soldering. No big need for made-to-order, built from scratch items. You'd get almost nothing out of this, apart from a "support your local automated shop" deal. The eco impact of transport for electronics is negligible. Now, I'm not saying that there isn't a spot for "local electronics", but that would involve other devices, ones that are highly experimental, customizable and/or short run. If you'd get things like this (or an embedded systems) with oodles of different connectors, memory options, different processor subtypes, or open source hardware (probably FPGA based, to make it more reproducible). I've been dreaming about stuff like that since I read about "nano-facs" in the Cyberpunk RPG… But again, I don't see the big deal for the Raspberry. It makes sense to print a sole copy of "Best fly fishing sites for Llarregub Creek in late autumn" in your Kinko's, not to get a copy of the Bible or Harry Potter.
  - rch 15y ago
    I see your point, but I'm specifically arguing in favor of supporting local shops, and I would be more than willing to pay more to do so. It is just a guess on my part, but I assume a custom fabricator might appreciate being able to produce a moderate, steady volume of commodity parts, based on open hardware specs (if they command a premium by virtue of being 'local'). And that same fab would then be more likely to be able to offer a custom model with, for instance, an integrated FPGA. I wouldn't expect many people to pay $6K when they could pay $3K, but $150 vs. $60? I think there's room for that.
    - eropple 15y ago
      I think you're well beyond optimistic and into wishful territory. Very, very few people are going to pay a 150% markup for their gadgetry because "it's local." You can't get people to pay a 100% markup on food, and that's going from four to eight bucks, not sixty to one-twenty. And whoever owns all that big expensive fabrication hardware has to be able to keep the lights on. (Yeah, a lot of tools have come down in price, but most of them don't manage the same level of quality of output and now you're asking them to pay multiples of what they could get elsewhere, for lesser-quality stuff.)
      - mhd 15y ago
        I think the markup would be even higher for this kind of manufacturing. What you'd need for truly "local" production is some kind of cheap shortcut. 3D printing uses this "bits of molten plastic" process, which isn't exactly industrial injection moulding, but workable enough. Book print-on-demand doesn't use offset, it uses relatively cheap and crappy laser and inkjet printing (and e.g. no hardcover as of yet). I can't think of any universally acceptable equivalent for electronics (common processor or FCPGA only work for a certain subset), and the plethora of different connections are beyond any sane automatic manufacturing concept. In addition, this would to be highly automated to be profitable, laden with patents and still quite huge. So it's quite likely that this will be run by a international chain, which kinda makes the "support your local electro-plutocrat" argument moot. Haven't seen someone calling for support to their local McDonalds… This needs some really big manufacturing breakthroughs to properly work, and given those, the whole world would look quite different. And we haven't even talked about regulations…

gravitronic 15y ago

Unless you live in Asia there is probably no existing mass manufacturers for most of these parts within 500 miles of where you live. They are not just a killed animal or fermented grains. Interesting idea, but impossible for most people today.

rch 15y ago
I live in Houston, so it is more feasible for me than for most, but I tried to leave the location vague for discussion purposes. Bringing some manufacturing capacity back to the regional level is exactly my objective. Specifically, product runs on the order of 5000 units, with a modest bill of materials, using open specs that lend themselves to lower cost redesign and re-purposing.
- gravitronic 15y ago
  At least we now have the ability to cut PCBs or print enclosures locally or even personally. I have a CNC enroute for my garage fab lab. Still a long ways and orders of magnitude of complexity away from local chip fab though, but it's a start.
  - rch 15y ago
    Hacker spaces have come a long way too. If you're ever in Houston stop by: http://www.txrxlabs.org/ http://www.txrxlabs.org/

eru 15y ago

Why do you care about this local stuff? Is there anything special about the particular part of the earth you are living in?

rch 15y ago
For me, it's just an economic opportunity, and entirely separate from the idealogical 'made in the USA' notion. General purpose, trivially priced computing devices based on open source software and hardware... There is no reason to rely exclusively on established logistical chains at this point, and I think it would be beneficial to establish new (regional) ones.