4 ms·

Parts sourcing is part of engineering. He is right, well designed high voltage protection is not going to be cheap, and these meters are obviously not designed

Parts sourcing is part of engineering. He is right, well designed high voltage protection is not going to be cheap, and these meters are obviously not designed with anything but digital testbench in mind.

mindslight 13y ago
High voltage doesn't automatically mean expensive. We're talking about low-speed battery-powered equipment whose only I/O is through buttons and an LCD, not something like a USB oscilloscope that needs high-speed galvanic isolation. Getting the details (shrouding, creepage, plastics) right (and keeping them that way) is going to take design time and vigilant QA, but the parts themselves aren't inherently expensive.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
solve 13y ago
No. Parts sourcing is not even close to getting your pals that you know at the factory to slip in a custom assembly run, just paying the absolutely minimal costs and nearly 100% of the money going to the very bottom $1/hour end-workers. There's an assumption that price=quality. That's ok, until we get into the extreme cases. We're talking about the extreme limits of how cheaply this could be done. The prices of the raw materials are not high, they're not made of solid gold or rare-earth materials. Assembly costs almost nothing.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  We're talking about the extreme limits of how cheaply this could be done. When was the last time you trusted your life to something that boldly tested the limits of that edge?
  - solve 13y ago
    Every day? You think the products you use every day aren't maximized for profit?
    - sliverstorm 13y ago
      To a company with a presence & reputation in the American market, "profit" consideres reputation and repeat customers. To a fly-by-night foreign company with no name, "profit" begins and ends at the point of sale.
      - TeMPOraL 13y ago
        > To a company with a presence & reputation in the American market, "profit" consideres reputation and repeat customers. Not true. Think about all those telcos, ISPs, car producers, etc. that just sell bad products and services, don't give a damn about their customers and still profit. Unfortunately, business at large figured out how to be malicious to customers without losing money.

mindslight 13y ago

High voltage doesn't automatically mean expensive. We're talking about low-speed battery-powered equipment whose only I/O is through buttons and an LCD, not something like a USB oscilloscope that needs high-speed galvanic isolation. Getting the details (shrouding, creepage, plastics) right (and keeping them that way) is going to take design time and vigilant QA, but the parts themselves aren't inherently expensive.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

solve 13y ago

No. Parts sourcing is not even close to getting your pals that you know at the factory to slip in a custom assembly run, just paying the absolutely minimal costs and nearly 100% of the money going to the very bottom $1/hour end-workers. There's an assumption that price=quality. That's ok, until we get into the extreme cases. We're talking about the extreme limits of how cheaply this could be done. The prices of the raw materials are not high, they're not made of solid gold or rare-earth materials. Assembly costs almost nothing.

sliverstorm 13y ago
We're talking about the extreme limits of how cheaply this could be done. When was the last time you trusted your life to something that boldly tested the limits of that edge?
- solve 13y ago
  Every day? You think the products you use every day aren't maximized for profit?
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    To a company with a presence & reputation in the American market, "profit" consideres reputation and repeat customers. To a fly-by-night foreign company with no name, "profit" begins and ends at the point of sale.
    - TeMPOraL 13y ago
      > To a company with a presence & reputation in the American market, "profit" consideres reputation and repeat customers. Not true. Think about all those telcos, ISPs, car producers, etc. that just sell bad products and services, don't give a damn about their customers and still profit. Unfortunately, business at large figured out how to be malicious to customers without losing money.