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by boschetto 1967 days ago
I am considering it.

From a quick calculation (micro-production, 1 man operation, 50 units batch):

- Materials: considering the best supported module (T-Beam V1.1 w/ NEO-M8N /w SX1262) with an OLED screen, an upgrade to a decent GPS antenna (ceramic, 28mm^2), 3D printed case and 2 Panasonic 18650.

Materials cost: 48€/piece.

- Assembly: pipelining would probably be bottlenecked by display soldering (outsourcing the 3D printing). Batching soldering could bring that down to ~1 min/piece. Flashing/testing can be fully automated and parallelized with soldering. Final assembly should be an additional 30s/piece. Start up ~10min considering testing machine boot and soldering iron warm up.

Assembly time: 85 min/batch --> <2 min/unit

Assembly cost (50€/hour): 71 €/batch -> 1.42 €/unit

Shipping (EU): 10€

Support cost: can't estimate well, let's say 1€/unit

Defective cost (10%): 13€/unit (2 procuct units, 3 shippings)

Cost per unit: 73€

Retail price (40% margin): 102€

It's viable but pretty expensive (a lot more than 50$). For sure more expensive than a goTenna Mesh and offering less support.

I won't make money from it but it could be a good learning opportunity.

edit: formatting

1 comments

I would buy one, as well as few naked one that I would solder myself. Those things could become very nifty. Solving problems that mesh-wifi can't quiet get right for organic deployment.