[Aachen]

So if I understand you correctly, it's the R&D that makes up the majority of the price, not the components?

Not saying that's bad, just that my question is what makes this cost what it does. If it weren't justified, there'd be competitors doing it way cheaper (the field is accessible and large enough for that), so it's just a question out of curiosity.

[polack]

Have you seen how many parts there are? It would probably take most people with a normal day job a week to print all parts in the evenings and weekend. And that's if they do have a printer.

Add another 20 parts that you need to order from different place, make sure they meet the specifications, pay for shipping for a lot of different packages and that many things must be bought in bulk and not single pieces.

USD 200 is a bargain for this kit. Sure, you might be able to save a couple of dollars if you do the work yourself. But is that worth many hours of work, and the risk of ordering wrong stuff?

[dylan604]

Of course the R&D makes upt the majority of the price. When is that ever not the case? The version that is available now is not the only version that was made. This is something that has been thought about, made, revised, made again, etc. Things like this often go through multiple iterations. Hell, there will probably be a OpenAstroTracker 2.0 in a year.

[Aachen]

> Of course the R&D makes upt the majority of the price. When is that ever not the case?

Like, pretty much every other product that wasn't an entirely new concept in the last few years? Looking around me, I think the thing with the highest R&D price component is probably the chips in computers (desktop, laptop, smartphones), everything else is just mass production and low markup with hardly any research recuperation in the price (keyboard, lamp, paper, desk, floor, beanbag, fridge, IR thermometer, picture frames, a spoon, a computer display...). Unless you meant "when is that not the case for astro trackers", I don't get what you meant because it's rather exceptional to still be paying off R&D if you're buying regular mass-produced consumer products.

> This is something that has been thought about,

Obviously, but if it's open source (with a free, commercial-use license and no big call for donations other than a coffee) then apparently recuperation that design time is not a goal, they're actively giving it away for free and encouraging people to make it themselves. That suggested to me that the price must be for an expensive component or two. Or perhaps the printing time, but since it's mostly unattended and filament is cheap, I didn't expect it to be that. And the tracking calculations have been long done by people decades ago, so it's just buying parts and putting them together, where the "putting together" part is done by the customer since it's a kit. So yeah I expected the price to be mostly an expensive precise motor or something.

[dylan604]

Great, Apple's new M1 based systems now exist on the market. Go make one for me for less than what Apple sells theirs. Should be easy according you since someone else is already doing it.

R&D is everything in making of something. Just because someone else made it doesn't mean you get to start exactly where they left off (except in cases of open source where you get their literal plans). Even in wood working or any shop type of work, you often spend more time setting up things like jigs or other custom tooling than it takes to do the actual work. Is that supposed to be a sunk cost to the builder? No, it is part of how the builder arrives at the price of the final thing being built.

[sink]

I'll add one more thing to my sibling comment. This person is clearly unaware of whether there is ongoing R&D in the realm of hobby astrophotography mounts. They mentioned they're just considering getting into it. They're talking about mass manufactured goods. They were not aware that this is a field of active innovation.

We could have given someone a warm welcome to the hobby by clarifying that politely.

I know when I was getting started, I didn't know what made some things more expensive than others. I didn't know about doublet or triplet refractors, Strehl ratios, Chroma vs ZWO filters, why a MACH2 is such a grail mount over a Optron CEM120. Luckily I had nice, friendly, helpful people to talk to, instead of a wall of arrogance.

[dylan604]

>We could have given someone a warm welcome to the hobby by clarifying that politely.

If this was Cloudy Skies or some similar site dedicated to the hobby subject matter, then sure, let's hold someone's hand while they decide to make expensive decisions.

HN is not that. It is, as the name applies, a place where tinkerers in any hobby gather. As someone that hacks/tinkers/plays/circumvents/etc, it is clear that research is step 1, 2 & 3.

[Aachen]

Thank you the comments you wrote. There's no contact info in your profile so without going too off topic, I appreciate this really a lot.

[sink]

I'm not sure why you're so hostile to the GP.

Their questions are sincere. Your comparison to the M1 is not appropriate, and you're not actually paying attention to what they wrote.

They wrote that they are surprised that R&D makes up the majority of the cost, since this is an open source project. This is a fairly non-obvious feature of open source company business models. They give away the product, and its designs, for free, and solicit community collaboration. But it's usually complex or cumbersome to operationalize or build, so they then sell a set of services or pre-builds around it. Datastax and Confluent are two examples of this in the OSS domain.

Woodworkers don't market their plans as open source, put them on Github, and accept pull requests.

Don't create arrogant, sarcastic responses to sincere questions. It devalues this forum, and it's a bad look.

[dylan604]

>They wrote that they are surprised that R&D makes up the majority of the cost,

I am as equally as surprised by their surprise about how much R&D is involved in making a "simple" lamp. Someone had to draw the plans so that the metal/plastic could be formed/shaped into the lamp. The parts had to be researched on what could suffice and be safe. Some person didn't just go "i want to make a lamp" and a lamp was created (unless they had Aladdin's lamp first). Research can be as simple as internet searching on parts, but that is still research even if people with PhDs and white lab coats were not involved. The design is still necessary in getting the lamp to a shape that is aesthetically pleasing enough for someone to want to buy it.

>Woodworkers don't market their plans as open source, put them on Github, and accept pull requests.

That's not true in the spirit to the point you are making. There are plenty of websites where wood workers offer their plans/drawings/instructions, and then allow comments where people that followed their plans made modifications. So yes, they don't necessarily use Git and PRs, but the concept is there nonetheless. Same with cooking/baking/etc.

> I'm not sure why you're so hostile to the GP. >Don't create arrogant, sarcastic responses to sincere questions. It devalues this forum, and it's a bad look.

You're reading into the comment an emotion that did not exist when the message was sent. If you read hostility, then that's no what I was trying to infer.

[sink]

> I am as equally as surprised by their surprise about how much R&D is involved in making a "simple" lamp.

I think your surprise is justified, especially since you've been in this world for a while. But I think there is an apparent (but not real) contradiction between offering designs for free so people can go and build something themselves, and then charging money for R&D. This is what is meant by the term trade secret.

re: Woodworkers and co -- sometimes. Room & Board doesn't share their designs. Tartine Manufactory probably has a cookbook.

> You're reading into the comment an emotion that did not exist when the message was sent. If you read hostility, then that's no what I was trying to infer.

I'm genuinely really happy that this is not the intent. Challenging phrases and Socratic questioning can really come off as hostile.

[oivey]

Just do it all yourself then? It doesn’t seem unreasonable that the creators of this want to make a little money off of something that almost certainly took a lot of their time. If the markup is too high you’re welcome to assemble your own.

R&D cost is built in to everything you buy, otherwise the companies that make this stuff wouldn’t be profitable. The amount of per unit R&D markup for, say, a thermometer just isn’t as high due to its relatively low complexity and huge number of units sold. This thing is niche and not going to sell that many units.

[trishmapow2]

Not quite - if they priced in all of the dev effort required to make the mount software compatible (ASCOM, etc) it would be much higher I think. From what I see, ensuring the 3D printed parts are up to spec and look good cosmetically requires a lot of time, not to mention manually wiring and flashing all the electronics.