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by CrimsonCape 149 days ago
Just looking at the injection molded shell of my Mavic Mini makes me cringe when thinking about the startup cost. It's the plastic shell; not the motors, nor the circuitry, nor the optical parts...and to think you could build that in the USA is laughable. DJI releases 2-3 models every 2-3 years... if you could even find a company in the USA machining the steel molds at that frequency (i don't think it exists) how are you going to afford the bill?
2 comments
dylan604 149 days ago
We'll just let Boeing build them. They have the know-how.

Plus, if we're talking military drones vs civilian drones, they wouldn't need plastic shells. That'd just be more weight reducing distance. Then again, military industrial complex would probably try to make them stealth capable, be designed by committee from 22 nation states, be micro-USB mandated to comply with EU standards, blah blah. Yeah, you're right, we'd never be able to build them here.

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machomaster 149 days ago
Boeing's expertise will come handy when it comes to designing kamikaze drones.
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quesera 149 days ago
I'm confused. Machining molds is not a lost or obscure technology.

A skilled machinist (and the US has many) used to be able do it in any moderately-equipped machine shop.

Is there something new and magic about modern injection molding?

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CrimsonCape 149 days ago
I'm confused too. The parts are high quality and scream "in-house" and surely not the product of contract engineers or contract machinist work. But I don't think DJI has machinists or factories in-house? I would assume they are just the product designers but I guess it's probably some kind of unique workflow due to Shenzen.

I just anecdotally see that in the USA, the required iterative design process is too cost-prohibitive for injection molding, and likely the same for every other trade. So multiply number of trades (designer, CAD drafter, machinist, electrical engineer, software engineer, injection molder, assembler, etc.) multiplied by the number of experimental iterative processes required to build an institutional knowledgebase... it's cost-prohibited.

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