[steinvakt2]

Seems weird. China is definitely falling behind. India is not.

[petterroea]

They are pretty happy with having superiority on high tech manufacturing and robotics. You basically cannot manufacture something without using China - even if you try. I don't think they consider the TSMC EUV monopoly a long term threat. Doing good on AI as well, you bet the OSS chinese models causing stock panic in the US makes them laugh.

On the topic of manufacturing outside China, the YouTuber "Smarter Every day" (Destin Sandlin) has a series on manufacturing and feels strongly about manufacturing having moved out of the country. As an experiment he tried to manufacture something without China, but was unable to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZTGwcHQfLY

[aprentic]

And he's just making a grill scrubber.

I just ordered a bunch of drone parts. The majority of those part were only available from China.

[jacquesm]

If you want: motors, ESCs, flight controllers and radios those can be sourced from outside of China, and competitively priced too (if you're in Europe, outside you'd still have to add taxes).

[petterroea]

Yeah tbf I wouldn't underestimate Eastern Europe. The drone industry there must be booming nowadays, pun not intended.

[aprentic]

How?

As near as I can tell, the vast majority of the parts are made in China. When I look at the few alternatives, they're full of Chinese circuitry. If I look at circuit components, they're all made of Chinese raw materials.

Both Ukraine and Russia are planning to deploy (and use up) several million drones over the next year. Iran just joined them as a major procurer.

Where are all the US and EU component factories?

[jacquesm]

In Spain, the Netherlands and Ukraine.

[jacquesm]

It's everywhere. And 'China free' is a real motto here.

[aprentic]

I can't install a motto in my drone. None of the alternatives will allow me to put a physical drone part in my hand with any degree of reliability.

[aprentic]

The thread is about manufacturing in the US so tariffs do have to be factored in.

On those specific parts:

Motors: T-Motor F90 1300KV - $119.60(incl shipping) + Tariff

ESC: Holybro Tekko32 F4 50A - $88.97(incl shipping) + Tariff

FC: Matek H743-SLIM V4 - £88.12(incl shipping + VAT) + Tariff

Radio: Radiomaster M2 $95.99(incl shipping + sales tax)

The FC was from a UK store but it originated in China. I already had the radio so I don't have current prices on it.

I'd love to find a list of vendors that have comparable parts, in stock, and without being insane multiples of those prices.

edit: formatting

[jacquesm]

https://motor-g.com/en

https://www.arctus.ai/products

[aprentic]

Motor-g doesn't seem to ship outside of Ukraine. That's totally understandable but for anyone outside of Ukraine, they effectively don't exist.

Arctus asks you to contact them just for product info. It seems they just raised 2.6M in seed funding 3 months ago. It's great that there are startups in NL but that's not even close to a replacement for China's scale yet.

Both of these may change the landscape in the future. For now, neither of them is a practical way to get drone parts without China.

[jacquesm]

I have some friends who are doing things 'China free' and it is possible but it comes at a very substantial premium.

[petterroea]

I think the most interesting takeaway from this video in question is that he tried to buy material from an Indian seller, who promised it was Indian. When the box arrived, it had the name of a Chinese factory on it.