Sandwich Shoppe Sandwiches... Cha-CHING!

[IlluminatingBikr]

Wayne,

I am interested in your MM lite WO with Lux3 Bin-T! But now with your lower prices, it seems to be VERY expensive.

The MM lite WO board is $13.00 and the T bin let's say $17.00, then you have your Fraen-LP at $3.50 and o-ring and retaining ring at $2.00 or so. If you add that up, I get $35.50!!!! I was trying to be on the high side of my rough figures too. How come I come up with something that is $20 less than what you are selling it for? I was using prices from your site too. I know that it is more than just parts, and that the module comes assembled....but I would think that might cancel out with a small discount for buying all these things from you.

I have a brand new silver mini-mag sitting right next to me, but I'm not sure about shelling out $55 for a sanwich for her.

Am I alone here, or are other people thinking the same things?

How come the sandwiches SO expensive? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif

Wayne, I in no way mean to offend you or hurt you in anyway, but your prices are leaving my mini-mags....well rather "mini" feeling. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

 

[ubermensch]

I don't think those prices are unreasonable. You should buy the parts and put it together yourself, just for fun. It took me many hours to get one together the first time. If I knew now how tough it was gonna be I would have spent that extra $20 to have it done right.

 

[darkzero]

Waaahhh! When did these prices drop?? I just placed an order last night, paid regular prices and today they're way cheaper. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mecry.gif

These kind of things always seem to happen to me! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rant.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif

Wayne, e-mail sent (doesn't hurt to try).

 

[dat2zip]

if darkzero = ws, then we emailed you and will cancel your order so you can re-order.

As for the modules.

Look at it this way. I have the converter boards done at the CM. My time = zero... or near zero. I sell them now like I would the Luxeons. I pack them and ship them.

The modules on the other hand are labor intensive and many steps to get to the final result. Even if the CM did it there are additional hidden cost that one doesn't necessarily see.

As many who have tried will attest. This is no simple thing. I actually in many respects make less $$ on the Sandwiches than I do on the converter boards. Or, at least before I dropped the converter board prices.

I've been working on and off since October to design and make a better fixture just to help ensure the boards are parallel and control the height more accurately. That's months of my time. I just bought a mini-mill and am now making a few of these fixtures. If I farmed out all the fixtures I've made to date for the production process, that would be several $K in fixturing alone.

I need to recoup this $$ which is called NRE (Non recurring expense) somehow.

Module prices are falling slowely. I will continue to lower prices till I hit my target. My goal is to have end users buy a sandwich, and a $10.00 2AA flashlight and not be out of pocket $50.00. This puts the completed mod in par with existing 1W flashlights.

I need to be very careful not to burn my bridge just yet. I'm still working on the next generation fixture.

As a side note, you see other buying a mini-lathe or mini-mill to make flashlights or other cool projects. Almost all my work on my lathe to date has been for improvement in fixturing and to make test setups, molds, and other process improvements.

 

[IlluminatingBikr]

I guess my post was pretty shallow. I didn't realize how much more, than just parts, there is to the price of the sandwiches. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

Feel free to /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/whoopin.gif me.

 

[Kabible]

$20.00 bucks is well worth it once you've tried to put your own parts together. Just centering the emitter on the board and getting it to stay there while soldering the tabs under a magnifiying glass with shaking hands is a real tough task. Then there's the epoxying mess. Then after that, you have to trim of the excess epoxy and not damage the sandwich you just spent probably 2-3 hours on.
Forget it!!! Just pay a little extra for Wayne to do it right. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rant.gif
Brian

 

[darkzero]

[ QUOTE ]
dat2zip said:
if darkzero = ws, then we emailed you and will cancel your order so you can re-order.


[/ QUOTE ]

Thank you!

Wayne and Cindy are the best which is why their my favorite place to spend my hard earned cashola.

Appreciate it! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif

 

[pedalinbob]

i love those little drop-ins. everyone i know is incredible impressed with them.

gotta buy some more...

Bob

 

[utomatoe]

Yup. The time and investment in tools to build a sandwich is far greater than if you were to buy a few sandwiches at the shoppe, but not as much fun /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Also, these things are small! It takes lots of time and patience, or a very skilled and experienced pair of hands.

 

[sygyzy]

[ QUOTE ]
IlluminatingBikr said:
I guess my post was pretty shallow. I didn't realize how much more, than just parts, there is to the price of the sandwiches. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

Feel free to /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/whoopin.gif me.

[/ QUOTE ]

Biker, I am in SB too so if you want to see what a Bin T sandwhich can do in a Minimag, feel free to come check mine out /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif I just received and installed it today.

 

[Ms_SS]

IllBikr,

Your button is ready. Now you can get a tasty sandwich .

 

[IlluminatingBikr]

Yummy! My MM Lite WO Lux3-T's are gone! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thinking.gif What to do? Wayne, when might you get more of these?

 

[CNC Dan]

Wayne, is the fixture that you speak of used to hold the emmitter board and converter board while you epoxy them together? I saw the pics on your other post, and it looks like you want to hold the boards in the slots, and then add the epoxy to the area in between. Is that right?

 

[tvodrd]

Forgive me Wayne, Nope! you missed, Dan /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif . That one is for getting the board and emitter board soldered together on the headers and aligned accurately. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

And welcome Tanya!

Larry

 

[Rothrandir]

tanya!

another femail, i'm so happy! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Darell]

I just dropped by because I heard there was as woman on this thread. Is that true? Huh? Just need to keep Roth away from her, and nobody'll get hurt. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

OK, sorry. Sort of.

Back to business - the effort and expense involved in putting this stuff together can NOT be over-estimated. All the expensive protos and trial and error of finding the right board maker... all money flying out the door. Wayne ain't gettin' rich doing this!

 

[darkzero]

Tanya, big welcome to you!

Just wondering and if I may ask, you are affiliated with the Shoppe?

 

[IlluminatingBikr]

She talked to me. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Welcome Tanya. Try not to let the testosterone get to you. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/poke2.gif

 

[dat2zip]

CNC Dan,

Larry is correct. The fixture is to hold the boards parallel and the correct distance apart. Once held in place like that the connectors can be soldered making it permanent.

There a completely different fixture to hold the completed modules to fill with epoxy.

wayne

 

[gadget_lover]

I saw wayne's fixtures. He's quite inventive. It should make new sandiches much quicker to finish in a consistant way.

Labor intensive efforts like this have a lot of hidden costs. I'm sure Wayne's spent countless hours developing and fine tuning the basic sandwich design. I know that I spent at least 40 hours getting the design of the hi/low springs assemblies just right, and only sold 120 or so. That means each spring took 20 minutes plus the actual build time.

I think that it's great that Wayne sells the individual parts as well as selling the finsihed products. I like to build it myself, so I buy the parts but I've also bought some of his sandwiches simply because he does nice work.

Daniel