I'm sure that may be a valid business plan for some people. I have no desire to go that route. It is hard to keep a stable business going when you are at the mercy of a supplier on the other side of the world and you are a small customer in a big world.
I did buy several different class D amp boards from China in power levels from "50 watts" to "2 X 250 W". The price was too low to believe, so I didn't expect much. I was surprised. The "2 X 50W + 100W sub" contains 2 TI TPA3116 chips, an op amp LPF for the sub all on a shiny red PCB for $25. The bigger surprise, it works, sounds decent, and makes the rated power claims.
I got the Chinese stuff because it is far cheaper than buying the TI EVB's and I need to test these chips out for portable guitar/PA/DJ/ karaoke amps. If I decide to use these chips in a project, I will make my own boards. The Chinese stuff may be good enough, but the supply chain is far too unstable.
I did that a lot in my younger years. There used to be a lot of tech companies in south Florida. I grabbed up whatever I could at the bankruptcy auctions. Some stuff I just resold, other times I made something from what I got and made even more money.
I designed a very high end TV satellite receiver for a friends company. That company failed, owing me money. I got the entire parts inventory, but I did not own the design, so I created a new low cost receiver that I sold in kit form. That was DMA engineering's last product. It went away when the parts ran out, and I could not buy one of the IC chips at ANY price.....remember my statement about the supply chain. It has got me, and some friends, more than once.
This is a big concern when you are dealing with new tech. The average product lifespan of some IC's is now about three years, or less if it is used in a cell phone or TV. If it takes you a year to get a product to market, you may have only a year or two before one of your IC's goes out of production. This is a big issue with microprocessors, FPGA's and CPLD's where you may have to rewrite much of your code for the new chip.
When The PC industry was in the 286 stage, mid 80's maybe, myself and a few friends would go into all the places that built "PC clones" and ask to talk to their tech guy. If he was stupid (the likely case) we would ask to buy their "defectives" for cheap (5 to 10 cents on the dollar). Most of it was good.
We walked into a store that had failed (unbeknownst to us) and offered the same deal.....the owner replied, give me $5K for EVERYTHING. He meant it. It was Thursday, he needed the entire warehouse EMPTY by Sunday. Ever tried to drive a Dodge Omni with a 10 foot workbench tied on the roof? We even had to take the garbage cans!
We sorted the good from the bad, assembled a few XT's and hit the local hamfest 2 weeks later. Got our $5K back in about 2 hours. We made maybe $20K on that deal.....those days are gone now. There are too many bottom feeders at those auctions with more money than brains bidding things up to near retail.
I have been able to outfit a nice lab with test equipment purchased at distress auctions. Much of it came from the Motorola plant where I worked for 41 years. They used to have 5 plants in south Florida, two were full manufacturing sites with zillions of dollars worth of HP, TEK, R&S, and other fancy test equipment. Only one plant is left, and it is on it's way to becoming a shopping mall. As manufacturing left the country the test equipment was surplussed. My HP8903A cost me $75. A TeK 2232 scope, $100........
I know the names, and I think we lost a few employees to L3 (west coast of Florida maybe), but I don't know anyone who worked for either one, nor have been by their facilities.
All the way back to high school (67 to 70), a friend and I used to dumpster dive the electronics plants around Miami. We would shop the cans at Coulter Diagnostics, Racal Milgo, Westinghouse and others for stuff we could part out, and Pearce Simpson (CB radios) Julliette (cheap Japanese radios and stereos) Simpson (Marine Electronics) and a few others for damaged electronics that we could fix and resell. I used to sell salvaged CB's and Julliette electronics at high school and community college. Both of those plants were importers and damaged goods went straight into the dumpster. They both shut down in the late 70's.
A few years after high school I got a job at Motorola where I worked until last year. My friend remained in the surplus business and now operates out of Longwood. I used to go with him to auctions at the cape, several military bases, and a few large DOD contractors. I don't remember ever seeing L3 or Northrup plants but many DOD contractors crush their scrap rather than selling it. A few others that I won't name in the Orlando/Tampa still have unguarded dumpsters with good $tuff in them.
Lugging around heavy amplifiers wont do your back any good !
I too have thought about getting into amplifier repairs but getting hold of every manual could be a problem.
Having to reverse engineer any amplifier I work on sounds like a pain.
I get on fine with my own designs in regards to repairs as I know it inside out and have schematics and pcb layouts to go with them.
I too have thought about getting into amplifier repairs but getting hold of every manual could be a problem.
Having to reverse engineer any amplifier I work on sounds like a pain.
I get on fine with my own designs in regards to repairs as I know it inside out and have schematics and pcb layouts to go with them.
We cant compete with far eastern mass production. Probably the only way left is high quality hand built with stated production figures of a few hundred units so the customer feels they have something fairly unique and worth paying a premium for.
Ferrari recently announced they were reducing production to help maintain product value & status, it might even work, the rich are always out there looking for something that we minions cant ever own.
Ferrari recently announced they were reducing production to help maintain product value & status, it might even work, the rich are always out there looking for something that we minions cant ever own.
Sex sells so make it appear sexy and watch the cash roll in.
I recon speakers shaped like well known porn queens would make a fortune. A pair of nice long stands each and maybe even a 'novelty' shaped port. That should get some attention
There you have it, an even better business plan than my self lowering toilet seat idea. 5% commission will do, I'm not a greedy man
I recon speakers shaped like well known porn queens would make a fortune. A pair of nice long stands each and maybe even a 'novelty' shaped port. That should get some attention
There you have it, an even better business plan than my self lowering toilet seat idea. 5% commission will do, I'm not a greedy man
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