gedlee said:
Certainly not reality.
See what they can currently do, and the prices. Curved ready made cabinets with instant volume world shipping. Having electronic crossover parts on assembled pcb's they can even offer ''audiophile'' component grade options, kit subwoofers, plate amps, subwoofer cabinets, imagine a complete HT kit system approved by you with set up guide, etc. What, they will not negotiate with B&C? They carry them already.
They could be US made at that price for an empty cabinet. Its not hard to do.
But there are things about doing business in the US that may be different than where you live. There is no business model for what I am doing with a company like Parts Express. They have far too much overhead and markup. The speakers would end up being twice as expensive and then there is no market for them. The US is volume, volume, volume and to do that you have to be commodity priced which is why there isn't any real high end stuff at Parts Express.
When I published my book no one would handle it because their markups were too high. Amazon marks up 60%, the lowest is 40%. You just can't sell to those outlets unless you can accept a 15-20% margin and unless the volume is enormous thats not a viable business for me.
The whole field is a catch-22 fixated on the median quality and price. Any consumer who wants to break out into the hi-end of quality is looking at huge price increase as a result of this situation. I am trying to break that mold by what I am doing. You can agree or diagree, accept it or not, but you won't find a speaker like I am selling at the price that I am selling at anywhere. Its just won't happen.
But there are things about doing business in the US that may be different than where you live. There is no business model for what I am doing with a company like Parts Express. They have far too much overhead and markup. The speakers would end up being twice as expensive and then there is no market for them. The US is volume, volume, volume and to do that you have to be commodity priced which is why there isn't any real high end stuff at Parts Express.
When I published my book no one would handle it because their markups were too high. Amazon marks up 60%, the lowest is 40%. You just can't sell to those outlets unless you can accept a 15-20% margin and unless the volume is enormous thats not a viable business for me.
The whole field is a catch-22 fixated on the median quality and price. Any consumer who wants to break out into the hi-end of quality is looking at huge price increase as a result of this situation. I am trying to break that mold by what I am doing. You can agree or diagree, accept it or not, but you won't find a speaker like I am selling at the price that I am selling at anywhere. Its just won't happen.
Why exactly $100?
$40 Crossover (Madisound)
$120 B&C DE250-8 (http://www.prosoundservice.com/m9_view_item.html?m9:item=B&C-DE250)
$140 B&C 10PS26-8 (http://www.prosoundservice.com/m9_view_item.html?m9:item=B&C-10PS26)
= $300 (one speaker)
But why are you constantly arguing about the price? Nobody complained. From my perspective the kit is a good value. But you didn't cut as precise as your tools allow you to. And obviously you made a mistake when cutting the parts for my kit. What's so hard in admitting that?
Best, Markus
I did admit that from your discription there may have been a problem in your parts that wasn't in mine.
What you were posting as a problem with the top panel was NOT a problem IMO. Thats is the way it is intended to fit. It has to be sanded smooth AFTER assembly. Thats the way I do it and the only way that I can see it being cost effective to do in a kit. If you look at the attached drawing you will see that the radius prevents a "good fit" unless the side panel is radius'd too,which is impractical, and unnecessary because the excess is easily sanded off.
Had the top piece been 1" then this would not happen, but 1" MDF is not readily accesable to me.
The baffle, foam plug and mounting plate makes up the other $200. Thats where the engineering, the Intellectual Property and where the vast majority of the labor are.
What you were posting as a problem with the top panel was NOT a problem IMO. Thats is the way it is intended to fit. It has to be sanded smooth AFTER assembly. Thats the way I do it and the only way that I can see it being cost effective to do in a kit. If you look at the attached drawing you will see that the radius prevents a "good fit" unless the side panel is radius'd too,which is impractical, and unnecessary because the excess is easily sanded off.
Had the top piece been 1" then this would not happen, but 1" MDF is not readily accesable to me.
The baffle, foam plug and mounting plate makes up the other $200. Thats where the engineering, the Intellectual Property and where the vast majority of the labor are.
Earl,
obviously we talk past each other. Towards the front the situation looks like this:
I'll post a picture tomorrow.
Best, Markus
obviously we talk past each other. Towards the front the situation looks like this:
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
I'll post a picture tomorrow.
Best, Markus
Then you should push up the side panel to mate with the top (as I suggested before) and take up this error at the bottom, not at the top. I am surprised that there is this much error in that dimension. That I have not seen before.
See my drawing;
Are you saying that the bottom would look like this if you made the top fit correctly? I need to figure out what dimension is wrong and check that on future parts.
See my drawing;
Are you saying that the bottom would look like this if you made the top fit correctly? I need to figure out what dimension is wrong and check that on future parts.
Markus,
To have that 1 inch radius put into the 3/4 stock and have it cut into both pieces would require either the box assembled while cutting or the pieces seperately CNC machined with a special custom made cutter. Since the radius on the side baffle is not a common arc or cutter size. Having this done CNC would be nice but the start up cost for this would be 15,000-20,000 bucks and would only become cost effective if many kits were sold. Also, the special custom made cutter would become dull over a short time and would require new tooling to be made periodically which would be too expensive. The alternative of having the mill use a standard cutter to interpolate the arc is the best solution but then increases the engineering start up costs and increases the time to cut each piece. And requires an expensive five axis mill or table router which would drive the cost of CNC machining up too high for small production runs.
This is probably not realistic. And since the boards are cut by hand the tolerances are not high enough to do it in advance and the radius would not be aligned properly. However, since the boards are cut by hand you can expect that there will be a few parts which are kind of way off. It looks like you have got a side wall that was cut too far off the correct size. The simplest solution is to re-cut another board the correct size or to take up the gap at the back of the cabinet were it will not show as much or to ask them to send you another side wall that is closer to nominal size.
To have that 1 inch radius put into the 3/4 stock and have it cut into both pieces would require either the box assembled while cutting or the pieces seperately CNC machined with a special custom made cutter. Since the radius on the side baffle is not a common arc or cutter size. Having this done CNC would be nice but the start up cost for this would be 15,000-20,000 bucks and would only become cost effective if many kits were sold. Also, the special custom made cutter would become dull over a short time and would require new tooling to be made periodically which would be too expensive. The alternative of having the mill use a standard cutter to interpolate the arc is the best solution but then increases the engineering start up costs and increases the time to cut each piece. And requires an expensive five axis mill or table router which would drive the cost of CNC machining up too high for small production runs.
This is probably not realistic. And since the boards are cut by hand the tolerances are not high enough to do it in advance and the radius would not be aligned properly. However, since the boards are cut by hand you can expect that there will be a few parts which are kind of way off. It looks like you have got a side wall that was cut too far off the correct size. The simplest solution is to re-cut another board the correct size or to take up the gap at the back of the cabinet were it will not show as much or to ask them to send you another side wall that is closer to nominal size.
I see you understand the problem completely. There is no simple solution - I've thought a lot about this. If what Markus is showing is correct then something else went wrong, but the top is never going to mate at the corners perfectly in any reasonable cost kit. And someone trying to do this themselves will only run into the same problems. To me, the best solution is to ship the parts just as they are and then the customer simply sands this piece to fit. Thats what I do and it works fine. I wouldn't do it by hand however, but thats the customers choice.
I don't think that there is any problem front to back. What Markus is showing would have the problem at the bottom.
It looks like he glued the parts together already or I could cut new sides, if thats where the problem is. Because I suspect that its the inner baffle board that is a bit too long. I have seen this before. But then you just sand that down a bit.
I don't think that there is any problem front to back. What Markus is showing would have the problem at the bottom.
It looks like he glued the parts together already or I could cut new sides, if thats where the problem is. Because I suspect that its the inner baffle board that is a bit too long. I have seen this before. But then you just sand that down a bit.
The discussion goes around in circles. The error in your woodwork doesn't go away from pushing the parts from one side to the other. Furthermore, to acknowledge that you haven't seen this before suggests that you didn't check the panels before shipping them. You really should do yourself a favor and stop blaming me or a third person ("I am surprised that there is this much error" - YOU did the cutting and glueing!). I'm just asking you to take your responsibility as a vendor. How would you react if coils from Madisound ship with wrong values: "Hey, just wind them up 'til they have the right values - What you don't have a multimeter?"
Markus
Markus
Dr. Geddes, we need you as our physicist.
...and you have the Greater Detroit Metropolitan area to source from...
The vast majority here want this effort to succeed. There are also many ways to make the casework better. One key would be to place it into the hands of someone who has demonstrated they know how to do it. Along with this would be anticipating how to make 100 of them in a batch...or more.
Do the plans for casework indicate or encourage the installation of additional bracing? A 3/4" baffle will raise some eyebrows.
...and you have the Greater Detroit Metropolitan area to source from...
The vast majority here want this effort to succeed. There are also many ways to make the casework better. One key would be to place it into the hands of someone who has demonstrated they know how to do it. Along with this would be anticipating how to make 100 of them in a batch...or more.
Do the plans for casework indicate or encourage the installation of additional bracing? A 3/4" baffle will raise some eyebrows.
Hezz said:
This is complete crap. Maybe if you are billing $1000 an hour to do basic autocad. You forget that you are mostly cutting straight lines. You can buy a CNC machine for 3K-5K, and DIY for less than 2K
go here.
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/index.php
the diy cnc machine forum.
agent.5 said:
I'm afraid your lack of experience leads you to miscalculate what is required in terms of machine type needed. These small machines do not have the capacity to do production milling. Sure you could set one up to do some small projects. You can't do the straight line milling for all operations unless you use a custom tool. Which is another expense both for design and engineering. To be effective you have to be able to have all of the parts laid out on a vacuum table and the program set up so it can cut out a whole 4 x 8 sheet out at once. The router or milling head needs to be able to tool change at least two or three tools automatically. Or the process needs to be attended by an operator to do it manually. These kinds of CNC router tables are not 3-5k but more like 10-30k or more.
The small CNC machines do not usually have enough bed clearance for these kinds of parts. Even a standard EZtrack CNC mill would not have quite enough movement to do these panels. THese panels would probably be just a few inches too big for that machine which starts at around 8-10k for CNC. As for small CNC table routers I'm sure that there are some hobby type or DIY ones that would work for the individual panels if they were cut to approximate size first. But then you are adding the CNC on top of the manual work.
You might be able to find some guy who is a hobbiest has the right machine that will do the work for you cheap in terms of programming and set up. Or a custom cabinet maker who has a CNC router table that is low on work might be able to do it for a lot less than a larger outfit would. But to make it cost effective you still have to do a certain amount of volume or pay them enough to make it worth their while. If you have access to a shop full of big machine tools that aren't used for production purposes sure you could do it cheap. But this is an unlikely scenerio for most people.
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