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robot-army / hotstick

An open-source hardware soldering station
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BOM Cost should not exceed £80 excluding tip #16

Closed robot-army closed 8 years ago

robot-army commented 8 years ago

The BOM cost plus the time to build it (at eg.£10/hour), must be cheaper than a WSM 1C, otherwise we might as well just buy one of them.

Approx £330.

http://uk.farnell.com/weller/wsm-1c-uk-eu/soldering-station-40w-230v-battery/dp/1729966

dhprice commented 8 years ago

Different users will likely have different cost sensitivities. Perhaps have three existing products in each usage category as the one to beat on performance and price.

robot-army commented 8 years ago

I think we should focus on making one model only.

We can reject certain requirements (eg. battery power) in order to satisfy the lower cost requirements. That's the only one that I could see us rejecting for cost sensitivity at the moment...(unless we want to do it some other way than by using Weller tips, which I wouldn't be stoked about to be honest, they're REALLY good)

On Wed, Oct 14, 2015 at 5:56 PM, dhprice notifications@github.com wrote:

Different users will likely have different cost sensitivities. Perhaps have three existing products in each usage category as the one to beat on performance and price.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/robot-army/hotstick/issues/16#issuecomment-148115421.

Remulos commented 8 years ago

When looking at components I think that we can save money by avoiding the top spec ones with high degrees of accuracy. Realistically, most applications won't need the iron to be heated to within 5 degrees of the set temperature, more likely to within 10 or 25. We should prioritise ruggedness rather than accuracy.

robot-army commented 8 years ago

Component choices are going to save us a small percentage rather than tens or hundreds of pounds overall.

The requirements will set most of the cost. Think battery, colour LCD, optical encoder for setpoint adjustment, IP/shock and vibration rating, CE compliance, flammability requirements for materials, that sort of thing is where the major design decisions will come from.

The idea behind writing this requirement was that if we can't meet this one, we might as well not do the project.

On Wed, Oct 14, 2015 at 9:54 PM, Remulos notifications@github.com wrote:

When looking at components I think that we can save money by avoiding the top spec ones with high degrees of accuracy. Realistically, most applications won't need the iron to be heated to within 5 degrees of the set temperature, more likely to within 10 or 25. We should prioritise ruggedness rather than accuracy.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/robot-army/hotstick/issues/16#issuecomment-148197178.

dhprice commented 8 years ago

But why would a hobbyist pay more than £100? If you design a modular architecture then you could satisfy the pro with a £300 unit and the hobbyist with a £100 unit while retaining a the majority of common features.

robot-army commented 8 years ago

I paid just about £100 for the first iron I bought as a hobbyist: http://uk.farnell.com/ersa/i-con-pico/soldering-station-80w-240v-eu/dp/2057377

It's very good, but if we build one with all the listed requirements so far for even £50 more, it would be by far better value.

On Thu, Oct 15, 2015 at 4:49 AM, dhprice notifications@github.com wrote:

But why would a hobbyist pay more than £100? If you design a modular architecture then you could satisfy the pro with a £300 unit and the hobbyist with a £100 unit while retaining a the majority of common features.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/robot-army/hotstick/issues/16#issuecomment-148273911.

dhprice commented 8 years ago

I quite like the look of the pico packaging..

My point is that £150 might be far better value to you but not to someone else so perhaps the approach should be for a design, a platform, that allows people to customise elements that address their prefered values.

robot-army commented 8 years ago

It's good. Key requirements here that it's missing are the quick-change tips and the sensible idle modes. The pico watches power output, and if it sees that you haven't made a joint for x minutes it goes to 250 deg. Then, it keeps sensing, if it dissipates at 250 that means its had the tip wiped in the scrubber or seen a light breeze and it quickly comes up to temp.

If it sits at 250 for xx minutes, it shuts down to 60 deg and needs a button pushed to come back on.

I think the adaptability will be provided for by the open-source nature of the design. To be honest, it would best capture my interest to design one product that meets all the requirements we accept, and in future adjust the requirements for other versions (rather than try to make a 'master of all trades' first).

To be clear, we don't need to accept all the requirements here! They're just ideas at this stage and have cost nothing but time so far. On 15 Oct 2015 8:14 am, "dhprice" notifications@github.com wrote:

I quite like the look of the pico packaging..

My point is that £150 might be far better value to you but not to someone else so perhaps the approach should be for a design, a platform, that allows people to customise elements that address their prefered values.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/robot-army/hotstick/issues/16#issuecomment-148301747.

dhprice commented 8 years ago

Accepted