What makes Lemo connector cables SO EXPENSIVE?

[monster_of_electronics]

For example, only a 4 pin cable for $275:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/888711-REG/Chrosziel_c_al2_cofe00b_Aladin_MKII_Camera_Start_Stop.html

What makes them so expensive?  Is it just limited demand for professional products?

PS: I'm not here to rant, I'm here to learn.

[mazurov]

LEMO connector is expensive and not very popular (it is also very old). Power LEMOs with cables can be had from old Tektronix FET probes (P6201, P6202).

[uncle_bob]

Hi

If you go shopping for other hermetic / quasi mill spec / rugged / high density / quick disconnect / wide temperature range connectors ... their prices fit right in.

Lots of tooling, very small parts, tight tolerances, low volume .... that's all expensive.

Bob

[monster_of_electronics]

Hi

If you go shopping for other hermetic / quasi mill spec / rugged / high density / quick disconnect / wide temperature range connectors ... their prices fit right in.

Lots of tooling, very small parts, tight tolerances, low volume .... that's all expensive.

Bob

Could a strong plastic connector be made for a tiny fraction of the price of a machined metal connector in cases where the expected temperature range isn't very wide and reliability isn't quite as important? (especially on connectors with few pins)

[uncle_bob]

Hi

If you go shopping for other hermetic / quasi mill spec / rugged / high density / quick disconnect / wide temperature range connectors ... their prices fit right in.

Lots of tooling, very small parts, tight tolerances, low volume .... that's all expensive.

Bob

Could a strong plastic connector be made for a tiny fraction of the price of a machined metal connector in cases where the expected temperature range isn't very wide and reliability isn't quite as important? (especially on connectors with few pins)

Hi

If the volume on the plastic connector is very high (say a few million a month), you can get it's price down. In small volume, the cost of molds will make it even more expensive than the (already tooled) metal connector.

Bob

[Cerebus]

For example, only a 4 pin cable for $275:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/888711-REG/Chrosziel_c_al2_cofe00b_Aladin_MKII_Camera_Start_Stop.html

What makes them so expensive?  Is it just limited demand for professional products?

PS: I'm not here to rant, I'm here to learn.

The actual connectors, while not cheap, are not as expensive as that implies. Around £35 GBP for that pair from Farnell. What makes that cable so expensive, besides the usual distributor and retailer mark-ups,  is the target users. The cable is described as "for use with RED Epic/Scarlett" - which are professional digital cinema cameras. The RED Epic range *starts* at $30,000 US for a body with SSD mount without lens. If you need to ask the price of the lenses, you can't afford them. People buying (or hiring) these expect to get wallet-raped for everything.

[monster_of_electronics]

For example, only a 4 pin cable for $275:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/888711-REG/Chrosziel_c_al2_cofe00b_Aladin_MKII_Camera_Start_Stop.html

What makes them so expensive?  Is it just limited demand for professional products?

PS: I'm not here to rant, I'm here to learn.

The actual connectors, while not cheap, are not as expensive as that implies. Around £35 GBP for that pair from Farnell. What makes that cable so expensive, besides the usual distributor and retailer mark-ups,  is the target users. The cable is described as "for use with RED Epic/Scarlett" - which are professional digital cinema cameras. The RED Epic range *starts* at $30,000 US for a body with SSD mount without lens. If you need to ask the price of the lenses, you can't afford them. People buying (or hiring) these expect to get wallet-raped for everything.

True, but one can fully out fit a non-Epic model for under $10k that shares a lot of the same cables.  Still a little shocking how much these cost. 

[Kilrah]

100% a case of "sell it for what people are ready to pay for" rather that what it costs to make.

The Lemo connector RED uses for power is also not a standard catalog model but a custom part, which ensures few people can stock it and they can keep the price up, you can't easily save by making your own cables and if you want to work with your expensive bit of kit you just have to shell out, no choice.

Once you have one you can always repair them though, because  the Lemo connector is pretty much unbreakable so you can for sure reuse it if you rip the cable.

Envoyé de mon SM-G930F en utilisant Tapatalk

[mongo]

Adding to the above answers. Another explanation is why a C-47 is way more expensive than a clothespin.  Grip that is typically rental fleet gear has to meet the studio heads auditing equipment requests. Lighting departments have a hard time spending good money for something as simple and mundane as clothespins.

While this is not the only reason they are expensive a lot of Grip has the rental market accounting realities factored into the price, or at least they did historically.

[dmills]

Still do to a certain extent, but another way to look at this stuff, is that if you are using a Red on a job, you are probably on the sort of production where costs are running many thousands a day.
Lemo as opposed to something cheap (and the Lemo connectors are good) pays for itself very, very quickly the first time someone steps on one and it survives, hell probably avoiding loosing ONE take pays for that cable. 

Also, frankly in the broadcast market they are pretty much the go to connector for low voltage, so everyone is familiar (4 Pin XLR is the other option, but there are rather too many variant wiring schemes for that, maybe 4 pin highrose but that is mainly a field recordist thing).

Rather like that battery pack for the Nagra that everyone on youtube got bent out of shape about (But that nobody actually in the industry was surprised, or bothered by), this is just pricing the way this market expects (The custom variant is a little annoying however).

$35 or so for the connectors plus wire, times three or four to the factory gate, plus 100% for the distribution chain, $250 looks about right to me for a low volume accessory at list.

Also, don't forget that nobody in this game pays list price....

[Siwastaja]

If the volume on the plastic connector is very high (say a few million a month), you can get it's price down. In small volume, the cost of molds will make it even more expensive than the (already tooled) metal connector.

This is off by several orders of magnitude, and a common web forum myth about plastic parts.

Tooling for custom plastic parts is not that expensive at all. Sure, a few million a month might drop the price to a few cents, but starting costs actually are in the range of about 3000-10000 USD, and that would require a few hundreds produced a month, not a few million, to get the prices down to a few $.

When I have asked for quotations for custom plastic parts, sizes and complexity comparable to a typical connector, I have seen that point between using machined parts and custom extruded parts (including mold machining and other setup) is at about 1000 parts $5 each or about 5000 USD. After the first 1000 parts, the rest are very inexpensive. Producing 10000 molded plastic parts is everyday stuff and not expensive at all, and if you can stockpile and sell those over two years, that would work out 400 parts per month - again, not millions.

Others have pointed out the real reasons why these connectors are expensive. The main reason is the long supply chain on a very specialized market, including the fact that very few really pay the list price.

[Pjotr]

LEMO at Farnell is indeed expensive in small quantities. Have a look at Fischer, it is even more expensive. What makes them expensive is their use and reliability. It are precise machined parts using teflon/peek for isolation, heavy gold plated pins that can handle huge currents for their size, etc. Their market is where you need such high specs and cost is no issue: Medical, military and various professional.

If you look around, there are many plastic alternatives with comparable size for 1/10 of the prize. But of coarse also much lower specs.

[LaserSteve]

Lemos are tiny, as any one who has ever hand soldered them can attest. Thus you need good soldering staff to assemble them...That is expensive.  I'm sure if you solder a couple of dozen a day, it gets easy... I need a magnifier to do it...  Same for Hirose...

Look at it this way, for one miniature  8 pin Tyco  connector I needed to use for a project, the manual crimping tool alone was 1500$, to crimp a 1 mm by 1 mm by 4 mm pin. The die for the tool was another 250$.  We only needed about 1000 pins crimped a year.  I went into the shop and made a crude  tool, on a milling machine..

However to have a machine cut and strip the wire,  crimp the pins and insert them into a connector would have incurred a 1000$ setup charge and then been about 3.5  cents per wire, for ~5000 pieces. Compared to hand crimping that tiny pin, with a high loss rate, I'd spend the money if I had to do it again..

Steve

[Smith]

I regularely use LEMO connectors for work. Yes they are expensive, but do offer exceptionel quality. We use verry small ones, and giant 30KV ones.  Sometimes its cheaper to buy big expensive conectors, than cheap stuff you need to replace every once in a while.

I used the fisher ones too, but I like the LEMO's better. Their service is great too, they help wherever they can.

[Gribo]

Certain mil spec round connectors are not that expansive (50$ for the housing, 1$ for machined pin, 0.5$ for stamped pin at Digikey) and, some of them have even cheaper, non IP68/mil spec compatible alternatives.

[SeanB]

Try ordering the non standard circular bayonet connectors, where they have a non standard orientation of the guide slots, or a rotated pin and socket base, or a different pin size than what is standard in those sizes. All standard parts, but for this you pay.

Nice thing is that you can easily change the pins and sockets when worn, either using the proper metal tooling or the thin red and white tool that comes with each connector. Not nice is that you cannot do this to the versions designed for PC board direct insertion, or the wire wrap versions.

[dmills]

You want to see **REALLY** silly connector prices, look for things rated for underwater use at depth, particularly sub sea stuff, plastic and stiff rubber abounds, but still you can pay money to make Lemo seem bargain basement.

Regards, Dan.

[jimdeane]

I have a piece of equipment that has one important output using LEMO. I searched in vain for anything to adapt LEMO to BNC for a reasonable price. Finally a colleague had a couple of spare single-ended LEMO cables that I could use to adapt to a cheaper and perfectly usable connector.

[rx8pilot]

For example, only a 4 pin cable for $275:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/888711-REG/Chrosziel_c_al2_cofe00b_Aladin_MKII_Camera_Start_Stop.html

What makes them so expensive?  Is it just limited demand for professional products?

PS: I'm not here to rant, I'm here to learn.

I manufacture equipment for the film industry and have been using Lemo for decades - purchased TONS of them from the 2pin ($17/ea) to the hybrid fiber optic ($250/ea). They are expensive because they are high-quality in every regard. The design is targeted toward a solution rather than a price.


Very durable
high-performance - low contact resistance
excellent mating life-cycle
Look/feel great
high-density great for small places.

In an environment where performance and durability are a larger concern than cost - LEMO and Fischer win. The cost is more than most others and the performance is appropriately higher. In terms of cable assembly cost, they do (in general) cost more to terminate than other options. As the film industry has plunged into a race for the cheapest stuff in the world - we now see a LOT of total POS knock-off LEMO compatible connectors. THEY ARE ALL SHIT.  I have examined them all very closely and would never use them even if they were given to me for free. A fiddly connection on a real job will cost 1000x more than you 'saved' by trying the imitation brands.

The word 'EXPENSIVE' means that it costs more. If you compare the cheaper options with the actual costs of the compromises - you may find that the $30 LEMO is actually cheaper than the $5 alternative. That is why they are what they are.

[exmadscientist]

I manufacture equipment for the film industry and have been using Lemo for decades - purchased TONS of them...
In an environment where performance and durability are a larger concern than cost - LEMO and Fischer win.

As someone with experience with both LEMO and Fischer, do you have a preference between the two? We're currently evaluating "midrange" (i.e., not mil-spec) connectors and they are our top two options. Right now Fischer has the edge due to offering an intermateable disposable plastic option, which if it pans out could be a nice win for us. I'm still interested to hear opinions from people with more experience in this area than me, though.

Also, on the subject of total shit, Hirose RP13A connectors and everyone who has ever specified them for anything important can die in a fire. Utter garbage, and a hideous blemish on the entire company's reputation (at least in my opinion).

[rx8pilot]

For new designs, I have leaned heavily towards Lemo. This is primarily due to availability in my part of the world. The Fischers I use were chosen long ago and I am just maintaining compatibility.

Also, I have only used the metal shells and never tried the plastic lines.

Sent from my horrible mobile....

[rx8pilot]

Oh, and Hirose is entirely banned from my world. There is nothing that could ever convince me to use them. Horrible.

Sent from my horrible mobile....

[silicon_ghost]

I'm late to the party but I've had a fair amount of experience with good quality connectors for rugged test equipment.  Connectors like Lemo are worth it because they are so darn durable and reliable.  When you are testing prototypes worth $500,000 you don't want down-time due to crap connectors and wiring.

IMHO, ODU connectors are quite a bit better then Lemo (both are German companies IIRC and both make quality miniaturized connection solutions).  When we evaluated ODU vs. Lemo (I forgot the other brands we looked at but those 2 were at the top), I managed to easily bend pins during a mating cycle with the Lemo connector.  The grip on ODU is better with less slippage than Lemo; That kind of stuff matters when you are unplugging dozens of cables rapidly.  The ODU's were about 30% cheaper at the time and we had no issues with keying or reliability during our testing.

FYI, all of these connector companies suck balls at one thing: actually stocking the damn parts you need for your project.  If you aren't using one of a handful of "standard" connectors, their parts can create millions of variations in a single product line, you wait weeks or months for a special order.  Welcome to just-in-time construction that definitely isn't just-in-time for your project.

[edavid]

IMHO, ODU connectors are quite a bit better then Lemo (both are German companies IIRC and both make quality miniaturized connection solutions).

LEMO is Swiss (which answers the OP's question).

[rx8pilot]

You save me 200% ? Impressive for sure.

Even if you pay me, your counterfeit offering is still too expensive. One failure is worth more than you could possibly save me.

Short and misplld from my mobile......

[Cerebus]

You save me 200% ? Impressive for sure.

Even if you pay me, your counterfeit offering is still too expensive. One failure is worth more than you could possibly save me.

Short and misplld from my mobile......

For those to whom the above appears to make no sense: there was spam, it has since been deleted.