Shipping: $1.65 to the USA via USPS first class mailYou really have to spring for tracking, or you'll spend all your time dealing with lost/delayed packages. So that makes the minimum US shipping $2.77.QuoteThe housing is the most expensive up-front cost.Can't you fit it into a standard Chinese plastic box?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/5pcs-Junction-Box-Waterproof-Project-New-Case-Black-Electric-Plastic-55x35x15mm-/142079759201QuoteThe reason international shipping is so high is that once an item meets "package" status from USPS, it gets bump WAY up from the "flat" rate to the package rate. I think its a jump from a couple dollars to more like $14. But, if I sell it as a diy KIT with a flat PCB and thin bag of parts, and no housing, it would almost certainly fit into the flat category and cut the cost way down.The envelope has to fit through a 1/4" slot, which is challenging. Also, you don't get tracking.
Since we are doing differential measurements and not absolute ones, having a dual or tri colored led is just a gimmick.
All you need is a visual indication that what the devices sees is significantly different from its surroundings.
You can do that with a single led that lights with the frequncy when the change is above a threshold. And a small pot can be used to let the user adjust it for more or less sensitivity.
That, on top of the normal sound operation of course.
I agree the sonic feedback is very nice as it is
Sent from my HUAWEI NXT-L29 using Tapatalk
You do get tracking with USPS first class mail, both domestically and internationally.
The keychain sized housing will not be available. That was something I could only do in the previous kickstarter with the very high funding goal, because it needed some extra engineering to reduce the current consumption way down in order to use button cell batteries.
But, I think that you guys are okay with using a somewhat bigger design, right? It still works great and having it be as tiny as possible is really not that important for functionality. This current REV6 design is an inch shorter than a typical permanent marker and only about as wide as a quarter. Still very small. And the much longer battery life is a great thing to have.
BIG NEWS
-Three sensitivity levels, selectable by a slide switch
I can see that a lot of effort went into designing this and I respect that.
But to me one thing is missing for this to be useful... a tiny lcd to display actual temperature.
Or a speech module to read out the max temperature.
Or a phone app that converts the tone into a temperature! Just encode the starting temperature as a higher frequency signal.
The size with the housing should end up being around "highlighter size"..you know the thick highlighter markers we have here in the US. Still pocket friendly.
The last thing I'm going to do is forget about kickstarter. Right now there are about 60 people on there pledged at $43 each. If I can drop the manufacturing cost I can get them a working device without meeting the very high KS goal and they would be thrilled, and I'd still be able to pay for my time and production costs. Many of them have pledged for uses totally unrelated to electronics troubleshooting and a poll I made shows that a majority of them think they could get at least 1 other person to buy one at $43 if they had a working example to show them.
Again, not everyone in the world has a $600 smartphone they can attach a $150 thermal camera adapter to. Alot of people could use something that scans thermally but is very inexpensive. Right now there isnt an alternative I am aware of anywhere near this price, and thats before I lower it.
Consider this: making your own website would cost you maybe $10/month for domain+hosting* plus $9/month for a cheap Shopify or similar service to take credit cards. You can have images, videos, whatever you like, and you don't get the weird reputation projects managed through Kickstarter have.
Kickstarter charges 8% plus 20 cents per pledge. That's $3.12 per device - in the quantities you're looking at, that could be the difference between being in the red and breaking even. If you're selling 60 devices, that's $180 you don't get - ten times as much as you'd be paying for your own shop.
Edit: here's a site which I've seen have pretty good success: https://shop.exploitee.rs/
* I run a site which cost $0.88/year for the domain and $0.03/month for hosting.
Personally i have very mixed feelings in regard to Kickstarter and the bunch of other platforms out there.
We did a successful raise of 110.000€ for a product on Indiegogo. This helped to bring an idea into life and built the foundation of a now healthy little company.
At least for electronic products in a niche market, you need to do a lot of "pre-heating" before the campaign starts, get prototypes into the right hands (bloggers, magazines,...) and during the campaign you need to push your product to every place and portal you can think of - it is a lot of work.
If on the other hand, you "just" setup a campaign page this will most likely not give you the exposure you need. I would bet, going along with what you already started here, talking to us about where the project is going and later on presenting the final solution you came up with, would result in a lot more than 80 orders.
You could also go for a solid pre-order approach here.
I think, that this scanner of yours is a viable, helpful tool. I also like the look of your initial black housing with the white lettering. I can see myself purchasing a bunch of these for myself and to give it to good friends that are also active in the world of wild pixies and the circuit circus*.
However, I am a little biased against the give/take ratio Kickstarter offers.
Kind regards,
Frederik
*sorry for the AvEism here
Congrats on a huge success with KS, I'm surprised you still have mixed feelings! By give/take ratio you mean the amount of work you had to do to pre-market the product, or literally the % KS takes?
DirtyPCBs will get you 10-12 2"x2" boards for $10. Just for reference
Nice to see the progress
I wrote you a pm regarding the encasement design - don’t know if you’ve seen it.
Also I was thinking: To get back on the request for a version for the hearing impaired. Maybe an adapted version with a small vibration motor could be easily done. Miniature vibrtion motors are available in a lot of different variations and there are some that can run of 0.3V to 3V and a couple of mA. Battery life will most likely be less than with the speaker however.