Why are sleeved-balum WiFi antennas more expensive than PCB trace (on Digikey)?

[ghawkins]

I wanted to say "way more expensive" in the subject line but there's a limit on subject-line length.

I was looking, on Digikey, for a basic sleeved-balun style antenna with a U.FL connector, like this:



However, I was surprised to find that while I can find patch and PCB trace antennas for almost nothing, sleeved-balun style antennas start at around $10.

A length of wire with a short copper tube over part of it seems equivalently complex to a piece of wire soldered to a patch. Yet one seems to cost at least three times more than the other.

Is there an obvious reason for this?

I'm just looking at active normally stocking products on Digikey (i.e. avoiding last-time-buy end-of-life products).

PCB trace antennas start at around US$1.20, e.g. this MAF94264 from Laird.

Molex have something similar - product number 2069940100 - for US$2.10.

The cheapest whip-style, I could find, was the W1049B030 from Pulse at US$3.20 (and I don't even want a plastic cover for my antenna).

And the cheapest sleeved-balun style antenna was three times more expensive than that - the Taoglas CBD01.07.0100C at US$11.80.

Why are these sleeved-balun style antennas so much more expensive?

I know it's stupid to compare prices with Chinese products but FrSKY (not an anonymous no-brand Chinese company) sell sleeved-balun style replacement antennas for their 2.4GHz radios for less than US$2 (e.g. here).

Sorry if this is just a case of "it's a mystery of modern manufacturing" or "PCB trace antennas are more popular and there's more competition in that space".

[A.Z.]

well, you may build one yourself, just start here

https://nomonsuhendar.blogspot.com/2020/12/flower-pot-antenna-calculator.html

and replace the coiled coax choke with a W2DU choke/balun, not so difficult

[ghawkins]

Thanks for the reply A.Z. I could make one myself or buy them super cheap on AliExpress.

But I was looking on Digikey as I was interested in doing a small production run and wanted a standard product that's readily available (and will probably continue to be available should I want to repeat the run in the future).

Sorry for not explaining why I was looking at Digikey. I'm genuinely kind of interested in what kind of factors might make sleeved-balun antennas more expensive than PCB trace ones as this seems surprising to me.

As Digikey have zillions of any given product type, I tend to view the minimum price I see there as indicative of things in general.

[MarkT]

Manufacturing cost is usually dominated by the amount of steps involving a human.  PCB manufacture is fully automated, whereas I suspect the coliinear is assembled by hand as well as using more material and requiring better packaging to avoid damage?