focus group question for new products
 

focus group question for new products
 

Haven't done any yet.

I mean, right now I am still exploring ideas of what I can do with a
combined milling/electronics/embedded capability as a one person mail
order business.

I think there's plenty, so long as I do sufficient market research
while asking stupid questions on homebrew or metalworking.

I am learning that it wouldn't make sense to forge my own ingots. I
have thought of
a custom chassis system made of interlocking standard parts milled out
of reliable ingots made by someone else. I can elaborate privately.

Ironically, I have a potentially infinite source of cheap AL
sheetmetal, that wrecker I mentioned that people mentioned wasn't worth
donkey dung for making ingots of. I could explore things there. But I
really want to keep the few remaining $ that I have in reserve for elex
parts and software tools.

The Eternal Squire

focus group question for new products
 

Tim,

Would the following cover most of my entry level needs for sheet metal
fab, for getting sheet metal in small enough shapes for my taig? I'll
'punch' holes by using the mill.

The Eternal Squire
----------------------

18'' SHEET METAL FABRICATION TOOL KIT CUTTER ROLLER

Description

Cut, form, roll beads, and make perfect flanges with one bench top
tool. Saves money and shop space. Comes with 1/4'', 3/8'', and 1/2''
bead mandrels; 1/16'', 1/8'', and 1/4'' flange mandrels; and one
18-1/4'' shearing mandrel.

Perfect for auto body workers: make your own wheel tubs, battery trays,
dashboards, fire walls, floor pans, and other sheet metal parts and
accessories. (Vise sold separately.)

Sheet metal capacity: 18 gauge

Throat depth: 18-1/4"

Andrew

Tim Shoppa wrote:
wrote:
Tim,

After studying this, I have a question:

It seems to me that I should basically have a standard design with
options. I could then post the drawings as a webpage for people to
look at and specify those options. It will be a while before I can
consider making one-of-a-kinds for people, but standard specs and
stackable configurations I could do on a JIT basis.

Would that be acceptable for now until I could afford greater
sophistication?

I actually found your aluminum scrap thread on rec.crafts.metalworking,
and I think it's pretty much hopeless to mill "standard" boxes out of
aluminum ingots and make money.

I mean, frontpanelexpress has the advantage that they start with a
sheet of the final thickness. Even a front panel with a lot of holes is
still 50% of the original material - enough of a difference to matter
for large scale production but truly negligible for small-volume stuff.
OTOH you will be milling away 99% of the original block and you truly
have to be creating unique value to make this worthwhile. At that point
the energy cost of melting down all the scraps to start over again are
probably more than the inflated retail cost of a die-cast or extruded
box.

I think you've got to concentrate on quick-turnaround custom stuff.
Just my opinion. And think about doing more than just boxes (although
boxes with holes is probably a not-too-hard-place to start from.)

Or think about a way to do custom sheet-metal operations (shearing,
bending, curving, punching, etc.) in a semi-custom way, taking orders
over the web. I know that locally, most of the "sheet metal" shops
really do almost nothing but HVAC ducts. I know that you already got
your milling machine and don't want to sink money into sheet-metal
stuff, but I think there would be a real market for custom sheet metal
stuff in the same style as frontpanelexpress and expresspcb. You'd
definitely have to sink several thousand dollars in tools and
(particularly) punches/dies but at least to me this would be far more
satisfying than spending hours milling boxes out of ingots. (How many
have you done? Gotta be dull. Of course if you're doing this on ingots
that you melted scrap into, you'd hit the occasional hard chunk and
void just to liven things up!)

Tim.

focus group question for new products
 

focus group question for new products
 

If you think you can cut arbitrary shaped holes in large sheet metal
boxes with a milling machine, you have skills I do not have.

Not planning on large sheets anyway. But thanks for your comments,
they're helping me abandon overly expensive possibilities.

I'm thinking my best niche would be to custom mill boxes up to 2X2X1
with walls at least 1/4 inch thick, with top panel either 1/4 or 1/8
plate up to 2X2. That's plenty for QRP, subsystems, microcontroller
boxes, and some scientific apps.

The Eternal Squire

focus group question for new products
 

wrote:
If you think you can cut arbitrary shaped holes in large sheet metal
boxes with a milling machine, you have skills I do not have.

Not planning on large sheets anyway. But thanks for your comments,
they're helping me abandon overly expensive possibilities.

If you think it's do-able, don't stop just because I said that I tried
it and it didn't work for me :-).

Working sheet metal in a mill or a drill press has caused some, um,
near-disasters in many amateur shops. Poor clamping resulting in
spinning sheets with sharp edges are the most common but I've
personally put one dent in a cement wall with some thick sheet in a
belt sander :-).

I'm thinking my best niche would be to custom mill boxes up to 2X2X1
with walls at least 1/4 inch thick, with top panel either 1/4 or 1/8
plate up to 2X2. That's plenty for QRP, subsystems, microcontroller
boxes, and some scientific apps.

For sizes that small I think you ought to price out some common
aluminum extrusions.

2"x2"x1" is really tiny for any experimenting. Not so bad for a small
already-known-quantity project with a tiny tiny circuit board. But too
small for most homebrew projects and it just barely accomodates a
connector or switch or two on each side. And at that size you're
smaller than most existing die-cast and miniboxes. Heck, you're smaller
than an altoids box :-).

Or maybe you mean 2feet x 2feet x 1 feet? Even then you might want to
see what standard size extrusions are around. Quarter inch walls will
make a box that large be pretty heavy (not as heavy as the solid
aluminum block that big though! By my calculation that'll be 700 pounds
of aluminum as a solid block...)

Take a look at some of your competition:


http://www.globalspec.com/FeaturedPr...ildABox/9443/0

I think you could one-up them by making a web tool for
design/spec/order submittal. Having a selection of common extrusions to
start with and then specifying the customizations (mostly holes!, maybe
something about end panels, heck in my wish list I'd put painting and
anodizing and lettering), punch in my credit card number, hit "order
now", and a couple days later the UPS guy brings a finished box. Seems
feasible and a step beyond "fax us your diagram and we'll send you a
quote". expresspcb.com and frontpanelexpress.com show that there is a
real market for this sort of stuff, both "professional" and "amateur"
customers buy from each.

The goal is not to be cheaper than the mass-producers are, but to offer
true value in customization and ease of specifying/ordering.

Tim.

focus group question for new products
 

To elaborate a little bit about my typical needs and wants:

NEEDS:

3" x 4" x 5" box. Not too picky if it's die-cast or sheet metal or
milled out of ingot. Front cover needs a rectangular hole about 2" x
3/4" to let a LCD show through. A couple of square buttons stick
through the front panel. A couple of toggle switches stick through the
front panel. A PCB is attached behind the front panel (where all these
LCD's and switches are mounted).

Internally maybe a transformer. Two D-sub connectors on the sides, so I
need nice D-sub holes.

Back panel has several BNC's and other stuff mounted in D-shape holes.
Also a IEC line input connector (rectangular hole).

I'd happily pay $50 and maybe $100 for something like this fabbed in
single quantities. I might make 2 or 3 orders a year. I'd expect a web
or PC-based tool (for free) to help me specify the order, and a web
order form that'd let me submit an order at 3AM on Saturday night when
the kids are asleep and I have an hour to spec what I want. I'd expect
delivery in a week or so. I'd expect the resulting box to be flawless
and everything within tolerance and all the holes to be "clean".

WANTS:

Painted (powder-coated?) or anodized cabinet and/or panels.

Lettering on front/back/sides.

Internal threaded bosses or maybe slots for mounting PCB's and stuff.

These could add another $30-$100 to what I'd pay.

My standards about what I'd be willing to pay have little to do with
retail prices of existing boxes or what I could hack out with a file
and a nibbler but more to do with what typical prototyping services
(expresspcb, frontpanelexpress) charge per job and a perceived value in
a really finished custom box.
(And a little bit in the cost of specialty punches. I actually have a
couple of D-subs and D cutters that I've picked up over the years.)

Some people will tell you that what I'm willing to pay is too high by a
factor of ten. These are not your potential customers (and I don't
think you'd ever make money by selling to them. No disrespect, I
understand those who don't want to pay any money to have other people
do work for them.) At the same time what I'm saying that I'm willing to
pay is a fraction (maybe 1/4 or 1/8th) what a local machine shop would
charge for a one-off job. I'm not paying because I'm incapable of doing
a shoddy job at putting all these holes in an off-the-shelf box, I'm
paying because I want a really professionally customized box with nice
holes made using punches I don't already own :-).

Tim.

focus group question for new products
 

Tim,

Thank you for making your wants and need crystal clear. You've
been a great help!

The Eternal Squire

Tim Shoppa wrote:
To elaborate a little bit about my typical needs and wants:

NEEDS:

3" x 4" x 5" box. Not too picky if it's die-cast or sheet metal or
milled out of ingot. Front cover needs a rectangular hole about 2" x
3/4" to let a LCD show through. A couple of square buttons stick
through the front panel. A couple of toggle switches stick through the
front panel. A PCB is attached behind the front panel (where all these
LCD's and switches are mounted).

Internally maybe a transformer. Two D-sub connectors on the sides, so I
need nice D-sub holes.

Back panel has several BNC's and other stuff mounted in D-shape holes.
Also a IEC line input connector (rectangular hole).

I'd happily pay $50 and maybe $100 for something like this fabbed in
single quantities. I might make 2 or 3 orders a year. I'd expect a web
or PC-based tool (for free) to help me specify the order, and a web
order form that'd let me submit an order at 3AM on Saturday night when
the kids are asleep and I have an hour to spec what I want. I'd expect
delivery in a week or so. I'd expect the resulting box to be flawless
and everything within tolerance and all the holes to be "clean".

WANTS:

Painted (powder-coated?) or anodized cabinet and/or panels.

Lettering on front/back/sides.

Internal threaded bosses or maybe slots for mounting PCB's and stuff.

These could add another $30-$100 to what I'd pay.

My standards about what I'd be willing to pay have little to do with
retail prices of existing boxes or what I could hack out with a file
and a nibbler but more to do with what typical prototyping services
(expresspcb, frontpanelexpress) charge per job and a perceived value in
a really finished custom box.
(And a little bit in the cost of specialty punches. I actually have a
couple of D-subs and D cutters that I've picked up over the years.)

Some people will tell you that what I'm willing to pay is too high by a
factor of ten. These are not your potential customers (and I don't
think you'd ever make money by selling to them. No disrespect, I
understand those who don't want to pay any money to have other people
do work for them.) At the same time what I'm saying that I'm willing to
pay is a fraction (maybe 1/4 or 1/8th) what a local machine shop would
charge for a one-off job. I'm not paying because I'm incapable of doing
a shoddy job at putting all these holes in an off-the-shelf box, I'm
paying because I want a really professionally customized box with nice
holes made using punches I don't already own :-).

Tim.

focus group question for new products
 

On 20 Mar 2006 08:30:07 -0800 in rec.radio.amateur.homebrew, "Tim
Shoppa" wrote,
Working sheet metal in a mill or a drill press has caused some, um,
near-disasters in many amateur shops. Poor clamping resulting in
spinning sheets with sharp edges are the most common

That is deadly true; but I would think if you are going to make a
business of it that you would set up some _good_ clamping fixture
that would hold your sheet with no slipping. How is PC Board
milling done?