Hi, this is Eric from Shenzhen, China. I'm an ex-electrical engineer currently working on internatioanl trading, and more importantly a fans of Arduino and Processing. I go to the electrical market at least once per week, now having an idea in hosting periodical "group-buys":
Shenzhen lies behind Hongkong, it is a capital of electrial industry. You may find that most of the electrical products are manufactured or assembled here. Here are the factors I have thought about:
Price: buy in bulks + close to manufacturers + small profit margin = remarkable cheaper than elsewhere.
Shipping cost: Small gadgets are very cheap in postal, the lowest parcel in my experience is 0.7USD.
Period: I need 1-7 days for transaction, and they will fly 7-15 days to yours.
Payment: I have Paypal account, and other methods are open for discussion.
Proposed proccess:
You let me know what you need, I quote you a price range.
I combine the orders and fetch them from market, and send you the invoice.
You may remove items according to the final price (I can return them or stock it, so don't worry)
I ship the goods to you by Hongkong post or EMS.
The project and community grants me a lot of joy and inspriration, I hope to participate more in a complementing way like this. Also, it is a great practice to start off own biz.
Please kindly leave any of your opinions or comment, this is just a initial proposal open for discussion.
There should be an LED district there...I know you can get the Superflux-knockoff RGB LEDs for about 35 cents or less each. I was wondering how cheaply the Luxeon Star knockoffs would go. On eBay they still go for $13 or so for a 1W per channel RGB.
I might be able to act as the USA-side distribution hub. I already have a shipping operation set up, so you could combine packages to me and then I split it...or maybe, find one person in each metro area and people can just pick up their parts.
I might be interesting in buing some leds, however it depends on what prices you can get, mostly interested in Red leds around 3000mcd and 5,3mm or SMD RGB leds depending on the price... Here in sweden i can get a red led for about 1SEK, thats $0.16 and RGB leds $0.4, so if you can find something cheeper, but whit queality, i might be interested to order 100-400 of them
Thanks for the reply. The price gap is big enough, I think I can sell them with about 1/2 of the price you guys mentioned, cheaper if more people join. Let me consolidate more demand and prepare a detailed quote.
I'm personally making some Freeduino boards, will let you guys know the price soon. Let me know if you have volume demand on PCB too, and I can source manufacturer who can do a good job with valuable price.
I've got to put in another vote for the luxeon knockoffs. Ledshoppe.com does a good job with the basic 5mm LEDs so it will be hard to set up a group buy, but I have yet to find a source for high power LEDs.
What other kinds of parts would be available? I'm guessing not specialized chips like accelerometers.
Those do look like good prices on the emitters. I guess I'm better off also ordering their power supply boards rather than just the transistor/power resistor I had in mind. I hadn't really thought about a driver circuit.
Do you know off-hand if their free shipping includes Canada? If so, it really is an amazing deal.
Hi Eric
Could you please check the prices for some Electroluminescent Sheets ?
This kind of thing :
I'm also interested in the price for a "large" stock of SMD white leds, in 1206 package. (around 300 pieces).
Hope I don't bother you ^^
Salut~ Melka, excuse me for replying late, I just received the quotes and get things in place.
The quote for 300 pcs SMD 1206 superbright white is 75USD in total, free shipping. One reel of 3000 will be much cheaper each. Maybe you are interested in RGB ones, we have those from AOT for 0.7 each, no MPQ.
For EL board, it's usually calculated by price per sq.cm. A sample A5 size EL panel will be 15USD, I'll put some photo online tomorrow when I receive it. We could also source other dimensions or animated upon order.
Compared to what the local store charge, it's worth ordering from you just for a handful of male and female breakaway headers.
Do you have a good source of a proper (high voltage, high frequency) driver for the EL sheets? For some reason, I really like the idea of printing a photo as an 8x10 on transparency film and putting it in a frame in front of the EL sheet.
I'm interested in the LED matrices. Your site say there's other colour choice available. Do you have a price for RGB or maybe just blue. I like the 60mm size, or are larger ones availale?
Do you have a good source of a proper (high voltage, high frequency) driver for the EL sheets? For some reason, I really like the idea of printing a photo as an 8x10 on transparency film and putting it in a frame in front of the EL sheet.
We are still comparing between several EL drivers to be the recommended one. For the EL panel sample we are offering, the performance chart could be found at: http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/datasheet/ELPANEL.PDF. According to engineering practice, it will be performing well under 100V, 800hz.
I'm interested in the LED matrices. Your site say there's other colour choice available. Do you have a price for RGB or maybe just blue. I like the 60mm size, or are larger ones availale?
The size is not a problem, there are even larger ones if customized. For color, Green/Red or Bi-color of these two are most popular and cheap. RGB and Blue is not very commonly used , I have sourced a factory who could produce 60mm*60mm blue ones with minimal order of 50, price via seeedstudio is $5.8 each, total 390USD including free shipping (and extra 20% off for order over $200).
I would love to build a Danger Shield kit from NYC Resistor, but it appears they are not producing it for general sale. Here is the page announcing and demonstrating it:
You'll see there appears to be some demand for it in the comments there.
And here is a page with Eagle and Gerber files (near the bottom) and component list.
I would love to build a Danger Shield kit from NYC Resistor, but it appears they are not producing it for general sale. Here is the page announcing and demonstrating it: Zach Smith demos his “Danger Shield” – NYC Resistor
You'll see there appears to be some demand for it in the comments there.
And here is a page with Eagle and Gerber files (near the bottom) and component list.
Danger Shield v1.0 - ZachHoeken.com
(Of course the production pcb's should be in red as seen in the video on the first page, not green as shown on this page.)
The project appears to be GPL 2.0, so I think it should be fine for you to make and sell.
Any thoughts on making this, either as a complete kit, assembled, or pcb only? I'd prefer a kit for myself since I enjoy doing a little soldering.
Fascinating! We will produce the PCB for sure, with a POR for 30 days to be ready.
About the kit, let me source the slider first, it's not popular one here.
