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Andy, where are the Ultimarc Aimtrack guns?!
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helpmebuild:
 :notworthy:

Oh man...this is exciting. I cannot wait..i'll def be getting one of the first kits once up for sale. Thanks for the update!
fallacy:
I am curious as to how the process goes down between you and a manufacturer. Do you have someone designing new parts that you send to a manufacturer to sell on your site? How much time, money, and people does it take to do something like that? What happens if the product turns out to have problems or does not sell? I don’t even under stand how a manufacturer is even capable of making something so specific.
AndyWarne:

--- Quote from: fallacy on June 19, 2010, 01:50:37 pm ---I am curious as to how the process goes down between you and a manufacturer. Do you have someone designing new parts that you send to a manufacturer to sell on your site? How much time, money, and people does it take to do something like that? What happens if the product turns out to have problems or does not sell? I don’t even under stand how a manufacturer is even capable of making something so specific.

--- End quote ---

Well yes, that someone is me.
A product like this takes a lot of time and money because there is CAD to do (see CAD wireframe below as an example), then molds to make. There are 7 molds for the gun parts, two of them (the body sides) are large and complex. Plus two fabricated parts and two switch PCBs.

The mold-making and manufacturing are contracted-out of course. Creating and designing a product is a very rewarding activity but actual manufacturing is extremely dull and something well worth leaving to others. This is where I am sometimes jealous of friends who have made their fortunes in software, they dont have to bother with any of that!
Fortunately we have an excellent manufacturing partner.

As for the economics, its simply a matter of amortising the design and tooling cost against margins on sales. Its very unlikely that we will not eventually get back the tooling cost of the guns even though they are not a mass-market product.

We have only ever really had one product which didnt sell, which is the U-HID G (The version of the U-HID with accelerometer on board). The reason for this is we strayed from the market area we know about. This was produced with two markets in mind, pinball builders (for nudge) and musicians, especially guitarists, for an effects unit. neither markets are really there. This does not really matter as the development costs of this board were tiny, so we just took the hit.

Encryptor:
I'm curious about this as well. When you come up with an idea, say for your spinner. Do you tell a designer what you want the product to do and the other specs (ie.. dimensions, voltage requirements etc) and they design the circuitry and such or do you actually design the circuit boards and just have them manufactured elsewhere?

Encryptor
Joey Butafuko:
Since we're being curious, I'm pretty curious about the actual number of sales of each product to understand how big this market is ;D
I assume Ipac's and joysticks will sell more than light guns and videocards. What kind of numbers should I be thinking of, 1000, 5000, 10.000?

Are pushbuttons the real bread and butter and the more exotic products keep the market fresh and alive? How does this work?  :angel:



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