Re: [Paparazzi-devel] Lisa PCB pool

[David Conger]

It would be a shame to see the paparazzi vendors' business greatly impacted,

so I wonder why none of them are yet stocking Umarims or (to a lesser

extent) Lisas with reasonable availability?

I can't speak for the other vendors, but from my (aerofu) perspective,
people that order in quantity and wait through a manufacturing
lead-time are not core business.

The reason I don't stock Umarims or Lisas right now is that it would
be an expensive gamble, given the new hardware in development, current
sales volumes and the batch size required to get the cost of
manufacturing down. The hardware changes faster than the small retail
market can support (with a stovepipe manufacturing model).

If we-the-market could collaborate to eliminate duplication of risk
and cost, the supply chain might be able to keep up with the fast
hardware development cycles a little better. Vendors are just buffers
in a much larger system, a kind of financial capacitor. The rest of
the system enjoys many benefits from being collaborative, transparent
and open. The proprietary, opaque and closed matter-compiler is a
bottleneck that limits the whole system's (communities) capacity to
thrive.

I can speak for PPZUAV in that if you don't order 100+ it's expensive. 10k for Umarim BOM cost alone. Just cost not shipping to get them in hand and get them to the assembly. You need 2% greater than BOM to account for PnP drops and losses. Stencil fee, prog fee, risk of assembly being wrong (they give guarantees but actually getting it exchanged is another matter with them)... How many out there have 15k to risk? I can't sell YAPA2 at my cost and have about 75 left. What assurance is there to sell 100 Umarims? 

Yes, without any coordination that a big flaw in Umarims exists or that another version isn't due soon it's too much risk. My experience is as soon as I could have 100 of them something new comes out. 

I envy DIY where the guy planning assembly can be sure a new model isn't due or that BOM parts can be shared. And that they do in-house PnP and reflow.

I am not saying I'm not going to. I however think we all need to learn from DIY and not compete with each other, share costs, communicate, support and grow together is required. I think JobyRobotics, Quadshot are included. Im in California and if they want to make Lisa and I want to make Umarim maybe we can share BOM costs, assembly costs. Some risks. We all need to communicate and act like a single entity. Please realize I'm very open and if you have ideas (all current vendors) contact me. I want to see Paparazzi become all it can be. Let's work together.

David Conger