[APD] Re: DIY

[Bill Wichers <billw at waveform_net>]

> I want walmart prices. If sterilite manufactured a
> bunch of this stuff it could be dirt cheap. its just
> plastic boxes and stuff they could pump out by the
> trillions. pumps and powerheads are cheap enough. but
> when you see $250-300 for a device that does nothing
> but control the on and off of powerheads to cycle
> through them thats ridiculous. The same goes for
> acrylic things like sumps and skimmers and calcium
> reactors which could be made for pennies.

It's simple: the market is not big enough for these devices to allow them 
to be manufactured in sufficient quantities to result in low prices. For 
example, a mold for a skimmer might cost $50,000. Yes, complex molds for 
plastics are *expensive* since they require a lot of very complex 
machining. If you sell 1000 skimmers, that's $50 per skimmer just to cover 
the cost of the mold. I don't know how big a market there is for skimmers, 
but I would be surprised if it's more than a total of maybe 10,000 units 
per year, and that would have to be split among the many different types of 
skimmers out there. There isn't a market for trillions skimmers or 
trillions of power head controllers so each unit has to carry a higher 
percentage of the total cost to design and manufacture each unit and these 
are not insignificant costs.

DIY can often be cheaper because you are doing your own research and 
development, and you don't have a manufacturing facility to support. You 
don't have to contract for labor and pay wages and benefits, nor do you 
have to deal with utility costs for your factory and warehouse(s) and the 
taxes associated with the facilities.

There is a lot of price gouging on aquarium stuff which is probably the 
biggest reason to DIY -- especially on lighting which seems to be the most 
overpriced. Ballasts, for example, *are* manufactured in huge quantities 
since they don't go only into the aquarium hobby. Why it should be $400+ 
for a MH ballast when I can get one at the local electrical supply house 
for $29 (and maybe $20 more for an enclosure) is a bit of a mystery.

        -Bill


*****************************
Waveform Technology
UNIX Systems Administrator

_______________________________________________
Aquatic-Plants mailing list
Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com
http://www.actwin.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/aquatic-plants