about the cases

[David Poynter]

On 12/12/2011 04:05 AM, Fernando Martins wrote:
> On 12/12/2011 10:04 AM, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote:
>> So we have to go the painful way of designing our own cases. But the
>> good side is that we can improve on the outer shape and look&feel.
>>
> Yes, I think that makes sense, but the cost of the moulds seems to be 
> a major roadblock in the road of reasonably priced devices when done 
> in small numbers.
>
> I was asking because my brother lives in a region in Portugal known 
> for manufacturers of moulds, China being one of typical destinations. 
> I asked him what he knew about this business and the main issue seems 
> indeed to be very high cost of the moulds whereas the plastic products 
> cost merely cents. Unfortunately, as mentioned by Patryck in the other 
> reply, moulds also need to be rectified after some time, and even this 
> cost can be too high.
>
> And, it seems that to make a single mould, it can in fact require more 
> than one iteration. I was a bit surprised about this last one as I 
> thought NPC tools could make the mould exactly according to spec but 
> he did not know what were the issues.
>
> My brother did not know specific costs but he heard on past informal 
> conversations of costs on the orders of many thousands of Euros.
>
> Did you get to any figures yourself?
>
> Regards,
> Fernando
>
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What about the 3D printers nowadays? Don't know about cost, etc. for 
production, but for prototyping it might work out.