Sanguinololu electronics

Does anyone know how much it would cost for me to manufacture my own Sanguinololu 1.3 ?

I can see that a complete kit costs around £95 with pololu's, but I would be interested to make my own...


Thanks

You can source the components yourself, and buy a bare PCB from various places. I doubt you can fabricate only one PCB cheaper yourself. Complete DIY kits often aren't that expensive either.

If you intend to make the board yourself, you'd be better off making a set of generation 7 electronics.

Edit: For clarity.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2012 12:21PM by Nudel.

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-Nudel
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Nudel Wrote:
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> You can source the parts yourself, and buy bare
> PCBs various places, I doubt you can fabricate
> only one cheaper yourself. Complete DIY kits often
> aren't that expensive either.


So is nobody making any profit from manufacturing these boards - or the kits?

I was really interested to know the total raw parts cost...


I already looked at gen7 - which seemed to be a good option, but I really want an on-board USB-TTL converter

What Nudel is saying is that the raw cost is NOT the cost to produce a single card. The cost just for sourcing the material (shipping & handling for example) might cost more than the raw material itself. And many components are not sold in single quantities (or very expensive when done).

So of course sellers have som kind of margin when selling the complete boards. However, it can be very hard to get that margin without making many boards.

here in australia i can get just about everything but the pololus and the bare pcb for around $35 AUD cheaper if some of it comes directly from china

i would spend my after noons putting them together, but finding a reliable source of pcbs with a fdti on them is easier said than done

I got my unassembled kit off ebay for $60us not including the pololus. I have seen bare boards go for less than $5.

Devon

Malx Wrote:
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> What Nudel is saying is that the raw cost is NOT
> the cost to produce a single card.

Exactly, though my comment was a bit unclear, so I edited it. Speaking about the bare PCB boards only; lets say you can get 100 boards made for 2$ a piece, and sell them for 5$. But if you make only one board it'll cost you 15$ to have it professionally made. (Don't know if those prices are realistic).

If you know how to make your own PCB, the pricing is very different, but I'd still say gen7 is the better option.

I bought a complete sanguinololu DIY kit with pre-soldered SMD for €93 including shipping a year ago, which was a fun soldering project.

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-Nudel
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I'm in the US, but the parts cost from Mouser is about $49 without shipping, which is another $6 or so. Plus the PCB which you can buy for $8 or so with free shipping. Total is about $63. You can get kits for about $60 with free shipping. So, in small quantities it is probably not worth it to DIY. The kit sellers are still able to make money by buying larger quantities at bulk pricing.

Quote

I really want an on-board USB-TTL converter

It's possible to make an extension board featuring an USB-TTL converter. All the required pins are there.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

The main advantage of self-sourcing components for the electronics is that, if you're picky, you can substitute. I used right angle headers on the Sanguinololu ICP and expansion pins and screw terminals for the heater outputs as well as the power input (wedging additional 5mm screw terminals into where ordinarily there would be 4 pins separated by 0.1inch).

If you're buying a kit, it's only going to include the parts to assemble it in a vanilla way. Unless you have the alternative parts on hand, you're going to have to buy them separately with shipping anyway unless you live next to a good electronics supply store. If you're buying off the BOM anyway, you can substitute as needed.

From a 'cost' perspective, all of the boards use similar parts, same stepper drivers, so they should all be about the same $$ to make. Ramps slightly more because you would be buying an arduino board, plus the add-ons. I have a GEN6, but it lacks heated bed support, and I am using ABS, so the bed is always on.

As Mazaw points out, I prefer screw terminals also, even though I'm currently using a PC power supply. I just ordered parts for (2) sanguinololu boards, (with screw terminals, 20mhz crystal, and ATMEGA1284P) worked out to about $50 each (not including the boards)

Suprisingly, both chips are about the same price, so I'm going to try to upgrade to 1284 @20mhz. At Mouser: ATmega466P - $5.76
ATmega1284P - $5.82

Comparison of the various electronics: [reprap.org]

Looking at the boards now, I probably should have bought it with the usb chip pre-soldered. My eyes are not as good as they used to be.

Thanks everyone for the input - its really helpful

@Traumflug
"It's possible to make an extension board featuring an USB-TTL converter. All the required pins are there."

I really like the idea of using gen7, but I must have a single board solution - add-ons simply won't do for me. I see that the FTDI is on the to-do list, so I will be watching the progress of this project closely.

I actually run an early, (and noisy) Gen6 on my machine, but I would not buy another.
I like the Azteeg X1, but until I can find a UK supplier of built boards, I think that Sanguinololu will be my solution

@Dad911 - why do you prefer screw terminals when using a pc psu? surely the atx makes more sense?

I think really, I was asking ;how many complete board sets (optos inc) would I need to produce to make a significant saving on each set?

How much profit are the board manufacturers truly making on each full kit? Is it actually worth pursuing bulk manufacture?

Molex connector rated for 8 amps, Screw terminals 10.5.

I am now using 2 pc power supplies, one for the Gen6 electroics, a second directly connected to heated bed, and the wires running to the heated bed are too warm for me, so I don't want a single 12v line/PC power supply powering both the electronics and heated bed.

I am also probably going to switch to a single, non-atx, 25-30amp dedicated supply.

do you still have any form of temperature control on the heat bed,

i did the same thing because my sanguinololu board all of a sudden stopp reading the analog inputs, (i tested with the arduino example code and it shows the inputs are fine)

the only problem is now the bed is too hot and the parts actaully sink into the bedmaking them very warped