Pricing your builds

[Electron Tornado]

Regardless of what level you do this at TAKE A DEPOSIT OF 50% or Greater!!!!!!!!!

That's an excellent piece of advice!

Here's how I approach that. I ask for a non-refundable 50% deposit up front, and then the rest is due within a certain period of time after the work is completed. The final product is only delivered upon full payment. If payment is not made in the time agreed upon, the deposit is lost, and I can sell the pedal. That helps weed out those who aren't serious and prevents situations where a customer changed their mind after you've done the work, or balks at paying.

Worst case is I have a pedal on my hands that I may not want, but the parts were paid for, and I probably have some money left over for beer.

[Bill Mountain]

I think one thing I'd like to avoid is a wait list.  That pressure and then ultimate failure to meet deadlines would be the death of me.

I'd rather build on spec anyway.

I like the way Spaceman Effects does it.  Limited runs of new designs every so often.

[moosapotamus]

Guess my comment about not charging for your time wasn't very popular.

That's cool. Each of us needs to do what feels right for ourselves, personally.

Personally, for me, I do not believe that "time is money." Money comes and goes. If you happen to loose some, there are things that you can do to get it back. The same is not true for time. Once it's gone, it's gone for good and you can never get it back. Time is priceless.

I'm in my study, soldering away.  I can hear my wife playing with my 6 month old son and their both laughing and having fun.  I have sacrificed that time with my family to build this pedal.  Dont get me wrong, i enjoy building this stuff!  But theres no question, you make sacrifices.

So how could you possibly charge someone for making that kind of sacrifice? I don't think you can. When it comes to making choices like that, I think money becomes meaningless. Granted, that's maybe an extreme exmple. But whenever I spend time breadboarding, working on a layout, finishing an enclosure, or whatever, I know there is an opportunity cost, an opportunity lost. That's my choice and I just don't feel right making someone else pay for my choice.

I do love the idea that this whole electronics, stompboxes, music hobby/vocation can actually be financially self-sustaining. And again, I don't think there's any right/wrong way to deal with the money stuff. You just do what feels right. So when I build/sell someone a stompbox, I just charge them for the stompbox. Nothing more. That may not sit right with everyone, and I'm not in any way suggesting that it should. That's just me.

~ Charlie

[AudioEcstasy]

I would also say it varies by complexity, and for me the biggest PITA is drilling the enclosure. I'd say 2x cost + 10% is a fair deal, depending on if they want/need artwork

[Canucker]

As far as ordering parts taking time...the place I shop it cost me ten bucks in gas and if I didn't want to walk a bit it would cost me three bucks an hour to park...and it took me fourty minutes last time to pick out $3.50 worth of the resistors I needed! and thats counting out ten of each value and having my containers for them pre labeled!
I stick to my previous statement of if your not building two of something don't bother....and if your doing stuff point to point on perfboard....forget about it! I'll never do that again. 

It's time for you to learn about Tayda

I know about em but is they're stuff junk or what? Some of it is so cheap...transistors for a penny? Something just seems wrong to me.

[garcho]

Do a Tayda search here and read about it for months.

[Jdansti]

As far as ordering parts taking time...the place I shop it cost me ten bucks in gas and if I didn't want to walk a bit it would cost me three bucks an hour to park...and it took me fourty minutes last time to pick out $3.50 worth of the resistors I needed! and thats counting out ten of each value and having my containers for them pre labeled!
I stick to my previous statement of if your not building two of something don't bother....and if your doing stuff point to point on perfboard....forget about it! I'll never do that again. 

It's time for you to learn about Tayda

I know about em but is they're stuff junk or what? Some of it is so cheap...transistors for a penny? Something just seems wrong to me.

My personal experience is that I've never had a problem with any components from Tayda. In addition, everything comes individually packaged with clear labeling.  It would be nice, though if they would include packing slips. I suspect that their prices are low for the same reasons that all other commodities coming for the Far East are so cheap - cheap labor, unbalanced currency exchange rates, etc. Perhaps they're also willing to make less profit per item than the other big electronics distributors.

[markeebee]

One thing I learned about Tayda recently - make sure your order value is less than the amount at which your local import tax and duty kick in.  When you add those, the price is not so competitive.

[Perrow]

One or two of their enclosures have had holes drilled/tapped to short, but in my latest order they shipped them with shorter screws 

Other than that I haven't had a single problem with stuff from them. I wouldn't dream about paying "local" prices for resistors or caps (or other stuff for that sake). I get five or ten resistors or caps from Tayda for every one I would buy here, and the shipping is less from them too. Bought stuff from Futurlec too with no glitch other than them holding an order for an out of stock item (with no estimated delivery date  ), Futurlec can be cheaper than Tayda for some items, but not often.

[Bill Mountain]

About Tayda:

I love the vero board, resistors, IC's, and transistors.  I hate the pots and caps.

I have yet to find a perfect supplier but I prefer mammoth and if I'm buying some fancy enclosures already I don't mind paying extra for a few parts.

[Perrow]

Alpha pots and boxed caps, what's not to like?

[davent]

As far as ordering parts taking time...the place I shop it cost me ten bucks in gas and if I didn't want to walk a bit it would cost me three bucks an hour to park...and it took me fourty minutes last time to pick out $3.50 worth of the resistors I needed! and thats counting out ten of each value and having my containers for them pre labeled!
I stick to my previous statement of if your not building two of something don't bother....and if your doing stuff point to point on perfboard....forget about it! I'll never do that again. 

It's time for you to learn about Tayda

I know about em but is they're stuff junk or what? Some of it is so cheap...transistors for a penny? Something just seems wrong to me.

The problem with Tayda is that orders are always more then 2 weeks away, i've also  heard the resistor leads are extremely limp, pretty dodgy for breadboarding. I don't like spline shafted pots either, their knobs eh, plugs, jacks, no! I do order some things from them but by no means one stop shopping.  Depending on what you need, you might take  8 of your $10 gas money and order from Digikey, order's at your door the next business day.

dave

[Bill Mountain]

Alpha pots and boxed caps, what's not to like?

I prefer solid shaft pots and the tant caps I got were way to leaky.  I'm sure the quality is actually good but those parts turned me off.

[garcho]

All threads lead to Tayda...  

[deadastronaut]

I hate to admit it but i do like maplins solid shaft pots, they are pricey but have a good solid feel to em..

more resistance (pun alert) when turning em....

[Perrow]

All threads lead to Tayda... 

LOL, I thought almost exactly that thought just hours ago while reading/posting in this thread.

[Canucker]

Where I shop resistors are a penny so you can't really complain about that...caps I need are between ten cents and a quarter, transistors are about fifty cents. Most IC's I need aren't there though. The digikey offers way to many versions of everything it gets pretty confusing...I'm still pretty new at this but learning a lot fast. I don't really think anywhere is one stop shopping. 

[Rethfing]

I usually sell for a price that allows me to make another 2 effects, so I always get back what I spend and have additional cash.