I’ve been thinking about maybe selling the snowflakes – or a variant of the snowflakes – commercially. Pursuant to that, I did a few calculations on parts costs.
Here’s what it would take to build the prototype in volume (say, 100 units):
| Part | Price |
| PC Boards | $2.04 |
| 55 WS2812 LEDs | $3.72 |
| Adafruit Huzzah | $7.96 |
| Acrylic | $4.07 |
| Printed separators | $1.00 |
| Labor @$13/hour | $26 |
| Total | $44.79 |
The labor is frankly a bit of a guess; it’s probably quite a bit worse than that.
Assuming I wanted a 50% margin, that would put the retail cost at about $90. The snowflakes are nice, but I’m not sure they are $90 nice.
To reduce the price, we need to look at the places that are the most expensive. Clearly, labor is a problem, so making the design easier and more robust to assemble is going to be critical. And the cost of the Huzzah is a big part of the parts cost, so coming up with an alternative that is easier and cheaper to use makes sense.
Your snowflake design looks really good, I’d love to buy it as a kit, would you sell it?
Stephen
Sorry for the super-late response; I had an issue with comments on my blog.
I’d be willing to share the PCB design for free, though I’ll note that it is a *huge* pain in the ass to solder them together. I may someday do a version that’s easier to assemble.