On Friday, December 27, 2013 7:51:40 AM UTC-6, Fabio Battaglia wrote:
As the S100 backplane is out of stock, Andrew told me to check this group for interest in a re-order. The threshold for production is ~20.
I'd get one, or even two, so I can start building my own Z80 (or 286, I'll probably fetch both boards) based S100 computer! Anyone else is interested?
The 6 slot active terminated one? Sure. 20 * 6 = quantity of 120 of part number 346-100-520-202 aka the S-100 female PCB mount connector.
Newark/Element14 non-stocked minimum order 25 at $12.07 so $301.75 plus the PCB. Of course thats slightly unfair because you'd probably build four pcb requiring 24 connectors and one spare for mess-ups for a total of $72.42 for connectors plus pcb, per board and a minimum order of 4 complete boards.
Mouser has 150 in stock (and we only need 120) with a lead time of a month. Mouser wants minimum order 25 (huh? but they've got 150 sitting in stock?) and $13.35 a piece for $335.75, again thats enough to make four boards for a cost of connectors of $80.10.
Digikey has a mere 64 in stock (and we need 120, whoops) but they'll ship onesie-twosie for a spectacular $16.02 qty one. So $96.12 worth of connectors per board, but at least you can build only one if you want, although theres only enough in stock for about half the buyers.
So I'd theorize unless you get involved in a CONNECTOR group buy not just a pcb group buy, most people will be buying four packs.
Newark sells 100 at $11.38, Mouser 100 at $11.44 and Digikey 100 at $11.44
So the savings for a group buy, for a single PCB, would be $4.14 at Newark, $11.46 at Mouser, and $27.48 at Digikey,
So my financial analysis of a group buy is its all about the ratio of "bulk builders" vs single orders. Bulk buyers have almost no financial incentive to join a buy, the delay and hassle aren't going to be worth it. For single builders a group buy is worth more than the cost of the PCB, its quite a bit of money, but stocks are not very high so not "everyone" can be a single builder (or they need to wait for factory leadtime).
As for who-ever operates a theoretical connector group buy, the cost of postage and boxes and packing material and gas to the post office and waiting all add up, there's a reason Digikey charges $16 for a single connector... I don't think a group buy is economically viable at these numbers. Maybe with new numbers, if someone went directly to the mfgr or had a contact in the biz or a friend at a shipping company, or something like that...
I'm willing to go in for four PCB, or more specifically enough PCBs to use around 25 minimum order connectors if we're not talking about the 6 slot. I am accumulating S-100 CPUs and related boards, so I can probably fill them.