Questions tagged [cost]
The cost tag has no usage guidance.
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Simultaneously usage and effect on electric cost [closed]
Will using 2 watt devices simultaneously result in a higher electric bill than the same 2 if used at different times but for the same length of time (ie, 2 water fountain pumps together for 12 hours ...
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Is there something like a banana plug that will fit in a 30mil or 50mil through hole test point?
I am developing a cost sensitive product. The printed circuit boards need to be programmed and tested. It seems like a waste of money to put a programming/test connector on the board just to use it ...
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How do I know how much a kWh costs me if I have my private generator [closed]
I have a 10 kVA generator and its efficiency is approx. 90%
How can I know the cost of a kWh?
Estimate the price of diesel as $2.5 a liter.
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Copper fills in top and bottom layer from a cost perspective
I've seen low-cost boards from consumer electronics that have just tracks connecting the pins and they will have no copper ground pours. Since making these as cheap as possible is the goal, doesn't it ...
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How to calculate the cost of charging a portable power station?
Can I calculate the cost of charging my portable power station based on the specs for the charge adapter? For example, the adapter shows it rated at 15V @ 3A, and it takes 5 hours to charge. Does that ...
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Is there an affordable way to balance a bridge without using expensive resistors?
I have a full and balanced bridge circuit with four through-hole \$ 350 \,\Omega \$ resistors and an instrumentation amplifier AD8293G80 that has a gain of 80. Both the bridge and the amplifier are ...
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Selecting larger inductors than necessary for cost optimization
I'm designing a board that I want to initially manufacture using JLCPCB for both the board fabrication and assembly. The pricing approach at JLCPCB separates available components into commonly used &...
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What's the cheapest way to design this circuit?
I design a board with Power over Ethernet (PoE 802.3af/at) and the standard requires a "Maintain Power Signature" (MPS) signal, which is a 10 mA, 75 ms pulse every 325 ms (roughly 25 % D.C.)....
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Resistor switching methods
I have an application where I need to measure the voltage drop over a resistor that varies between 10 ohm - 50 kohm. As I have this set up as a voltage divider, with the result being read by an AtoD, ...
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Is energy consumption of the 3kw kettle lower than 2kw kettle? [closed]
On the market there are 2kw 1.7 liter kettles and also 3kw 1.7 liter kettles.
I understand that bringing the same quantity of water to the same temperature require same amount of energy, but from the ...
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Large variations in capacitor cost
I am very surprised with difference in capacitor cost (up to 10 times) like this and this.
These two have same capacitance along with voltage rating and tolerance level.Then what are the reasons ...
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Low cost connector for 500 connection points, of which only a few are used at any time
So, I've been asked to make a GAL-like PCB that can be 'manually programmed' without need of soldering for an educational setting.
Meaning, I have signals coming in ('horizontally') that can be linked ...
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Cheapest way to power an LED from an Android phone using Bluetooth [closed]
I recently wanted to make an Android controlled LED using Bluetooth.
The obvious solution I could think of is using a HC-05/06 module with an Arduino.
However I believe for just lighting an LED, this ...
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Understanding relation between energy use, watts and amps
I'm looking into air conditioners and I've been unable to fully understand the relation between watts, amps and the energy ratings (in this case, the one used in the United States, the yellow Energy ...
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Instrumentation amplifier, discrete or integrated?
Since integrated instrumentation amplifiers are so readily available, does it still make sense to incorporate an instrumentation amp discretely built from multiple opamps and resistors? Would one see ...
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Why use difference amplifiers over instrumentation amplifiers?
I know that instrumentation amplifiers are difference amplifiers with buffered inputs, and I understand why one would select an instrumentation amplifier over a difference amplifier circuit. But is ...
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Cost to run an Arduino device 24/7, simple maths question
I have built an Arduino window automatic closer/opener. When the device is on stand by mode, it draws 12V DC 0.025A.
My quesiton is, how much yearly I need to pay to have this on standby mode?
Would ...
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Which is better - components on both sides or components on one side of the PCB?
I am working on a PCB design. 50k PCBs will be produced.
SMD components: 100
Through-hole components: 25
I need to minimize PCB size. There are no high-speed signals or sensitive signals in the ...
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How do I reduce cost for a circular PCB shape?
I'm designing an electronic product that has a circular housing. There needs to be a PCB inside this form. In order to reduce costs as much as possible for high volume production (5K-10K), what shape ...
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IC on Digikey is 5x more expensive than board containing same IC on Alibaba: How? [closed]
I built a prototype using an NFC board I bought from Alibaba for 1$ (https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/rfid-rc522.html).
It claims to use the NXP MFRC522 IC, and if I look on the board the chip has ...
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Help with producing a circuit that costs 17, then 9
I'm am completely stuck on this question:
We want to design a circuit that determines if a four-bit number is less than 10 and is also even.
a. (10 points) Write an expression of M such that M=1 if ...
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Designing for Low Cost China Manufacturing [closed]
I have designed a few boards on a consulting basis. Some of them have been manufactured in China in +10k unit volumes. One of the complains I have gotten from my clients is my boards can be a bit ...
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How to consider lifecycle in PV power smoothing?
I am planning to size Battery for Solar PV system by smoothing the PV output. Capacity size can be obtained by looking at Max charge/discharge needed to smooth the fluctuation.
This should make able ...
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Cost optimization - PCB Area vs. Double-sided load
If one has an opportunity to choose between laying out a PCB as either a single-side load (components all on one side, so it goes through reflow only once and requires only one stencil) or a double-...
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Most cost effective way to power a bunch op amps +/-12V supply rails from +5V
I'm searching for the most cost effective way to supply +/-12V for 12 TL084 op amps. Reading in the datasheet, it seems they have a typical current output (with load) of about 20mA. So, 12 * 20 = ...
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low noise, low distortion analog multiplexing
I'm trying to design a low noise, low distortion, low cost op-amp circuit for multiplexing analog (audio) signals. Experience, research and some experimenting already led me to the following ...
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Trying to Get the Most Cooling Power out of TEC Peltier Element: Smaller or Larger Peltier?
I am trying to achieve the strongest cooling effect using a TEC Peltier element.
Currently, my set up is two small, 20mm x 20mm peltier TES1-4902 run with a 5V 2.4A USB Battery Pack per peltier.
I ...
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Why do DC motors cost more than AC motors of the same power?
For high-power motors around 1000 kW, the price of a DC motor is much higher than that of an AC motor of the same power. I know there is a commutator and brushes, but I don't think that is the only ...
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Why not produce household electricity with natural gas generator?
I don't have an engineering background so I apologize in advance if this seems like a silly question.
So I noticed natural gas in my area is a lot cheaper than electricity. So I was asking myself ...
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Why is so expensive to fabricate custom IC [duplicate]
I had read that the fabricate a custom IC is very expensive (>10000$) but why?
For example an 555 timer cost <1$.
If I design and 555 timer with an inverter at the output in some program (don't ...
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Shared support chips and tooling between 16 and 32-bit computers
Can a production line for a 16-bit computer save significantly on unit cost by sharing support chips and tooling with another 16-bit computer, to a greater extent than if it went 32-bit?
To be ...
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How can I calculate how much my desktop PC costs to run for an hour?
I was torn on whether to post this to here or Math.SE, so feel free to move it as appropriate.
I recently got hold of a power usage monitor in order to calculate how much my PC costs to run a given ...
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Is 0603 vs 0402 assembly mass production cost optimization still relevant?
Historically, choosing a design avoiding 0402 and finer pitch components was advantageous for mass production cost savings. The yields were improved and accuracy requirements for pick and place ...
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Why do PNP silicon transistors cost more to produce? NPN is cheaper?
I got a few suggestions/answers but nothing definite after searching and digging around awhile .. I am not so sure about any of these so correct any of them that you see
Thanks
Alex Van den ...
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Cost of expandable memory [closed]
Given two computers:
Has X gigabytes of RAM, that's the amount it ships with and that's all it will ever have, it can be designed around that number in whatever way is most efficient, solder chips ...
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Cost effect of different component packages during PCB assembly
We are looking at starting PCB design in house, up until now we have outsource design and manufacture. This means that we have yet to see the real cost of the PCB, components and assembly as discrete ...
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Which communication system would you choose for the elevator? [closed]
The communication system is used to connect the floor fixtures (e.g. elevator diplays, elevator call butons) to the control panel which is existed in the elevator machine room.
Please look at the ...
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Cost of a partial barrel shifter
As I understand it, a 32-bit barrel shifter takes about five thousand transistors.
Suppose you built a shifter that is like a barrel shifter in providing an answer instantly without iteration, but ...
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Whats the difference between an FPGA and an ASIC [closed]
I know what an FPGA and ASIC are.
However what I want to know is what is the difference with cost and time.
How long does it take to build an FPGA?
How long does it take to build an ASIC?
How much ...
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Building your own camera module [closed]
I would like to know how difficult it is to build your own camera module. For instance, how difficult would it be to assemble the Raspberry Pi camera module from scratch?
The reason I'm interested ...
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Cheap alternative to an accelerometer [closed]
I am designing a very simple device, which absolutely needs to be inexpensive, total BOM cost < $1.00 including the MCU (at 10k+ units). This device would benefit from knowing its orientation, ...
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power consumption of a switch [closed]
I was wondering what is the power consumption of opening and closing a switch.
I mean when you put two conductives plates together for closing a circuit and then you take away the two plates for ...
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Estimating Assembly costs II
This is a continuation of Estimating Assembly Cost which has addressed some approximations in estimating between North American and Asian assembly houses as price per pin.
The question does not ...
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Estimated cost savings by going from a 2 layer to a single layer pcb?
I've been tasked with minimizing cost of an existing design by taking it from a 2 layer board to a single layer board.
I've never made a single layer board so I am unfamiliar with pricing. I tried ...
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Low domestic voltage inefficiency cost
Since lower voltage means proportionally higher current for a given power, and higher current means more impedance, presumably having a lower voltage at the outlet means transmission power losses are ...
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Where to go with an idea for a chip? [closed]
I tinker with AVR, 6502 and z80 designs, just muck around really, nothing overly serious. But as a result I had a thought of an idea for a new chip.
Specifically a SoC built around a z80 core. But ...
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What's the cheapest type of package to assemble?
Say you have a microcontroller that you want to use on a production board. Most microcontrollers come in several different packages. Assuming all the packages cost the same, what typically would be ...
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PCB Assembly Costing Help - Software tools out there? [closed]
Are there software solutions out there that help provide a cost estimate for PCB assembly? I have a BOM and want to generate a cost estimate to help me negotiate with my suppliers better.
I also ...
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Why DRAM costs much more than flash memory?
Comparing prices at a local store, I calculated prices 0.36 USD/GB for SSD NAND flash memory and 5.41 USD/GB for DRAM memory. The difference is 15 times. Why so big difference?
Both are semiconductor ...
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How would I get a logic circuit printed on an IC? [duplicate]
Say I have designed a logic circuit. If I were to construct it, due to the cost of individual components as IC's, it would be very expensive (and tedious). Is there a way that I can get my circuit ...
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