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As I wrote in my e-mail reply, you should really add this to your product page so people like me won’t expect to actually receive the product. Now I’ve got some money sunk into sensors to go along with a product that is never going to arrive.
As I wrote in my e-mail reply, you should really add this to your product page so people like me won’t expect to actually receive the product. Now I’ve got some money sunk into sensors to go along with a product that is never going to arrive.
If the product is no longer viable to market and manufacture, maybe make it open-source? Offer the code and board to owners and if they want to make it themselves, they can. I just want to track actual coolant temp since the stock gauge is crap, without a separate gauge pack or my phone. Seems this is the only option for that so far, unless someone has managed to hack the dead-zone out of the OE gauge cluster.
If the product is no longer viable to market and manufacture, maybe make it open-source? Offer the code and board to owners and if they want to make it themselves, they can. I just want to track actual coolant temp since the stock gauge is crap, without a separate gauge pack or my phone. Seems this is the only option for that so far, unless someone has managed to hack the dead-zone out of the OE gauge cluster.
You CAN do this yourself with an Arduino ($10), a CAN-BUS shield ($20-ish?), and a few hours tinkering around. You can also add oil pressure, oil temperature, and fuel pressure if you buy the appropriate sensors (about $20 ea for the pressure transducers, $10 for the k-type thermocouple and ADC, $60 for the fuel line adapter).
The hard part would be re-enginerding the interface with the factory LCD display. If you don't mind adding another display (another $10-$20), you can bypass that.
The GOODbox would be a good product if it were available and I'd happily have paid the $220 for it. Alas...
+1 to open source, I'd love to add more PIDs to the display options, like cat temp. You'll never get to 50 pre-orders without promoting the product somehow, so it's basically dead in the water.
Which, by the way, is a damn shame because everyone should have one of these. It's a no brainer. If the product was available to buy it would promote itself.
I'd have to think there would be a lower volume, higher cost that we could shoot for. Like only 25 orders needed for an extra $100 or something. Dondo, is this an option?
Do we need a manufacturer? It's an Arduino and off-the-shelf components. Could offer it as a kit or plug and play solution, like Megasquirt. Still profitable. I'd be willing to assemble them for people.
The key is the software...
50 units x $220 is $11,000 that Dondo would expect to make back. Let's say Dondo expects to make a 20% margin, so $2200. Can we just pay Dondo the margin on 50 units in exchange for source code and hardware design? At this rate, that's strictly more than the 0 he can expect to make from 50 pre-orders which will never happen.
I'm totally confident I could assemble the unit. I just don't have the knowledge to program it. I'm open to this option if the programming is figured out.
NAP, yea everything is easy except the interface to the existing Mazda display, that is where the Goodbox stands out.
Loki, the cat temp is a calculated value, not a sensor reading, so I wouldn't be too stressed to actually see it unless you are wanting a visual tuning reference during logging to know when the car enters cat-protect enrichment.
At $220 it is a hard-ask already justified only by the lack of competition, but something I'd still likely buy for the convenience of not having to bugger about with making my own cobbled-together abortion. More expensive than that would be a hard-no and I imagine most would feel the same. Again, if Dondo is no longer interested in producing at the existing demand, making it open-source would be the best solution, especially since they no longer have an avenue to profit from this specific product. That may not be something they will entertain though, which is sad.
Good thinkings folks. The sad part is I have a case of 50 I already produced hiding somewhere but can't find them after we moved the shop which is frustrating so I'm forced to go back and buy another 50 (MOQ) if we want to do another round. I'd be open to the idea of open sourcing it for margin/covering cost though if that's something we'd be able to pull off. I don't have the time right now to chase this down or promote it or properly hunt in all the hidey holes that they might be chillin' in. hmu.
Dondo,
What's the most labor intensive (or otherwise expensive) part of your supply chain?
If it's assembly, could you supply them as a kit?
If it's PCB production, could you sell the unassembled parts with instructions on how to produce your own PCB? PCB etching is simply a matter of tracing some copper-clad board with a Sharpie and soaking in ferric chloride. If anybody is uncomfortable with that, I'm sure other members could help out in return for a beer or charitable donation.
The hard part for most people is going to be enginerding out the display technology. IMO, that's where a large chunk of the value to the end user is.
I would estimate that the most expensive part of the whole unit is the boost pressure transducer. I looked it up once, and I seem to recall they were something like $20 each (when purchased in small quantities - i.e. < 100) just for that one component! Which is kinda silly, because I'd bet that out of the current number of owners of a GOODbox, 90% don't use it; I certainly never have. Removing that sensor would cut the bill of material cost significantly, which would go some way to making an assembly batch much cheaper.
After that, I'd say the next most expensive thing is probably the enclosure, which although it is an off-the-shelf item, has custom cut-outs and labelling, which I don't think is cheap to have done in small quantities. And after that, the microcontroller, which is about a $5 part.
I would say selling it as a kit for self-assembly is probably a no-go for most, as it has parts which either have fine features or are very small in and of themselves and thus very hard to solder by hand if you don't have the skills and experience.
And by the way, for all who are saying the hardware is the difficult part and the software the easy part, you couldn't have it more backwards! The software is where the real time will have been spent making the GOODbox. I bet Pieter spent 10x as many hours programming as he did designing the hardware. The hardware is, relatively speaking, pretty simple - even the LCD interface.
What's up, guys? Thought I would share here a little something I cooked up recently that may prove interesting for anyone with a GOODbox and a boosted RX-8.
It's a small adapter circuit board that replaces the on-board boost pressure sensor such that an external, remotely-mounted off-the-shelf GM 3 Bar MAP sensor can be used instead. So instead of having to run a vacuum hose all the way from the engine bay to the GOODbox, just wires can be ran instead. The on-board sensor is de-soldered and this board is soldered on in its place using pin headers (the 6 holes match the pin-out of the on-board sensor). Wiring to the external MAP sensor is soldered to the three labelled points on the opposite side (like the GOODbox's Aux inputs).
The output of the GM MAP sensor is scaled to match that of the old on-board MPX4250A sensor as closely as possible. It should be within 1% across the pressure range. Note that it doesn't magically allow boost readings of 3 Bar just because the GM sensor goes that high! It will still only read up to 2.5 Bar, as it has to match the output of the old sensor (which goes to 250kPa, or 2.5 Bar) so that the GOODbox firmware can interpret the reading correctly.
Also, because the signals and power for the boost sensor are now going off-board, the adapter also features some protection for the 5V reference output. Current output is limited to approx. 60 mA in case of short-circuit to ground (or maybe faulty sensor). The 5V line is also protected from over-voltage (e.g. short to 12V), and will be automatically cut off if an over-voltage condition is detected. So nothing should blow up in case of wiring fault or incorrect connection.
Attached here are a circuit schematic PDF and PCB manufacturing files (Gerbers) in case anyone wants to make one themselves.
02-27-2018, 05:02 AM
Which is kinda silly, because I'd bet that out of the current number of owners of a GOODbox, 90% don't use it; I certainly never have. Removing that sensor would cut the bill of material cost significantly, which would go some way to making an assembly batch much cheaper.
The software is where the real time will have been spent making the GOODbox. I bet Pieter spent 10x as many hours programming as he did designing the hardware. The hardware is, relatively speaking, pretty simple - even the LCD interface.
