To me at least, it seems priced out of reach if you want just one or two of your "massive balls of yarn", but if you've tested/validated your electrical design with your yarnballs and want another 20 or 50 of them, it becomes much more attractive.
I suspect there's a sweet spot somewhere in there 20-1000 unit range, where this'd be "the right choice".
Fewer than that, the time spent assembling them myself is not worth a grand US (to me, for hobby stuff at least).
More than 1000 I'd be leaning much more towards a bespoke design/layout and getting them manufactured in China (which the proviso that "Hardware is Hard!" and that it's a risk getting the right place over there to work with. Been there, done that, keep telling myself "Never again!!!" - until next time a really great sounding idea appears...)
In between, and where the constraints around exact layout/packaging are not a showstopper, I'd jump on this.
Thanks for the feedback. My application is low volume, probably would order in runs of ~100 depending on pricing. But it is revenue generating so I’m not swayed with these dollar amounts. I’m already at ~$300 before the actuators and my impression is that I could get that down a bit by improving the design. I’m also concerned with serviceability and I’m not great at soldering. I’ve come this far on breadboards.
Seems like I might hire a design service then utilize JLCPCB for production. I can’t tell if this sparkfun service is essentially combining those two actions. Although I think the DIY requirement is still a bit high based on my interpretation of the service description. I’m in a spot where I want to show someone what I’ve built and let them be a professional/specialist to turn it into a real device/controller
I suspect there's a sweet spot somewhere in there 20-1000 unit range, where this'd be "the right choice".
Fewer than that, the time spent assembling them myself is not worth a grand US (to me, for hobby stuff at least).
More than 1000 I'd be leaning much more towards a bespoke design/layout and getting them manufactured in China (which the proviso that "Hardware is Hard!" and that it's a risk getting the right place over there to work with. Been there, done that, keep telling myself "Never again!!!" - until next time a really great sounding idea appears...)
In between, and where the constraints around exact layout/packaging are not a showstopper, I'd jump on this.