[volt-nuts] Crazy price

[J. Forster]

This is the point I was trying to make a couple of days ago.

The unit may be called out in some test proceedure for something that
requires continuing support. Not all military systems use the latest iToy.
The B-52s are at least 50 years old, as are Atlas SLVs. It's the same in
industry.

If your standard fails, you have some not very good choices:

You can scrap the entire system and replace everything. But are you really
going to get approved for a project to essentially start from scratch to
support a legacy system?  Probably not. AQnd does anybody alive even know
what has to be done?

You can just throw everything away and go paint houses or something.

You can pay through the nose, and hope it lasts a few more years profitably.

Years ago, I designed some hardware for a local computer graphics company.
The company president, a very determined guy, INSISTED I use a half-UART
in the product, a Motorola MC 2257 I think, because at the time the
half-UART was a few cents cheaper than the industry standard AY5-1013.

Well, the thing went into production and Motorola discontinued the chip.
He wound up paying about $25 each, because the part was designed in. So
much for aardvaark parts.

There's a couple of lessons there.

-John

==================



> Also remember that there are (at least) two markets for test equipment,
> The hobbyist/nice to have buyer who wants a bargain. and the
> professional/collector who HAS to have regardless of cost. This is not
> just on ebay. I'm in avionics and it is particualry noticeable as
> sometimes a test specification calls up a piec of equipment with no
> alternative. Aircraft have long life spans, longer than test equipment
> production. Ther was a post a while ago about a "copy" HP voltmeter by JC
> air that was built for this reason.  A higly sepcialised bench test set
> with about $100 of "parts" value might fetch $5000 if the item it's used
> on is still in demand. Another near identical test set (for a now
> completly obsolete item) might not even get a bid.
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Will <willvolts at gmail.com>
> To: Discussion of precise voltage measurement <volt-nuts at febo.com>
> Sent: Monday, 20 February 2012, 18:19
> Subject: [volt-nuts] Crazy price
>
> I friend e-mailed me this:
>
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/270897641120
>
> I have never bought anything from Ebay and I don't know the system
> very well, but it seems that someone really paid $4300. Maybe there is
> something that I am missing?
>
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