Average cost to manufacture homebrew cartridge?

[Brian O]

Hi all --

 

I was just wondering: once a 2600 homebrew or hack game is completed, what are the costs/time to manufacture the cartridges? I searched the forums, but could not find anything that spoke specifically to cartridge manufacturing costs.

 

Thanks!

Brian

[horseboy]

$1-$75

[Brian O]

$1-$75

 

That's a pretty wide range. Is this a one-time set up cost, or a per-cartridge cost? Considering that most sell for $25, I can imagine taking a loss of 50 bucks on each cartridge...

[+5-11under]

Break it down:

 

Materials

----------

Cartridge casing: $1

PCB: $5

(E)PROM: $1

inverter chip: $0

bypass capacitor: $0

Label: $1

Manual: $2

Box: $7

 

Assembly Time

------------------

Cartridge casing preparation: ?

Program (E)PROM: 3 min.

Assemble PCB: 3 min.

Assemble cart, PCB, label: 3 min.

Assemble manual: ?

Assemble box: ?

Final assembly: 3 min.

 

Design

--------

label: hours

manual: more hours

box: even more hours?

 

Other considerations: shipping/mailing materials, time. There may be a few items I missed, also.

 

I don't see them in the store, but I'm guessing Albert still sells some homebrew supplies such as PCBs.

 

Edit: added some estimated and rounded off prices/times for a low quantity run - it's a start.

Edited November 12, 2010 by 5-11under

[Brian O]

Break it down:

 

Materials

----------

Cartridge casing:

PCB:

(E)PROM:

inverter chip:

bypass capacitor:

Label:

Manual:

Box:

 

Assembly Time

------------------

Cartridge casing preparation:

Program (E)PROM:

Assemble PCB:

Assemble cart, PCB, label:

Assemble manual:

Assemble box:

Final assembly:

 

Design

--------

label:

manual:

box:

 

Other considerations: shipping/mailing materials, time. There may be a few items I missed, also.

 

I don't see them in the store, but I'm guessing Albert still sells some homebrew supplies such as PCBs.

 

 

Thanks. Makes sense seeing all of the work/pieces that goes into it.

 

-B

[+5-11under]

Thanks. Makes sense seeing all of the work/pieces that goes into it.

 

-B

I edited my post above with some price/time estimates.

[Albert]

I don't see them in the store, but I'm guessing Albert still sells some homebrew supplies such as PCBs.

Yes.

 

..Al

[OldAtarian]

Something else not mentioned is the cartridge shell cost is based on recycling an existing cartridge shell. Nobody makes their own cartridges anymore because of the expense involved so if you were thinking of doing a custom cartridge shell design not like any other one that's already been used, the cost is probably going to be far beyond anything you'd be willing to put into the venture.

[Brian O]

Something else not mentioned is the cartridge shell cost is based on recycling an existing cartridge shell. Nobody makes their own cartridges anymore because of the expense involved so if you were thinking of doing a custom cartridge shell design not like any other one that's already been used, the cost is probably going to be far beyond anything you'd be willing to put into the venture.

 

Good to know, thanks!