What're you up to this weekend?

Got to everything but the Opta.  Tended to the family graves.  Chatted with an old Army buddy.  Coached an old friend through some depression.

REALLY glad right now that I didn't get selected for the Opta RoadTest!   Truth.

How did they come out? 

shabaz said:

I've never understood why the light pipes cost so much more than the LEDs themselves!

I'd turn it around. How comes the pixels sell cheaper than the pipes? I think it's based on volume. Pixels are produced in such high volumes, in a competitive market, that it drives the price down.

I asked chatgpt.

"how comes that light pipes for neopixels are more expensive than neopixels themselves?"

In essence, while Neopixels themselves are low-cost due to mass production and simple components, light pipes require specialized materials, precision manufacturing, and are often customized for specific applications, all of which contribute to their higher cost.

There's a longer analysis that I can post if interested.

Typical ChatGPT non-intelligence.

The chip in the neopixel probably uses 40nM geometry, the light guide is a plastic moulding , single homogenous material (acrylic) etc etc.

There's a good video on you tube of a neo pixel factory which shows the parts going through multiple stages of automatic assembly and test.

I suspect that the main issue is that the low volume market for light guides is small. I'm sure they will get pretty cheap if you want enough - but when something cost less than a penny each you need to shift a lot in a day to make a living !

MK

ntewinkel said:

rock picking

...what's that? :D

One is finished.

'expensive', if it occurs outside the jewellers...

groan

cstanton said:

rock picking

...what's that? :D

I'm a redneck in my other life 

The acreage at the cottage has been an ongoing project.
Right now we're clearing and preparing a few more areas for lawn before the rains begin.

This one in the picture will be a grass parking area. So I've been picking up all the bigger rocks out of that area and we've been using them for drainage around the parking area near the house (french drain), as that was a mud bath all winter.

That's a little cart we tow behind our golf cart 

Naomi (aka SuperArtGirl) does it differently... 

(she was moving rocks from a rock pile we created while clearing the other lawn last year)
(and yes, she did dig a trench for the bomb squad! that was the very first thing she ever used her bobcat for!    )

Here's an earlier picture of the parking area by the house. It's nearly done now. The ideal is to have 3/4" drain rock, but this gets the job done and gets rid of all the rocks from the rest of the property. It's extreme overkill for a 2-car parking spot, but Naomi got a little carried away with the excavator while digging the trenches LOL.