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  • Author Author: dougw
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Would you build from a kit?

There have been many great projects published on element14 that were suitable for members to build, but there are very few who actually do. There have always been lots of hobbyists out there who want to build things. I think there are at least 2 or 3 gaps that prevent more uptake of good project builds:

  1. There are large numbers of people that will build from kits, as proven by Ikea. Those customers would not design their own furniture, but they will buy a complete kit and assemble it. Having a complete kit available for purchase is a significant key to better uptake.
  2. Build projects are not presented as DIY how-to instructions like Instructables. It is a whole separate project to turn a build project into a step-by-step build guide. Projects that come close to this on element14 have seen some uptake. For example PIK3A was the most popular build instruction I can remember and quite a few were built by members.
  3. Marketing - of course there are many, many ways to bring awareness and incentivise build participation. element14 does some of this, but this has not been a big focus at element14.

Speaking for myself as a potential builder of someone else's design, I would buy and build a kit if it was a nice design that I would find useful or attractive. If the build project lacks a kit and I wanted to build the idea, I would most likely re-design it my own way, but it would need to be a much more attractive idea due to the time commitment involved. The result is I would be far more likely to build a project if there was a complete kit available for purchase.

The question for this poll is:

Would you be significantly more likely to build a project that was published on element14 if a complete kit of parts and software was available for purchase?

Please list other factors and requirements in the comments below.

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  • A high percentage of my builds have kits as sub assemblies. Most of my builds are purpose and goal driven and I see no reason to reinvent the wheel if there is a satisfactory component or circuit available. I have built a couple kits designed by that were a lot of fun. You are very correct that turning a build into a kit is a lot of work. I have several times taken a simple Chinese Kit with no instructions and written a step by step build guide along with an explanation of its circuit theory and tried to market it on ebay. For the most part this has not been successful and I have never recovered my investment in time in one of these marketing attempts.

     

    https://www.ebay.com/itm/153274714930

     

    John

  • in reply to jw0752

    Internet marketing is tricky business, from what I've seen it takes a lot of knowledge and a lot of work to do it successfully. There is just so much material competing for viewer's attention and there is so much bias in what gets presented during searches, finding a way onto the right viewer's screen is becoming a whole science and it is constantly evolving as people devise new strategies and counter strategies. One way of course is to leverage a popular forum like element14, and some manufacturers are doing just that. Avnet/Newark/Farnell is a distributor, so they win both when manufacturers win and when builds involve component BoMs.

    I'm starting to bias my designs to use BoMs available at Newark just in case element14 figures out a formula to give them exposure.

  • in reply to dougw

    From last millennium's kit producers very few survived. From the ones that started in the new millennium, some that focus on pre-soldered plug-in modules seem to survive.

    The ones that went for only pure 'solder yourself' kits in the Arduino boom are stopping or have announced a change in course..

     

    There are a few examples (Velleman over here seems to survive every storm).

  • in reply to Jan Cumps

    There have been successful kits for many decades. You could include models and even Lego. But you are probably right - it would be rare for a project kit on this forum to be a run-away straight commercial success. It would take time to get the right mix of utility, complexity and marketing etc. However there are lots of other ways to measure success and there is lots of room for different business models between design challenges and commercial kit success to explore.

  • in reply to dougw

    Hi Doug,

    When you come right down to it the target consumer of an electronics kit (like us) is a really tough audience. What product would attract the attention of even a small percentage. Things like bench meters or power supplies are in big demand but if one really needs one the commercially available ones are very good for the money. How many of us believe that even with years of experience we are going to get a commercial quality instrument out of a kit we built ourselves. I love my power supply builds but honestly they do not stack up well against my relatively cheap Mastech commercial supply. We all have the memory of the past kits we have built. I have never built a kit yet that didn't have at least one anomaly that required correction or modification. This is always a good learning experience but when one is looking for a useful functional piece of equipment it can be stressful. Recently I have had a lot of fun with the JYE series of handheld Oscilloscope kits. For the cost they are low risk risk, fun to make, and actually function well in a limited range for experimenters like me. I wish the days of Heath Kit, Eico, and Knight Kit were back because then I would feel like things were back to normal but this is likely just an old guys yearning for younger days.

    John

  • in reply to jw0752

    All good points John. But we keep buying and building kits because we get something from it.

    Sometimes the build result has a short useful life before interest wanes, but I also have a few project builds that I use multiple times every day. Other things end up on display or in a rogue's gallery or only get pulled out when a demo is called for. These builds all have value - there is a lot of store-bought stuff I will throw away before I throw away something I built. And if I designed it, throwing it away is sacrilege.

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  • in reply to jw0752

    All good points John. But we keep buying and building kits because we get something from it.

    Sometimes the build result has a short useful life before interest wanes, but I also have a few project builds that I use multiple times every day. Other things end up on display or in a rogue's gallery or only get pulled out when a demo is called for. These builds all have value - there is a lot of store-bought stuff I will throw away before I throw away something I built. And if I designed it, throwing it away is sacrilege.

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