Comment by pipe01

2 hours ago

The key's circuit by itself is probably a few tens of cents, I can't imagine the rest of it being that expensive

2 comments

pipe01

OP confirms $6: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50239398

For reference, my heuristic for circuit price estimation is

    - passives and little SMT things are free
    - anything electromechanical ~$1: switches, connectors, in this case the pogo pins
    - fancy connectors up to $10 (ZIF sockets, RAM sockets, etc)
    - normal ICs $1
    - BGA or fancier ICs: check digikey or guess $10-$100
    - board area is "free" for small boards (up to hand-sized)

podocarp 29 minutes ago

Is that for a certain order size? Because a lot of the cost can come simply from retooling or swapping components. Like if you have 100 x1 smt components vs 1x 100 smt components it's a huge different if you get what I mean. Also anything through hole I basically just give up getting assembled as a hobbyist.