Failure rates

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Get help, and assist others in with open source kits and running a business! Do not ask for legal advice or for consulting services in this forum, only general biz questions!
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AIResearcher
 
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Dec 28, 2009 8:02 pm

Failure rates

Post by AIResearcher »

OK - I'm planning a kitbiz, mostly making use of other's kits I can acquire and re-sell and adding the value of some custom sketches/programming and some special configurations.

Years back, aside from writing custom software, my little firm purchased new PC components and assembled 'clone' computers. At that time, the failure rate of computers was about 15% because if any one of many components failed, the whole computer would fail.

I'm sure that's much lower with lower heat producing components available today, but I'd like to ask what the approximate failure rate that I should expect from Arduino main boards and Adafruit (or other folk's) kits would be? This answer would help me understand and build an appropriate financial plan.

Thanks in advance, JB

adafruit
 
Posts: 12151
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2006 4:21 pm

Re: Failure rates

Post by adafruit »

AIResearcher wrote:OK - I'm planning a kitbiz, mostly making use of other's kits I can acquire and re-sell and adding the value of some custom sketches/programming and some special configurations. Years back, aside from writing custom software, my little firm purchased new PC components and assembled 'clone' computers. At that time, the failure rate of computers was about 15% because if any one of many components failed, the whole computer would fail. I'm sure that's much lower with lower heat producing components available today, but I'd like to ask what the approximate failure rate that I should expect from Arduino main boards and Adafruit (or other folk's) kits would be? This answer would help me understand and build an appropriate financial plan. Thanks in advance, JB
hi jb, (phil from support here) - since i usually answer the emails and phone calls i'd say maybe 1-2 replacements were needed for adafruit kits over the last few years - so it's statistically zero. we've posted about our orders in the past, over 50,000 orders. we spend extra time, effort and resources to get really good PCBs, we do our best to QA, etc. that said, we do use components, sensors and parts from others including arduinos and xbees - so i've personally replacement less than 10 total - it's really really low. i don't think it's a concern for a financial plan.

with our resellers, if there's a problem - we'll replace the kit directly.

cheers,
adafruit

AIResearcher
 
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Dec 28, 2009 8:02 pm

Re: Failure rates

Post by AIResearcher »

Wow, that's nice to hear, Phil. I expected as much, but that's gratifying. I'll likely add some factor to my plan, just to have it covered. While extremely low failure rates may be the case for those nifty Adafruit designs, I want to ensure I include failures in the overall plan, which will include some parts from other manufacturers, just to be conservative.

- JBW

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