A market for portables?
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I made a total of 3 laptops, and I sold every one for profit. I am not going to build any more because they were a lot of work and you have to be patient selling them. It was a learning experience and was kinda fun (at times) but was also frustrating. I also built a semi portable Gamecube and N64, but it's hard to make money building small projects.
- Triton
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Re: A market for portables?
in my personal opinion the potential profit margins in building portables are too low to bother with. large investment of time and too small of a payoff to be worth it. for the amount of time you have to invest typically you're lucky if you average out to minimum wage (here its $7.25 hourly). typically in other fields where somebody is doing the kinds of things that go into a portable (design, soldering, case construction moldmaking, circuit design etc) or any other kind of artisan/craftsman type work, those people are charging a MUCH higher hourly rate, typically 25-60$ an hour. for people like Marshall and Ben it would be insulting to pay them the same rate as somebody who flips burgers!
Visit us at Portablesofdoom.org
- Basement_Modder
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Re: A market for portables?
For me, being a broke teenager from a lower-middle class family, I find that any money made off mods is worth it for me. If I like doing it, its not work. Thus, I can be in need of money any time and simply say, "I'll just sell that <??????> I built."
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- Triton
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Re: A market for portables?
yeah, but even as a broke teenager there are a LOT more lucrative things you could do than building and selling portables. say you build a really nice SNES portable, you can probably sell it for 400$, but it costs somewhere between 100-150$ to build and everything goes smoothly, you have no problems and it takes you 40 hours to build it. congrats, you made the equivalent of $6.25 to $7.50 an hour. when i was 18 i got a job working in the meat department of a grocery store @ $8.00 an hour and had 2 raises in 10 months, when i quit i was making $9.25 an hour. even just going to auctions or garagesales can make you money if you know what you're buying
I'n not trying to dissuade anybody from building portables. I'm just saying dont expect to get rich building and selling portables you need to have the kind of resources Ben does with his graphics design knowledge and CNC machining to even be able to maintain a decent profit margin
I'n not trying to dissuade anybody from building portables. I'm just saying dont expect to get rich building and selling portables you need to have the kind of resources Ben does with his graphics design knowledge and CNC machining to even be able to maintain a decent profit margin
Visit us at Portablesofdoom.org
Re: A market for portables?
Right now I have two commissions from the same person and another one that is pending. He wanted a Darth64 replica and a snesp.
What it all comes down to is enjoying the hobby (and I do a lot), so if I can make money on it to build myself some that would be great too!
What it all comes down to is enjoying the hobby (and I do a lot), so if I can make money on it to build myself some that would be great too!
- cennar
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Re: A market for portables?
what ever your doing, what ever you work on it's your time.time = money. unless you sell drugs, but that's a full time job. are any hobbies profitable? I guess any interest could be if you wanted to make one out of it. when i was a kid i sold model air plane kits. balsa wood and a ban saw could do it for an hour a day. could sell tons more than if i built them all. if it's a hobby it's because people want to build it them self's.