hafenbahnhof hat geschrieben: So 18. Mai 2025, 17:11
Taking the price for your decoder for the Schienenbussteuerwagen VS 98 at Zscalemonster.com which is around 100 Euro there (113,05 $ or 101,25 € today) five times for 5 Cars plus additional 113,05 $ for the Motor Car decoder (VT 98), we got around 600 € only for the decoders. Additional Mehrwertsteuer of 19% ist then 714 € altogether only for decoders. 714 € or 1000 € is for me the same, it's too much!
Of course, it doesn't make sense to imagine the price of the product that doesn't exist yet based on the prices of other similar products due to a big number of reasons:
1. Each particular decoder requires different amount of materials and workmanship - these ones directly influence on the end price. The digital decoder for VT/VS98 railbus is a very complex development that utilizes the current technology at its very edge. Also, don't forget about the following: a) VT/VS 98 decoder comes with two additional circuit boards with headlights/tail lights, a set of pre-soldered cables and other accessories; b) The decoder also features integrated energy storage module based on expensive Tantalum Polymer capacitors. These factors also make the price of this particular decoder higher. Or does anyone expect that I will make these additional light circuit boards and energy storage modules just for free?
2. The prices at Zscalemonster.com, of course, include American tax and seller's interest. If you buy these decoders in Europe locally, then mentioned overhead costs will be omitted. Of course, it's your choice to buy them from the US dealers, but then it is not reasonable to put overhead costs connected with this as a disadvantage of the product. Of course, I expect the question why many decoders aren't available through dealers in Europe. Here is an answer: many of these decoders require high level of experience (especially in soldering) for the installation and also a good equipment. Since not all customers are professionals, many of them prefer to let me install the digital decoders. Unfortunately, the installation service cannot be offered through dealers. Why don't I have my own website? Because I have only two hands, only a pair of eyes and, unfortunately, only 24 hours in a day, and on the top of that - tons of other everyday duties. If you want to see my own website - you will see it, but it will be empty because then I won't have enough time for anything else.
3. And finally, the most important point that it is always makes sense to keep in mind: Please never compare small manufacturers to the big ones with mass products. Small series products will always be more expensive that the mass products. In order to let you see the price of at least 50 Euro for an average decoder that would probably be acceptable to you, I must produce at least 100 times more decoders than I actually do! It means that I must produce around 10 000 - 20 000 decoders to be able to offer the prices that would be comparable to the prices of the big manufacturers. But it is, of course, impossible solely in Z scale market. This is, by the way, the reason why no one of the big manufacturers of the digital equipment is interested in developing any products dedicated only to Z scale. And also for your information, even the number of 10 000 is not really interesting to the big manufacturers - if they expect to sell "only" 10 000 pieces, they even doubt if it makes sense for them to make such a product at all.
Believe me, you will never see any digital decoder like I made for VT/VS 98 from Doehler & Haass, ESU or others - it is just not interesting to them at all. Thus, such products will either exist only from the small manufacturers for higher prices or will never exist at all.
Another good thing to know: There is such thing as development costs. Let's assume that the development of some digital decoder costs 1000 Euro (actually, it often costs even higher in case if the project is more complex). I have to cover the development costs by adding their price to the final price of the digital decoder. If I would produce 10 000 pieces of such a decoder, then the price of the development costs will be divided by 10 000, which means that I must add only 10 cents to the price of each decoder in order to cover the development costs. But if I sell, say, only 100 copies of this decoder, then in means that I must add 10 Euro to the price. Do you see the difference?
Another important point is the prices of electronic components that change drastically depending on quantity. Do you know that, for example, a single Tantalum Polymer capacitor I use in my energy storage modules costs roundly 4 Euro if I buy 100 pieces, but it will cost twice less - 2 Euro in case if I buy 10 000? The same relates to any other component. But, unfortunately, I cannot purchase 10 000 capacitors just because I don't have such money and I don't produce so many decoders like big manufacturers do!
Also, please don't forget about such thing as the preparation of production process. It includes producing the set of stencils for applying the soldering paste (you must add around 50-70 Euro for this), programming the pick & place machine in case if the digital decoder will be assembled automatically, and so on, and so on... No one ever thinks about all these details, but instead many people just wonder why this particular product costs too much when, for example, "big manufacturer X sells their decoders for 2-3 times less price around the corner".
One more thing to remember: In most cases, I must buy the model in order to develop the digital decoder for it, even if it doesn't fit into my own collection. I consider these expenses as development costs as well.
And the final word: When I was in Ukraine, I was selling the digital sound kit for complete 8-car ICE 3 train set for 480 Euro. The kit consisted of 8 circuit boards (each of them, in turn, also featured such additional parts as 8x brass nickel plated support pylons which I produced on CNC machine at my colleagues and for which (surprise!) I paid my own money, too!), ESU LokSound 5 sound decoder (its own price is 100 Euro), integrated loudspeaker, integrated energy storage module in each of the circuit boards. 480 € for 8 circuit boards is not even close to your calculated 714 € for 6 circuit boards.
Best regards,
Alex
