[gcormier]

Part of the costs is that I do assemble these by hand! My right arm is the pick and place machine.

I try to do batches of 25 at once, as any more and I want to smash something. I have an SMT stencil for all the SMT parts, and then put them in the oven.

The pin header is through-hole (will be stronger then SMT header) so it's done by hand.

Then going over everything with a loupe to look for solder paste that hasn't flowed or other issues, programming each one, and then verifying the functionality of each one on my own desk (see the video of the testing process).

All in all, quite a bit of my time, and not yet factored in is the entire logistics (storefront, shipping, customer support)

Unfortunately as it's a small operation, I also can't afford to buy these parts in what would be considered a big quantity - so I'm still paying fairly high costs. The jellybean capacitors and resistors I can order in real bulk (500), but the IC's and voltage regulators are name brand from DigiKey.

[tgsovlerkhgsel]

Are these too small amounts to order fully finished products from somewhere with a pick-n-place machine, or is there another reason why that isn't something you're doing?