I remember when I used to add up the cost of components in an #OpenSource #hardwsre project and compare them to the cost of the assembled hardware and think "Gee, that seems like a lot of markup!"

Now that I've seen how much money goes into #development, purely in parts alone, I have a very different perspective.

Now I see the costs, and the value of the creator's time. Plus I know that only a small handful of devices are likely top ever be sold because, well lets face it: open source hardware creators are rarely both good at and interested in running #marketing campaigns.

My current project is a high quality #LoRa #solar node, which I'm going to use to run #meshtastic (and possibly run #reticulum on the other node). But this issue of cost applies to #Signet, the active USB->PS/2 HID adapter, and all the other #OpenHardware projects I've been involved in.

If I could earn even just an average of $15/hr developing open source hardware (electronics and CAD models), I would make so much cool shit! And the first step of every project would be the same: try to find some project that has already done this (or something close) so I can contribute to their project! I don't want to splinter the community's efforts, nor reinvent the wheel.