Bob - Installation and support equipment costs? These can run fairly high, especially if you're installing a spray coater in an area with stringent atmospheric discharge controls. Don't overlook the cost of cleaning up your compressed air supply and maintaining its purity (and dryness) at the machine. (Most machines will run off of dry N2 as an alternate to air.) To keep the machine in tip top shape, the routine cleaning and maintenance will be an ongoing cost, as well as supplies, such as kraft paper for the conveyor, filter elements, etc. This is true of the spray process and the robotic curtain coating process. The robotic systems will require a programming cost for each design you deal with. I have found that masking costs usually run higher than coating application costs, so you may want to consider masking boots, etc., if this is a spray process. Good luck - Kelly -----Original Message----- From: Bob Sechriest <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> Date: Wednesday, December 15, 1999 10:52 AM Subject: [TN] econ 101 for engineers Need some very basic advise on cost calculations for equipment purchace Trying to justify the purchace of a conformal coating machine for several of our PCB assemblies. We have been performing the operation manually at a cost of $10 per board less than that quoted by our board builder. My estimate is that by automating we can reduce the price per board another $2 below the quote. So for a $50000 machine, we can recover our investment by producing (50000/12) = 4167 boards. This gives a payback in <18months. Sounds great! also sounds too easy. Am I missing something? Thanks in advance!!!!!!!!! Bob ############################################################## TechNet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c ############################################################## To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the body: To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TECHNET <your full name> To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TECHNET ############################################################## Please visit IPC web site (http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm) for additional information. If you need assistance - contact Gayatri Sardeshpande at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5365 ############################################################## ############################################################## TechNet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c ############################################################## To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the body: To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TECHNET <your full name> To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TECHNET ############################################################## Please visit IPC web site (http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm) for additional information. If you need assistance - contact Gayatri Sardeshpande at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5365 ##############################################################