chico1st

There are all these DIY projects out there, why dont people make and sell these products... a lot of them are quite nice.

Doohickie

Such as?

I mean, I have no clue what you're talking about.

skijor

Like the stuff on instructables.com I'm assuming. Most people are so accustomed to buying stuff, that to use one's brain and resources around them to reach a goal doesn't even enter the thought process much of the time. Admittedly, myself included. Many of those DIY things don't require mad skills or fancy tools to make either.

chico1st

like this
I guess most are lighting projects, but everyone likes lights... I would put turn signals on my bike if they were cheap.

Sir Lunch-a-lot

I have thought about doing this. Not hard enough to work out the HOW... but I don't think it would be a bad idea, mainly because drivers understand signal light, but I am pretty sure a lot of them have no clue when it comes to hand signals (a few years back when I started riding in the city more often, I went to make a left hand turn. So, I signal a bit in advance, shoulder check, and start to make the turn, and as I do find that the car which had been behind me changed lanes to pass and nearly hit me. The best I could figure is that the driver assumed my signal meant that HE should move over to the left).

Perhaps the reason a lot of things that people custom make/rig up aren't commercially available may be just because there isn't enough demand or awareness. It seems to me that DIY is how some commercial products get started. An innovative idea starts to gain popularity, and then somebody cashes in on it.

Timber_8

Didn't you see Tucker. There are all kinds of roadblocks that just make it unrewarding, Paten infringement, production cost, marketing cost. Then if you dare invent something that will impact the sales of an established corporation then you are asking for big trouble. The bottom line is unless you have some good sponsorship or a lot of capitol to back up your product & are willing to take the risk it simply isn't worth it.

weavers

people with money spend money on quality items with a brand name. people with money that don't spend it, like me, spend hours on ebay trying to find the best deal. even it means saying 86cents vs buying something in the store. the thing about DIY projects is first the overhead cost. you can't buy materials at wholesale prices, not with a one man team, then finding time to put items together then selling inventory. the what about marketing and advertizing. how will people know its a good quality product. if say you made painners for a bike, how will i know they will last for years and years? quality control will be so different form one product to another. what tells me that it won't fall apart on the first ride.

ebay is full of DIY items. things like home made bath gels, soap, and arts/crafts projects and such. bike stuff require more engineering which means higher cost.

skijor

Here's one I bit on...a nice pocket amplifier. The seller will sell the instructions if you want to build it yourself too.

https://cgi.ebay.com/Bass-Boost-cMoy-...item20af9c26a8

travelmama

sweet!

Doohickie

There's also etsy for that kind of stuff.

CliftonGK1

Plenty of people are making their own stuff. For all the reasons listed above, most people aren't selling it; they just make stuff for themselves and a few friends as a hobby.

My own reason for going with big-name company items rather than something homebuilt from Ebay or Etsy: Waranty. Sure, I spent $190 on my SON Edelux lamp. And if something goes wrong with it I can bring it back to the shop for a replacement. Not many home fabricators offer that sort of service.

DallasSoxFan

I've got a "DIY Bill rate" of $40/hr. If I can't save that much money DIY, I don't do it. I have a 4 year old and make a pretty good living. That dollar amount will probably go up next year.

As for lighting, with a MagicShine up front and a radbot 1000 in the rear, combined for about $100, it would be tough to do much better DIY.

ItsJustMe

What, and rob others of the pleasure of making their own?

Cyclaholic

...because if someone buys it instead of building it themselves it wouldn't be DIY any more.

nwmtnbkr

Turn signal projects are cheap, using bright LED strobes. I used 2 sets of good-sized (3.7" x 1.6") amber LED strobes to make my own front and rear turn signals. The two sets together cost less than $14 and shipping was free.


For the controls, I used an inexpensive center-off toggle from Radio Shack that's fitted inside half of a plastic vitamin bottle that I spray painted black and they're zip tied to the handlebars. The project cost under $30.



While I was at it I added brake lights using a water proof, super bright red LED strip. It's wired to micro lever switch that's zip tied to the rear brake cable. The LEDs don't take a lot of power. The turn signals are wired to 1 9V battery. The brake is wired to it's own 9V battery.

Sir Lunch-a-lot

I like it!

HandsomeRyan

I made this for instructables and it is under a creative commons license. If you want to build one you can do it for free. I'd rather advance the sport of cycling in some tiny way than work hard to try to develop a commercial product that may or may not sell.

The instructable has almost 30K page hits and I'm one of the top results for many google searches [internationally and domestically].

https://www.instructables.com/id/Auto...ar-End-Lights/

HandsomeRyan

One example of how turning a hobby into a business can be tough is CETMA racks. They have gone from being the hip front rack to have to being vilified all over the internet by people who paid and waited months or never received their product. From what I understand of the situation the workshop moved and there was a death in the family which led to the upset in order fulfillment but I'm sure that the bad PR already out there has scared off many potential clients.

Pig_Chaser

Let me preface my comment by saying I think your project is wayyyy cool. Having said that, I think your pictures illustrate a great reason why people (myself included) don't make DIY projects to sell. Making bright lights with long runtime and great features is EZ. Finishing it and packaging it such that someone else would actually pay money for it... therein lies the difficulty.

chico1st

I dont understand/see this "micro lever"

nwmtnbkr

The red arrow is pointing to the micro lever switch, which is zip tied to the rear brake cable. When I press the rear brake, the arm of the micro lever switch is depressed, triggering the brake light.

nwmtnbkr

PigChaser,

As a DIYer, I never really give serious thought to trying to market something I make because it's generally something that I want that's not in demand or is too expensive to purchase. (I'll admit, I'm cheap. There are somethings that I can justify spending a lot of money on, then there are others that I'd rather make myself and save money.) If I had an epiphany and developed a product that I though would be popular, I'd seek a patent. Most make money selling a patent rather than manufacturing the product that they patent. You just have to be careful handling trade secret information relating to your patent application, taking reasonable precautions to keep important information confidential.