Some history

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gar

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Location
Ann Arbor, Michigan
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EE
160220-2413 EST

I have copies of possibly 500 different speaches given by W. J. Cameron on Ford Sunday Evening Hour programs in the 1930s. I believe most of these broadcasts were on CBS.

One particular talk was titled "How Much a Pound?", November 15, 1936. I could not find an Internet site to directly access a copy. Cameron was probably Henry Ford's primary philosophical spokesman. On various occasions he gave talks to us at our morning Chapel service.

Excerpts from the above talk --- in 1925 a car cost $.41/#, then in 1937 $0.20/# for a low cost car, beefsteak about $0.30/#, a refrigerator $0.40/#, a piano $0.87/#, a good radio $1.65/# (note that radios were electrical products that were primarily hand assembled at that time, whereas automotive manufacture was highly automated), and a suit of clothes $7.50/#.

In 1906 a car costing $15,000 was possibly 1000# heavier than a Ford in 1936 at $480 with a V-8 engine, and the 1906 car was not comparable in quality or performance. By 1940 a standard Ford had gone up to about $800.

The use of cost per pound is a very interesting way to value products. Today meat, beef, is not much less than $5/# and can easily be upwards of $20/#. A GE RR relay is about $40*3.4 = $136/#, and Fluke test leads $20*5.9 = $118/#. Do your own calculation on today's cars. I am using ballpark memory for GE and Fluke prices. Gold is around $17,000/#.

In doing the Internet search I found the following links and because I don't want to try to find them again they are here, and I will comment later.

http://www.461st.org/B-24_Manual/PDFs/Part 4.pdf just fuses, no breakers.

https://books.google.com/books?id=N... cameron 1936 for sunday evening hour&f=false This is a long book. In a sense this is background for solving ignition system problems that caused early B-24s to have engine failure at high altidude and crash.

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__dan

Senior Member
When buying a used car I had a system. For every $1000 I spent on the purchase price I wanted to drive it 10,000 miles, to get my money out of it. If I thought I could drive the car 100,000 miles, that's a $10,000 car. Tried to maximize price per mile of lifetime. Factored for basic wear items but no major repairs. Have not used that in a long time but I always watch the market for ten year old Lexus's, former garaged, doctor's wife's car.

I met a guy who had a similar system except he used the weight of the car. For every pound the car weighed he had a factor that he was willing to pay. What was the upside? His thinking was a heavier car had better quality and made a better used car. I forget the ratio he told me he used, but he most always ended up driving late model used Cadillacs.
 

infinity

Moderator
Staff member
Location
New Jersey
Occupation
Journeyman Electrician
Seems to me like one of the most expensive products that we use almost daily is printer ink. Can't imagine how much that cost per pound, probably more than blood.:)
 

norcal

Senior Member
Seems to me like one of the most expensive products that we use almost daily is printer ink. Can't imagine how much that cost per pound, probably more than blood.:)

That's where the money is, the lower end printers are cheap they make it up on print cartridges & the older cartridges had larger tanks, compared to newer printers.
 

JFletcher

Senior Member
Location
Williamsburg, VA
Seems to me like one of the most expensive products that we use almost daily is printer ink. Can't imagine how much that cost per pound, probably more than blood.:)

Medicine. My ex gf was on something that cost ~$3/mg. That's over 1.3 million dollars per pound.

Probably costs on the order of millions of dollars to make a few atoms of the upper elements (115+).
 

Fulthrotl

~Autocorrect is My Worst Enema.~
That's where the money is, the lower end printers are cheap they make it up on print cartridges & the older cartridges had larger tanks, compared to newer printers.

it's not just the lower end printers.

i've got a canon ipf6450 that was about $3k.
excellent 24" roll feed plotter.

a full set of large inks is about $1,800.

print heads are expensive enough, as it needs two,
that most people replace the printer with a new one
instead of getting two print heads. the guy who sold
me my printer has about three dozen of the old ones
sitting out back, worthless. he sends them off to
the electronics recycler.
 

junkhound

Senior Member
Location
Renton, WA
Occupation
EE, power electronics specialty
Last year bought a 1995 5460# Land Rover for $400, took a couple of months and $500 in parts to get it running good. Runs great now.

About 16 cents per pound. Good deal.


Put about 200K miles on 71 datsun bought used for $400, maybe $500 in repairs over 20 years, about $90 per 10,000 miles, good deal.

Both kids at birth about 15 pounds total - 20+ years of nurture, plus counting paying for college for them and helping with grandkids school and college, comes to over $50K per pound <G> Best deal ever though, eh ?



PS: Wondered where the numbers for " ...RR relay.....$40*3.4 = $136/#" came from; New RR-8, just now went and weighed, is 4 ounces,
New was $25; 25/.25 = $100/# Is the $40 gar's markup <grin>? Maybe the '3.4' is 1/weight in the box?
 

gar

Senior Member
Location
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Occupation
EE
160222-1007 EST

junkhound:

A GE RR-7 out of the box is 4.1 oz. Just called Allen Electric and their quoted price is 42.66 with 6 in stock. Allen claims their cost is greater than $30.

Used prices on the Internet may get into the high $20, but for new the price is more in the range $37 to $44.

16/4.1 = 3.902 so my 3.4 was off a bit. Using the new figures 42.66*3.902 = $166/#.

Something in the range of $20 to $25 would be a realistic retail price for what is in an RR-7, then they might sell more. That would make wholesale in the range of $12. With automated production there is no reason to belive that the wholesale price would need to be as high as $12. Even though I believe that an SSR relay is less reliable and is a power waster it is never going to be possible to generate a large market for the GE RR at their present price.

A high volume SSR that was approximately functionally equivalent to an RR-7, but at lower current rating, could probably retail at $12, and at a little more cost also be a dimmer.

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ggunn

PE (Electrical), NABCEP certified
Location
Austin, TX, USA
Occupation
Electrical Engineer - Photovoltaic Systems
10 years ago I bought my mom's 1995 Buick from her for $1500. It had 100kmiles and I put another 100kmiles on it. I had a few things to replace over the years - a couple of starters, the harmonic balancer, the idler pulley, the alternator - but for the most part I put gas in it and changed the oil regularly and just drove it. Finally the other day I got stuck in traffic and I did not know that the electric fan wasn't working. It overheated and took out 1st gear in the transmission.

It's sad because I know that the odds are I'll never find another deal like that.
 
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