If I was the owner, what would I do?

[lutach]

Originally Posted by johnrobholmes

I would develop a few more RC car products, higher voltage mostly. Then I would get into electric scooter/motorcycle power systems. They could be built just as fast as 49CC scooters, but with much better lifespan and cost/mile

Awesome. I was going tobuild a HV electric go kart, but the companies that were going to supply me with the brushless motor and ESC backed out. I was only going for 44kW and 70 N.m. and it spins at 24000rpm max. I think the only kart that could keep up would be the motorcycle powered beast seen in youtube.

[lutach]

Originally Posted by Five-oh-joe

Doesn't castle have a stake in military stuff somewhat? I coulda swore they built some heavy duty controllers for military electric motor applications or something. Maybe I'm thinking Medusa though.

Anyways, if I owned CC, I would take an approach not unlike azjc's. Becoming the Traxxas of the ESC industry would mean tons of money, and more money means more potential to expand into other ventures. So once the company because something of that caliber, I would expand into Electric Vehicle controllers (1:1) and induction motors (1:1). I'd also continue to keep producing new and great stuff for RC cars, boats, and planes, and also possibly venture into some battery technology if possible.

You might be thinking of Aveox. Now would be a great time for them to make a comeback. I think Castle had more sales then Traxxas did in 2007 so they aren't as small as we think. New and great stuff is what I'm looking for. Great ideas.

[lutach]

Originally Posted by Pdelcast

If I was the owner, I'd spend a LOT MORE TIME in Jamaica.

When you want to go to Brasil, let me know. I could be a great translater for you .

Originally Posted by lutach

Also good, but one can learn from the Euro giants. They will use one PCB, but with different components for a higher voltage controller. Wan to see a good example: http://www.schulze-elektronik-gmbh.de/fut-val-e.htm. Scroll down and you will see the last 2 pictures. One is with the BEC (More components) and the other is Opto (Less components). The Opto will use higher voltage MOSFETs and they do cost more if you buy from catalogue distributors, but for me it doesn't make a difference, I get them cheap. One example is the NXP MOSFET I got for my controller, it was being sold at DigiKey for $1.50 each and I bought them for $0.45 each and I could've gotten them cheaper, but I only found one Reel. I know companies have big overheads, but lets leave that to the side for a little bit as it contributes to the price of a product much more than the components used.

Graphics card companies (ATI and Nvidia) tend to do the same thing. There's only I think three different boards/basic designs for the 8 series Nvidia cards, but there's the 8400, 8500, 8600, 8700, and the 8800, and then all of their variants (GS, GT, GTS, GTX, Ultra, etc.). So you're looking at at least 10 different cards from three basic platforms. All they do is either lock some pipelines, change the GPU, the Vram varies from card to card, and maybe a few other tweaks like bios. Other than that, you can unlock something like say even a 7200 up to a 7400 spec (sometimes...).

It's a good business practice, and it helps tremendously in cutting down on cost for different product lines. The only down side is that for graphics cards, sometimes people figure out how to get a new bios on the card, unlock some pipelines, or whatever, and so they essentially have a card that sells for at least 50 bucks more for free. ESCs are probably harder to do that with though...

[Pdelcast]

Originally Posted by lutach

You might be thinking of Aveox. Now would be a great time for them to make a comeback. I think Castle had more sales then Traxxas did in 2007 so they aren't as small as we think. New and great stuff is what I'm looking for. Great ideas.

I don't know if we had more sales than Traxxas -- just don't know how much Traxxas did.

Between our Industrial, Hobby, and Military controllers we build between 20,000 and 30,000 controllers a month. Hobby is about 85% of our business (but industrial and military are growing.)

My biggest issue is getting time to work on hobby controllers and projects -- too much other stuff always taking my time...

[lutach]

Originally Posted by Pdelcast

You do know that Castle is bigger than Schultze and Kontronic combined right?

Patrick

Yes, $7 million in sales for 2007 is not bad. I'm sure that number might be off, but it was just a quick search I did. I just can't stop scratching my head and seeing the Europeans having some HV fun with their cars. I know the airplane and boat market are big, but I see many more vehicles being sold a LHS than I do planes. My LHS for example (Xtreme RC Addicts) mainly deals with cars. They have a nice indoor track and it would be great for Castle to have a little gathering there.

[lutach]

Originally Posted by Pdelcast

I don't know if we had more sales than Traxxas -- just don't know how much Traxxas did.

Between our Industrial, Hobby, and Military controllers we build between 20,000 and 30,000 controllers a month. Hobby is about 85% of our business (but industrial and military are growing.)

My biggest issue is getting time to work on hobby controllers and projects -- too much other stuff always taking my time...

Traxxas had $3.5mil in sales for 2007 and Castle had $7mil. and that not bad at all. I know how it is. I'm not making much money now because my time is mostly for my daughter. I just started this to geather ideas and see what people would do. It's been a dream of my, but I'm not an engineer so I'll keep dreaming. Your company sure beats the hell out of Schulze when it comes to service and customer support.

[Pdelcast]

Also, pretty much everyone reuses PCBs. The power board that was originally designed for the Phoenix-80 is also used for the Phoenix-60, Phx-125, Phx-180, Phx-45HV, Phx-85HV, Phx-110HV, Phx-160HV, Hydra-120, 240, 60HV, 120HV, 180HV, 240HV, etc.

That board is a 6oz / layer, 6 layer board -- for approx .060" copper -- VERY EXPENSIVE circuit board. The next heaviest board I've seen in the industry uses 3oz copper, eight layers -- 24oz vrs 36oz for our power board.

[Pdelcast]

Originally Posted by lutach

Traxxas had $3.5mil in sales for 2007 and Castle had $7mil. and that not bad at all.

Hmmmmm... how do you know that?

[lutach]

Originally Posted by Pdelcast

Hmmmmm... how do you know that?

I was a stock broker and I learned a few things here and there about getting some info. Sometimes they are not accurate, but they are close.

[Pdelcast]

Originally Posted by lutach

I was a stock broker and I learned a few things here and there about getting some info. Sometimes they are not accurate, but they are close.

Yeah, that number is low -- but not that far off. . .

Originally Posted by Pdelcast

I don't know if we had more sales than Traxxas -- just don't know how much Traxxas did.

Between our Industrial, Hobby, and Military controllers we build between 20,000 and 30,000 controllers a month. Hobby is about 85% of our business (but industrial and military are growing.)

My biggest issue is getting time to work on hobby controllers and projects -- too much other stuff always taking my time...

I win!!! I win!!!



Patrick, why go to Jamaica when you got that cute little Lotus you can drive all over the place? C'mon....that's GOTTA be a fun little car! (I dare you to throw a supercharger or turbo on it.....)

And DAMN. You had double the amount of sales as Traxxas did if Lutach's numbers are even somewhat close! Whew! Looks like I should take that part out of my post now huh? Haha!

So Patrick; ever thought about getting into the Electric Vehicle market? I bet you could make a pretty kickass controller for the next gen Tesla Roadster eh?

[lutach]

Originally Posted by Pdelcast

Also, pretty much everyone reuses PCBs. The power board that was originally designed for the Phoenix-80 is also used for the Phoenix-60, Phx-125, Phx-180, Phx-45HV, Phx-85HV, Phx-110HV, Phx-160HV, Hydra-120, 240, 60HV, 120HV, 180HV, 240HV, etc.

That board is a 6oz / layer, 6 layer board -- for approx .060" copper -- VERY EXPENSIVE circuit board. The next heaviest board I've seen in the industry uses 3oz copper, eight layers -- 24oz vrs 36oz for our power board.

Patrick, help me understand one thing. You have mentioned the the hardware from the controllers mentioned above are not compatible with the Mamba software right? Please explain to me in terms that a non engineer guy can understand? I see other companies transform their aircraft controllers into car controllers and I would love to get my HV110 and possibly a SHV with a car software, not the Mamba, but something simple that would allow me to use a pistol radio and be able to use a car brake as I don't have many cars with mechanical brakes. I always thought it was just as simple as changing the software.

[Pdelcast]

Originally Posted by lutach

Patrick, help me understand one thing. You have mentioned the the hardware from the controllers mentioned above are not compatible with the Mamba software right? Please explain to me in terms that a non engineer guy can understand? I see other companies transform their aircraft controllers into car controllers and I would love to get my HV110 and possibly a SHV with a car software, not the Mamba, but something simple that would allow me to use a pistol radio and be able to use a car brake as I don't have many cars with mechanical brakes. I always thought it was just as simple as changing the software.

Well, it's the hardware on the control board that isn't compatible with the car software.

I designed the airplane controllers before the car controllers, and the car controller have some SERIOUS advancements over the airplane controllers in the sensitivity of the back-EMF circuit. (there is a patent on it too -- just got finalized.) http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2007/0029956.html

So the car software just won't work on the airplane hardware -- different type of back-EMF sensing.

To run car software on the airplane power boards, I'd have to design a new control board for them.

But airplane power boards are really designed for airplanes - - not for the types of loads that cars put on a controller -- our car controllers ALSO use very heavy copper (6/6 on the MM, 6/6 + 4/3 on the MMM) but are designed to handle short term overload currents better than the airplane controllers. The MMM has the same number of FETs as the Phx-80, but handles over double the surge current and over double the continuous current. Part of that difference is the fan/heatsink, but the majority is the copper layout and current path copper total. The Phx-80 was designed to be light weight and compact, the MMM was designed to handle serious current surge and power.

[Pdelcast]

Originally Posted by Five-oh-joe

I win!!! I win!!!



Patrick, why go to Jamaica when you got that cute little Lotus you can drive all over the place? C'mon....that's GOTTA be a fun little car! (I dare you to throw a supercharger or turbo on it.....)

And DAMN. You had double the amount of sales as Traxxas did if Lutach's numbers are even somewhat close! Whew! Looks like I should take that part out of my post now huh? Haha!

So Patrick; ever thought about getting into the Electric Vehicle market? I bet you could make a pretty kickass controller for the next gen Tesla Roadster eh?

Dude, I live in Kansas --- I don't think there is a curvy piece of road to drive my Lotus on in the entire state. It's sad, but I haven't had the Lotus out since March... :*(

We've been looking at the EV market very closely. There is a lot of potential there. :)