One question: are you willing to share a bit more information about your tooling cost, size, and production volumes to get per part costs of $0.30 and $0.90? I’ve talked to many American companies that mold overseas and I’ve been quoted a factor of 10 difference on the same molded and overmolded parts. I’m used to 2X, and maybe even 3X on machined parts, but 10X makes me think I’m totally misunderstanding something. I tried to investigate, but in general found that the companies quoting the lowest rates had absolutely no time whatsoever to answer my ‘tire-kicker’ questions. As such I deemed them too risky for this critical project and moved on, eating the cost.

One comment: I’ve learned more from what I like to call ‘phone safaris’ than I ever have from surfing the web (posts like this notwithstanding), reading books, etc. I find the key is to call up a company and get them excited about what I’m doing. Everyone loves to hear a story from a startup, especially the old and really knowledgeable guy who actually knows how everything works and is dying to share that information. If you find one of these guys you have your own personal expert for 45 minutes.