Good news, bad news from Sparkfun's big UAV push: ArduPilot and Bill Premerlani's autopilot board both sold out in the first week (I think ArduPilot sold out in it's first ten minutes!), as did Dean Goedde's AttoPilot power sensor. All are available to backorder, and I know at least another 15 ArduPilots have already been filled from backorder, with another production run of about 100 about to start. Bill's board is on the production schedule for restocking and Dean has lots more of his current sensor boards on the way to Sparkfun. I expect all inventory issues will have stabilized within a month.
The next round of ArduPilots will have a small tweak on the power regulator that will bring the board voltage closer to 5v (rather than the current 4.3v). This should have no effect on the board itself, but will make it easier to add accessories and other sensor that may be more voltage sensitive than ArduPilot itself.
Try to reverse engineer the business. They were supposed to have around 70 units last week with a 40% markup. 70 * 25 * 0.40 = $700/week profit If every buyer also entered the competition, Sparky should make a 70 * 30 - 300 = $1800 profit. Imagine if governments invested in businesses like diydrones & sparkfun instead of junk mortgages & obsolete cars.
Comments
not to dim your enthusiasm, but large investors need large markets. Large markets with good returns are quite rare.