MAKE Magazine founder Dale Dougherty just posted on his visit to the 3D Robotics/uDrones factory in Tijuana. He also spoke at the Tijuana Innovadora conference that I'll be speaking at tomorrow. Other speaker today included Jason Short, one of the core ArduCopter devlopers, and Mark Hatch, CEO of TechShop.
Hit the link above for the whole post, but here are some pictures from it. Above: ArduCopter quads (top) and hexa (bottom) ready for shipping.
TJ operations direction Guillermo ("Gigio") Romero (center) and some of the production team
Jason Short checks out his new black APM 2.5 board!
Special black APM2.5 boards (signifies that it was made on the new 3DR pick-and-place line in TJ)
Comments
Jack: Actually, TJ is a special NAFTA economic zone, which means we can ship Fedex/San Diego via a bonded warehouse, without going through US customs. It adds less than a day to shipping, and we get US rates/quality.
Jack, I'm not an expert in commercial border crossing. But I have been across that border a number of times, and you'll notice a separate line to the East for commercial vehicles.
Commercial Detail
There are also a TON of trains that regularly cross that border. San Ysidro is a CRAZY crossing, but getting commercial shipments across it via ground really isn't an issue. We used to ship tools up from Hermosillo all the time. Different port of entry, but similar issues.
The longest waits I've seen are actually heading South to Ensenada for the Baja 1000. Brutal.
There's a number of reasons companies decide to manufacture and ship things in MX. The cost and time of shipping things North generally doesn't outweigh the advantages.
Just my .02 from experience...
JC
Not the 1st time the backlog of cars returning to US was discovered.
Logistically, something made in Mexico can't be driven across the border in a reasonable amount of time. You have to ship everything via air mail or have a very long lead time.
Interesting attempt to explain why there wasn't a maker movement in Mexico without being too negative. Education is so good in Mexico & they have so much spending money, you'd think they would have more hobbies.
I was able to source some of those legs, not sure they are the same but these are really nice.
http://www.canadadrones.com/Full-Carbon-fiber-High-rise-legs-18-5-c...
Dany
Are those new legs on the hexa?