How do they do it?

[ge_rik]

Ten DF Mini MP3 player modules for 47p!!! - Mind you it will cost all of £1.69 to ship them from China!

DF mini Ali Express.png (701.15 KiB) Viewed 3858 times

Rik

[drewzero1]

It's always hard to tell the exact quantity (AliExpress?) but it looks like that might be the price for one (Color:1pcs). When I select the 10pcs "color" it's a bit more like $7... though it's impressive either way. From what I can figure on the BOM I'd expect they cost around 10-20 cents each to produce at scale, with almost all of that going toward the controller chip, the amplifier chip, and the SD card socket. I'll have to look into those if I start getting into sound!

Screenshot_2023-08-27_09-46-26.png (212.13 KiB) Viewed 3838 times

[Phil.P]

Quite often they surprise you.. - Lost in translation?
One piece of ten items.

Phil.P

[ge_rik]

Yes - deliberately misleading - but even at that price it's far cheaper than we could make them from scratch.

Rik
PS - The cost per item is more for ten than for one.... Presumably, the income for that comes from the postal costs.....

[philipy]

PS - The cost per item is more for ten than for one.... Presumably, the income for that comes from the postal costs.....

I don't know if it is still the case, but a few years back the Chinese government subsidised the postal costs for these small exporters which is why the post costs always seem so low as to be impossible.

[drewzero1]

Yes - deliberately misleading - but even at that price it's far cheaper than we could make them from scratch.

Rik
PS - The cost per item is more for ten than for one.... Presumably, the income for that comes from the postal costs.....

I looked up the number on the sound chip shown in the picture and found a clearance listing mentioning that there's a better chip out there for the application, so maybe they're also keeping this one low to be able to keep selling it? I've heard some interesting things about the way manufacturing works in China (especially shenanigans like ghost shift counterfeiting) but I'm not exactly sure what's at play here, and China Post ePacket shipping almost certainly has something to do with the price as well.

[-steves-]

PS - The cost per item is more for ten than for one.... Presumably, the income for that comes from the postal costs.....

I don't know if it is still the case, but a few years back the Chinese government subsidised the postal costs for these small exporters which is why the post costs always seem so low as to be impossible.

To the best of my knowledge, which could be wrong, China pays for all post being exported but charges for local post. This is why businesses there can sell and send items for pence abroad as there is no charge for outbound mail. It is a worldwide thing that the receiving country has to bear the cost for all inbound mail once it's in their country. So for China, who impost little and export loads, it's a very cost effective postal system. Any Chinese business that charge posting items to the UK are simply just making more money out of you as there is no cost to them.

As I say, this may be wrong, but it is what I was lead to believe buy someone I worked with who was from Hong Kong.

[philipy]

Following on from this thread of a few months ago, I recently came across this Youtube video which compares many of the currently available audio modules, including the DF player, and also talks about clones and counterfeits which may or may not work as the original.

Its quite a long video but interesting, and at about 29mins in, it explains the quirks of the file system they use and may well help those who have struggled to get tracks to play in the right order.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8obcTTYtjQM