Last week Brad and I sat down in the small meeting room upstairs and looked at the numbers from our Australia mining customers. They keep asking for taller stuff. Our current tripod tops out around 2.4m and on open-pit sites thats just not enough light spread.
So the plan now is to build a heavy-duty version, telescoping up to 5m. We been talking to a supplier in Shenzhen who does telescoping poles for survey equipment, they have aluminum sections that can hold the weight of our 400W LED head. Henry went up there in May to look at samples. The sections feel solid, the lock collars need work.
The hard part is the base. A 5m mast loaded with a heavy fixture catches wind bad. We are looking at a wider footprint, maybe 1.8m spread, with sand-bag anchor points. One of our older customers in Perth said he would test the prototype on a iron ore site if we ship by September.
Brad pushed back a little on the price. He thinks if we land above $480 USD FOB the mining buyers will balk. Our cost estimate right now sits near $320 if we hit 200 unit batches, so theres room but not a lot. The Shenzhen pole guy wants MOQ 100 which scares me at the start.
I also need to think about freight. A 5m mast knocked down still goes in a long carton, maybe 1.6m. Sea freight ok but air samples will hurt. We had a air sample run to Sydney last year that cost more than the unit.
Henry is drafting the spec sheet this week. We plan to show a working prototype to the Sydney contractor in July. If they like it I think we can get 80-120 units committed for Q4. Thats the kind of order that pays for the tooling on the new base plate.
Lot of unknowns still. But mining is where the money is and our current line cant chase it.
