Smart strings from the USA

[paul58]

I think it was mentioned some while back about the possibility of maybe having a U.S. distributer for purchasing Smart Strings. I was just curious if this was still an idea that might come to be sometime.??
Paul

[johno123]

Yup, I'm waiting as well.  I'm about to pull the trigger on a large order with Ray, but I'm curious about a state-side vendor, OR if there is going to be any breakthroughs in string design this spring.

-John-o

[zwiller]

I find it hard to imagine a vendor who will do more than just buy from Ray, mark it up, and sell stateside.  Our hobby really isn't going drive the cost down in the quantity department. 

If you're mainly concerned about the shipping prices you should ask him for a quote.  Much better than the combined shipping in the cart!

[Jeffl]

I wonder if this is what Ray is actually doing behind the scenes.  Just reselling. 

I thought I read somewhere that in order to distribute them in the states you had to be licensed through the chip manufacturer.  Beings Ray is not in the US he can do whatever he wants or the Chinese law allows.  Selling in the states would probably jack the price up as you see with LOR.

[johno123]

Makes sense - I wasn't too worried about shipping, I guess I was more interested in a different set of products that just so happened to be compatible with our controllers, or more robust wiring, or different styles....

[Steve Gase]

I would think a local reseller would be reluctant to take on the risks that come with smart strings due to quality issues that he can't control.  If there were many manufacturers you could play them off against each other to get a better product.  But a local reseller would be asked all the time to replace bad nodes, to address complaints with the quality, etc.  A local vendor could take on those risk factors, but he'd need to add enough extra money in everyone's purchase to handle the occasional problems. 

Besides the cost of handling quality problems, the local vendor needs to add one additional shipping stop to your final cost.

You might be better off to seek out other people in your area, and go in together for larger purchase that spreads out some of those shipping costs from China.

In my case, I thought that the extra trouble and delays made it easier for me to just deal with Ray directly.  I save the extra costs from the middleman too.

[chrisatpsu]

a factory makes them. Ray gets them from him, and then sells on Aliexpress to whoever wants them.
He's sort of a middle man, but there's more risks when dealing with a factory, as they generally don't sell on the express side, and expect you to purchase in larger quantities. (like add on a zero or three onto what you normally would order.)

I feel at the moment the safest bet would be to stick with Ray. just think, that first factory could be selling those nodes they made originally through other people and they might even be the same quality. If you find them through someone else, you most likely will get the IP67 knid, and the headaches that we started off with.

[rwave]

Interesting topic.

As one who is just starting out and planning to use RGB smart strings exclusively, I too am interested in:

1.  Reliability (anything better than IP68?)
2.  Lower product cost (anything better than Ray?)
3.  Lower shipping cost (anything better than Ray?)
4.  Better product (anything newer planned in 2012?)

Does anyone (with a working crystal ball) have any thoughts on where RGB SS technology should be in the next couple of years?

  (editied by RJ) 
It sounds unlikely there will be a US distributer/reseller.

Inquiring minds want to know!   

Richard