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Comment by bad_haircut72 | Hacker News Reader

The opportunity for the west is that an engineer with todays resources can work on building [1] for $5-10k and get into the DC motor business from your shed. Im working on this myself right now, I want to try and start an autonomous manufacturing company here in Australia, maybe I'll start with motors. I predict once the war is over, Ukraine will become a robotics & manufacturing powerhouse because they've already got this model working

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Are you winding something in an incredibly specialized kV / wattage / torque or something? DC motors are incredibly inexpensive, how could a hobbyist sell them?

The problems with Australia are:

1. The terrible quality of the locally manufactured items. I am in Sydney and will absolutely not buy anything marked Made In Australia. I have been burnt too many times.

2. The nearly 100% mortality rate among the companies.

Companies survive longer when you buy from them

> you

No, that is only one customer. There need to be lots of customers for a company to survive. So, ideally you recommend, based on good quality.

You take a bit of a gamble if you need warranty or customer service later on.

Some sort of network effect again, I suppose. There's a better term that's can't find now.

People tend to buy from companies with reasonable quality products.

Australian made products unfortunately do not pass that initial hurdle..

Rotorlab (rotorlab.com.au) are or were doing this in Australia. They had a couple of posts about their machinery: a winding machine, CNC mill, etc. I believe they were bought out pretty quickly by a US company. Can't recall who though.

The only problem with PM motors is magnets. Everything else is trivial.

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