[TowerTalk] Yaesu G-2800 rotor pricing question

[jimlux]

On 3/2/20 5:01 PM, chuck.gooden wrote:
> If I were to purchase a used rotor o would want to have it 
> reconditioned.  So the cost for the rotor plus the cost of recondition 
> would still have to be less than the cost of a new one by some factor.
> 
That's an excellent point.


> Chuck K9LC
> 
> -------- Original message --------
> From: jimlux <jimlux at earthlink.net>
> Date: 3/2/20 6:38 PM (GMT-06:00)
> To: towertalk at contesting.com
> Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Yaesu G-2800 rotor pricing question
> 
> On 3/2/20 3:17 PM, Jim Froemke wrote:
>  > I’ve asked before but, here we go again.
>  > I’ve two rotors from an estate and I’m confused as to how to price 
> them for
>  > sale.
> 
> Certainly no more than half the new price.
> Think of these in terms of:
> 1) what was the original warranty (I assume you're selling as-is)
> 2) What is the design life?  What's the wear out component and how much
> of its life is left?
> 
> This is kind of tricky - there are plenty of electric motors out there
> that are 100 years old and still working - but that doesn't mean that
> they were designed to last that long - you might have gotten lucky, or
> the loads were low, etc.
> 
> In the case of used gear you don't really know the history - sure, the
> ham selling it to you (if alive) will say that it was never abused, but
> oh yeah, there was that wind storm 10 years ago which bent a bunch of
> the elements on his antenna. Nobody has *real* usage data (like you
> would with a regularly monitored mechanical system).
> 
> I would think that the wear out parts are things like bearings, seals,
> feedback pots, etc. What affects its wearout? temperature, ice, water,
> mechanical loads. These are all hard to estimate. It's not like a car
> engine, where you've got X hours of running at Y RPM, against a rated
> bearing life of Z hours.
> 
> I would assume, without other information, that the useful life of
> something like this is 10-15 years - I can't imagine a company
> *designing* for a 20 year life for a piece of consumer gear. Therefore,
> the 15 year old one is basically at "scrap value" - what are the parts
> inside worth if someone wanted to use it to fix something else, or if
> they were going to sell it as scrap metal. If someone happened to need
> the control box, or the connectors on the cables, it might be worth a
> bit more *to that one person*.
> 
> The 2 year old one that's been outside, but not operated? A lot would
> depend on the environment, and what the seals are like. It's probably
> not "worn out", but if something sits, unmoving, through rain, ice, sun
> beating on it, etc., it might have developed leaks, or the elastomers
> have gotten stiff.
> 
> It's not under warranty. Maybe half the new price if *everything* is
> like new and there's no obvious damage.
> 
> At some point, too, you've got to decide if shipping 40-50 lbs is worth
> it.  Shipping UPS for something that size is about $75-80 depending on
> where it's going.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>    There are few if any recent examples on the usual swap forums and I’d
>  > like to sell them locally (they’re very heavy).
>  >
>  > - The first is a used G-2800 SDX rotor and controller. Nothing 
> special other
>  > than its fully functional with all parts included. It had been 
> mounted on a
>  > tower for 15 years rotating a VHF stack (6, 2, 1.25 and 0.7-meter yagis).
>  >
>  > - The second is a relatively new (1 ½ years old) G-2800 DXA rotor,
>  > controller and tower shock absolver. The controller has the optional
>  > remote-control interface installed. It had been mounted on the tower but,
>  > the owner passed away before the full VHF array could be assembled. It’s
>  > also fully functional with all parts included.
>  >