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Just looking on Digikey, the unit price for a 5mm LED is somewhere between 3 and 4 cents. In that price there's distributor markup, transport, supply chain markup, the cost of the components and the cost of labour. I'm not too familiar with the economics of electronic components, but I'd be very surprised if the manufacturer sees more than 30% of the final price.

That would mean the manufacturer would be spending half the cost of the finished product on a single step of the manufacturing process. I'd be surprised if that's economically viable.

those salaries are 10% more than a target employee in california and 60% over a wallmart employee.

so i think the costs per led are even lower...

Like I said, you want to hold onto your employees for more than a week ;-)

I'm stupid. EDIT: I am! Thanks for the corrections!!

The worker makes 80 LEDs per minute.

> We were told they can align over 80 per minute or about 40,000 per day.

Wow that's impressive