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WHY WE USE A PYRAMID POWER
SUPPLY.
For openers, we provide one
of several power supplies depending on the system. Currently, our most popular
model is a 30 amp system that is rapidly replacing our line of PYRAMID Power
Supplies. However, we carry replacement Pyramid Power Supplies IN-STOCK for our
customers who have the PYRAMID Power Supplies and need Warranty Replacement.
So, the title of this page
should be "WHY WE USED A PYRAMID POWER SUPPLY.
What applied to Pyramid
applies to the new vendor so it is essentially the same concept.
PYRAMID offers 14 different
POWER SUPPLIES we know about. PYRAMID is a well known company who provides POWER
SUPPLIES as well as a broad based number of consumer AUDIO COMPONENTS. While the
large (or small) size of any company does not mean it will remain in business,
it seems as if PYRAMID will be able to serve the dealers who sell their products
for a long time. We can purchase the PYRAMID Power Supplies 1 at a time, 5 at a
time, 10 at a time, 25 at a time, or how ever many we need, whenever we need
them, right "off the shelf" of the PYRAMID Distributor.
That is clearly the GOOD
NEWS about using a PYRAMID Power Supply.
The BAD NEWS about using a
PYRAMID Power Supply is that there is a direct value associated with a PYRAMID
Power Supply. It is virtually impossible to charge $1,000 for a $185 PYRAMID
Power Supply.
As a result, we have
competitors who attempt to say that a PYRAMID POWER SUPPLY is not designed for
the type of work involved in a Gold Plating System and that you will not get
good results using a system with a PYRAMID Power Supply. RUBBISH.
You can read that to mean
they can not charge $1,000 more for their Gold Plating System if they use a
PYRAMID Power Supply that has a known street value of $185.
That $1,000 is added profit
they will lose if they were to offer the system they have with a PYRAMID Power
Supply. Clearly, it is in their financial best interest to not offer the PYRAMID
Power Supply since it means they will not make as much.
The gold plating system my
partner (back in 1992) and I purchased as a result of seeing it at the SEMA Show
had a 25 amp PYRAMID Power Supply and we paid $2,495 for the system, no
discounts. Back then, brush plating was NEW and HOT. Today the field has matured
some and the buyers seem more price conscious.
This brings up the point of
knowing what it is that you are getting before you purchase, priced to you as separate components, so you actually
know what it is you are paying for. We price every item in our Gold Plating
System separate so you can see what you are paying for what you are getting.
We always have power
supplies ready to ship and can always keep our inventory to the level where it
needs to be to meet the needs of our customers. We can do all of that because we
are able to purchase the Power Supplies we need, in whatever quantity we need,
from a LOCAL SUPPLIER whenever we need them.
How can the local supplier
be able to provide the POWER SUPPLY for so little money?
The idea of "OFF
THE SHELF" simply means there are a large number of applications for
the product. Many businesses buy and use the PYRAMID POWER SUPPLIES for all
sorts of reasons. So, the supplier has the item ON THE SHELF ready to ship.
Special ordered and or
limited sales items, cost more to produce, and more to inventory!
Specialized boxes
converted for power supplies, or modified tool boxes converted into enclosed
power supplies or built into rolling suitcases made up with an enclosed
power supply, are made in far smaller quantities than the number of POWER
SUPPLIES made by the factory that makes the PYRAMID POWER SUPPLIES or the
Waterloo Tool Box company who makes the tool boxes we put the PYRAMID POWER
SUPPLIES into.
In small quantities, the
prices of custom made containers and short run electronics makes the costs
per item go UP. As does the potential for problems. In addition to the cost
increases, it is easier to charge more for the special modified tool boxes
of rolling seats holding a
simple power supply, simply because the buyer does not see what they are
getting. Here the PROFIT MOTIVE comes up. It is hard to charge $2,495 for a
system with a $185 power supply if the buyer can see what they are actually
getting for a power supply. We even provide a wiring diagram of the PS36KX
Power Supply. We want you to know what you are getting for your money.
In VOLUME ASSEMBLY such
as the type used by PYRAMID, the cost is affordable because they make so
many at one time. That means PYRAMID can purchase commonly used components
for many power supplies in volume and save there too. All of the savings add
up.
Buying commonly
available "OFF THE SHELF" products simply means lower costs for
everyone.
As to overall quality
of the PYRAMID Power Supplies, the Pyramid Power Supplies will run all day
long. A typical use of the PYRAMID Power Supply is for a stereo radio
display in a stereo shop where the power supply runs all day long.
Frequently 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, without overheating and without
any problems at all. The PYRAMID Power Supply does an excellent job as a
Gold Plating Power Supply!
The PYRAMID PS36KX
Power Supply is an extremely durable system which works with limited DOWN
TIME, if any at all, and it can take the USE and ABUSE that some owners
may give it.
The PYRAMID Power
Supply AUTOMATICALLY adjusts to amount of AMPS necessary during the
different steps of the plating process.
Dealing with "off the
shelf" supply items is a VERY AFFORDABLE way to run a business. As an
example, the PS36KX, we sell for only $185. It is the right price! We can not
get $2,495 for our 35 Amp Gold Plating system with the PYRAMID POWER SUPPLY, but
$895 is a fair price.
We simply can not find as
good a Power Supply unit from any other supplier that offers our customers so
much for so affordable a price. Although we keep looking. However, the PYRAMID
offers the most bank for the buck.
Could we make our own power
supply?
After requests from
others, I checked into getting a SPECIAL BRAND made for us by Pyramid. PYRAMID
would put our company name on the FACE PLATE of their machine. They would do
it if I would spend a lot of REAL MONEY to buy a lot of their power supplies
at one time. This would cost us a lot of money as well as tie up a lot of our
Warehouse Space. Even with all of the so-called custom work, the result would
still look like a PYRAMID Power Supply. That did not seem like a good idea.
Particularly when I believe you should know exactly what you are buying.
Showing you the POWER SUPPLY equals showing you a value you can judge, and a
value you can price on your own. Since we sell the HEART of the 35 AMP Gold
Plating system for only $185, it is a fair judgment of price and benefits. I
do not like purchasing a mystery.
Then, because others
asked, we checked to see about the cost of removing the PYRAMID FACE PLATE,
stripping the paint from the surface and silk screening on our company name.
We could do that. And, in the process, we could switch the meters and some of
the connections so it would not look exactly the same, as the "off the
shelf" Power Supply system from Pyramid. However, if we did not produce a
totally NEW FACE PLATE and BOX with different meters and so on, it would still
look like the PYRAMID Power Supply. Just switching meters was not enough to
make anyone I know of believe there was anything SPECIAL inside the box. With
our name on the box, it would still look like a PYRAMID. The PYRAMID box
itself is an identifiable container.
The logical question to
ask was simple enough.
If we did all of that
changing of the existing PYRAMID Power Supply, would people be willing to
pay us twice as much as the price of the PYRAMID?
After all, we would have
a lot of time and money tied up in the "conversion process" and it
had to be worth something.
I figured even if we did
all of that changing and so on, people would see it was a PYRAMID Power
Supply anyway and not want to pay us for the cost of putting our name on the
PYRAMID Power Supply.
Apparently this was a
problem other companies faced. Many Gold Plating vendors initially started
by offering a Gold Plating System with the PYRAMID Power Supply. Shortly
after the systems came out in 1992 and buyers found out about the actual
costs versus the "gold rush" fever, they had a hard time charging
$2,495 for the Gold Plating System with a reasonably priced power supply.
On the $2,495 price,
that was the "street price" for a system. The mobile brush type
gold plating systems first showed up at the Automotive Aftermarket Show
called SEMA, in 1992 and were selling for $2,495 using a PYRAMID Power
Supply. My partner purchased one and put another person in business doing
mobile Gold Plating in California.
Since then, the pricing
scheme popped all over. Or $2,495 but at a SHOW SPECIAL of $1,895. Plus the
popular SPRING SALE at $1,295. One ad had a close out of $995 in a
publication in the Fall of 1999 but the sales person was quoting $1,395
over the phone when they got a call. You name it and it has impacted the
Gold Plating business.
In 2001, I was at
several Automotive Trade Shows where one of the companies had changed their
name for the second time. I expect that means there were some outside
reasons for doing that and the LIFETIME WARRANTY PERIOD is over.
This may be referred to as the
MUMBO-JUMBO of the higher priced systems. That may mean the more the JUMBO
of the price, the more MUMBO it takes to justify it.
All of the conversations
about doing modifications to the PYRAMID Power Supply kept coming back to the
same point. The PYRAMID Power Supply was a TOP QUALITY unit. The PYRAMID did a
GREAT JOB for our customers, and we were not going to be able to camouflage
it. So, why try?
The real question is
simple. Was it worth it to make attempts to camouflage the PYRAMID? We said
NO.
Fortunately, common sense
prevailed. We believed then, and still believe now that giving our customers a
good value for their money is the smart move. The PYRAMID Power Supplies are a
KNOWN VALUE.
Raising our costs, and the
customers costs makes sense, if it adds VALUE to the system. Cosmetics do not
add VALUE, particularly when the original looks presentable and does the job.
Any other idea on power
supply modification raised our costs which did not benefit our customers.
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If we ordered in
hundreds (or thousands) of POWER SUPPLIES with our name on them from
PYRAMID, we would have increased our inventory expense without gaining
anything of VALUE for us or our customers.
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If we started to
remove the PYRAMID face plate, rework it and move stuff, that would
create a concern over who has the responsibility for the warranty.
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Anything we looked
at increased LABOR and or INVENTORY expense without adding value.
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Any modification we
looked at would still result in the power supply looking like a PYRAMID.
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The last item of
concern was, we might increase our liability for the WARRANTY.
So, if it were your money,
would you spend THOUSANDS in inventory expense if you can meet your customers
needs, as the customers need occurs, dealing with a suitable "off the
shelf" system?
I bet you will go with the
"OFF THE SHELF" concept. We did!
We ALWAYS stock PS36KX
Power Supplies. We are all glad we did not make any changes. We understand our
customers are glad we did not make any changes either.
The PYRAMID Power Supplies
covert the 110 Volt AC to 12 Volt DC.
The PYRAMID Power Supplies
AUTOMATICALLY adjust the AMPS to meet the needs in each of the plating steps.
We have a separate supplier
to provide the 240VAC to 12VDC system for our International customers who
require a 240 volt unit. This system has an substantial increase in cost over
the PYRAMID. I figure $200 more is a substantial increase in cost. Apparently,
they do not make as many of these and that increases the coat.
Speaking of WARRANTY.
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If you read the small
print on some of the so called "lifetime warranty," the lifetime
extends only as long as you are buying the chemicals from the company
providing the warranty. In the fine print, I noticed the "lifetime
warranty" drops to a one year warranty unless you are buying supplies
from the company providing the so-called "lifetime warranty."
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PYRAMID offers a 2 year
warranty on their POWER SUPPLY. As a service to our customers, we process
the warranty for our customers. This means that we understand you are using
the PYRAMID as a BUSINESS TOOL and you need to service your customers. So,
if there is a warranty problem, we instruct our customers to call us first.
We immediately ship out a REPLACEMENT Power Supply so you can keep on making
money. Once you have the box the replacement came in, you repack your unit
and send it back to us. We take care of the Warranty. That sure seems like
the way I would want a company to treat me, so that is how we treat our
customers.
Funny, we have fixed broken machines for $100...
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