Great news, everyone: The BOM team has successfully sourced a large number of hardware-related parts, and has found some great prices at a company called McMaster-Carr. After working with the accounting team, it looks like all the hardware is going to be within our hardware budget, and so I’ve gone ahead and placed the order!
This order includes all the nuts, screws, washers, smooth rods, and some other parts. I actually went through the list and compared it to some parts that I have on-hand. In some cases where we only needed a couple of screws I went ahead and removed them from the order if I already had them. This should save us a few dollars. I also already have a couple of the springs we’ll need.
The most expensive part on the order was the smooth rod. We needed 2.4 meters for one printer, and because it is sold in 3-foot sections, that translates to 9 feet (about 2.75 meters) per printer. The cost of each 3-foot rod was almost $5!
Once I find out from McMaster-Carr what they’ll be charging me for shipping, I’ll be able to get a complete list of the expenses for this store (source) over to the accounting team.