I feel like this video is missing an important point when comparing on whether you can DIY for cheaper vs buying from Moducase. You have to actually DIY. Having a company design and fabricate the materials will in fact cost more than the off the shelf option especially if it is an one off design. What many people need to know is you need to design and build your custom case yourself to see any cost savings. It also helps to buy bulk material such as longer length of aluminum extrusion and cut it to size rather than having a company custom cut for you. Case in point I spent $320 on all the material to build a 31"Lx16"Dx63"H case including the plexiglass. Compare this to the Moducase Max1`40+ which is a single shelf unit 55"Lx27.6"Dx32.6"H at $520 +shipping. Gotta actually DIY
Thanks for the comment. It's cool that you were able to build a case. One clarifying point, this video (discussion) is not comparing Modcuase to pure DIY. Of course, anything you do DIY will always be cheaper than retail. This video address a point in the community that Moducase was simply configuring industry standard parts and assembling cases - something anyone could do or any other company. So I was exploring that conversation.
@Dan14thPrime little feedback on that than. Maybe rename the title or explain that more in the video. You only showed what happens when you have another company design and price materials. Nothing discussed on building your own case.
@@yellow0nocone True, but less literally 😉. But anyway, thanks for checking out the video. Cool you built your own case. I was looking back at Moducase. You have something like an “extra large” DF case probably vs Max. Depth would make a big difference on cost due to top board, bottom board, 4 back bars and 2 side plexi pieces. So still not sure it’s A LOT cheaper with DIY. The closest DF spec to your case is about $300. But you again, you have some unique dimensions do tough to compare to either DF or Max directly. 🤙
Good video. However, I think the problem is that you're having someone else do the work. I'm going to look into building this myself, because I can cut extruded aluminum. Biggest hurdle is the cost of acrylic panels; adding magnets is easy... lighting is easy but could also get a bit pricey... Hmmm.... thanks again.
@@Dan14thPrime Nope, I was wrong. I'm not sure if it's always been like this, but the cost of the acrylic alone from my Home Depot makes this a no-go. Aluminum is also going up. I just emailed Moducase lol...
Walmart sells these shop shelf units that gonna try to add plex glass sides to and should only cost about $180 in parts and it would be the side of the big unit in your display in this video.
For the floor board, are you able to replace the existing one on a moducase with a 1/4 or even 1/2 inch of plexiglass/acrylic if you wanted a transparent look? My dream would be something like the light box base that Legendary display cases have but without that price
You could. You’d just need to be cognizant of the weight of your display and rigidness of the acrylic. Ideally you’d do same thickness as the board otherwise it will create a lip relative to the bottom framing of the case.
Thanks. I think in a way I was expecting that too. But couldn’t even get close with this company. Still a fun learning experience. 👍 If their price would’ve been at least close, I wanted to buy one and compare it but can’t really justify at 4x cost. 🤷🏻♂️
i was looking for an affordable alternative. This is strictly insane You can spend 1,500 and get a medium wall unit edit: from moducase themselves instead of all this trouble
Great topic, Dan. My personal perspective is that if I think about making my own cases, I may as well think about sculpting my own statues. The display cases are works of art that go hand-in-hand with the statue or figure art work that you want to place in them if you have the budget. You had me excited for a second until you scrolled down and I saw that price.
😂 yeah that price was a shocker. But really gives credit to ModuCase for offering a good value, despite all the “complaints” about their cost even. I’ve got a Max set coming soon BTW. Paid the final installment last week. 👍
You had a US based company provide an engineering consultation with you on your build and this is the example of why Moducase isn't really that expensive? Literally just put in my order for extruded aluminum, acrylic, fastners, LEDs with home assistant integration, etc... equivalent to the Sixth model on Moducase, except actually modular (not just the inner shelving) for a bit over $600 less. Yeah, you can do it cheaper, but you actually have to be the one to do it. It's one thing to just say: I do not want another DIY project, I'm just going to buy the Moducase. That is a legitimate answer that cannot be wrong, if it is the right one for you. But to do what you did and call it DIY is totally disingenuous.
@@LackofFaithify You’re completely out of context. Do we really need a “can you DIY cheaper than Moducase?” 😂. No shit DIY is ALWAYS cheaper than doing yourself. The point of this video was to test the discussion in the community at the time which was that Moducase was all industry standard “off the shelf” parts and you can buy it from any extruded aluminum supplier. As this video showed, that’s about 90% true with a few unique components only. And this is not custom “engineered”, I gave them all the specs and quoted a kit. There’s no engineering up charge. The simple point is 1. Moducase doesn’t seem priced so bad as people complained back then and 2. Moducase brings a few unique components. But also as I said, it was one supplier - one datapoint. If you actually watch the entire video, the context of the discussion is pretty clear. We are not talking full DIY. And with the long benefit of hindsight since the video was published, we can say the market has proved it out. There have been a few collectible display case entrants since this video but they are shooting even more premium and Moducase has grown and expanded its portfolio. Besides what the hell motivation would I have to be disingenuous? Moducase isn’t paying me.
This isn't a relevant comparison. You are not building it on your own. You are asking for a company to engineer and build the cases for you. Of course it would be more expensive. They have to charge all the indirect (all operational expenses related with this project) costs directly to you whereas moducase split these cost to between 100's of customers. Besides, the labor cost in the US is probably 10 times more than Singapore. I know you can make it way cheaper because I did build my case for my Lego collection. It measures 3.6meteres in length and 1.8 meters by height. I also added a 15cm MDF raiser with drawers to hide electrical components of the LED's. I only bough the raw materials and did everything on my own. The total cost turned out to be around $1500 exluding the LED system. It's like half of the price you'd pay to moducse. So yes you can build it for way cheaper than moducase.
You're missing the point. This is not a DIY. Of course any DIY is going to be cheaper than buying from a retailer. Such a simple point does not require a discussion. The discussion in the community on Moducase has been that the parts and materials are standard industry design and can be purchased from any common aluminum extruding company for a fraction of the cost and assembled yourself. This video sought to explore that argument.
One thing i think people forget to account for is the cost for your time. Building custom cabinet takes a lot of time, planning, and effort. If you can afford the smount of figures/statues to put in moducases, then the trade off between time/price trade off would make moducase a better choice.
I don't want to say anything negative about this video, I appreciate Dan doing his homework and making a video on trying to make a cheaper case to inform everyone. I will be releasing a tutorial guide soon, actually a seven video guide about an hour long each on how to make a case from ground up and design your own parts. The only reason why made a video on it, is because I moved from Vegas to Tennessee and I been working full time. Again, kudos to Dan for making this video!
One point i would have liked to have seen in the video is what is the unit cost per kit when you order lets say 1000 units? I am very well versed in manufacturing and this is a common strategy in these industries. I call to get an exotic fastener and it costs 67USD per fastener, but a box of a thousand is just under 1000USD. Sometimes the unit cost goes down 90%. I know for the purpose of the experiment you went with the quote you needed, but would be interesting to see the difference.
Yes it’s a good point and true that I’m sure if you placed a large order, you’d get a better price. But an individual collector isn’t going to do that. That’d be more for a sourcing strategy if you wanted to start selling them as a business. But at those volumes, you’d also then have to look at manufacturing in Asia and logistics cost to import which would likely be optimal vs large domestic sourcing. Good discussion point 👍
