Hey Aus/NZ fedi folks, do you want one of these fantastic USB cable testers?
-
Damnit I’m going to have to start a spreadsheet to track all this! There’s at least 50 boards in this now…
-
So, uh, it looks like the order will be for 100 boards as of right now, because I’m estimating 15% manufacturing yield failure based off one comment here of 25% failure and the official manufacturing documentation saying 5% failure. Good news is, this volume pushes the boards closer to $10 each, bad news is there’s now 2 parts with shortages on the quantity needed.
I feel like I’m speedrunning a hardware Kickstarter here!
-
Almost $200 of the total cost is just the USB-C connectors?! I should look at a different part…
-
No I will not substitute a different part just before a 100 piece manufacturing run
-
I hope this will top out at around 150 boards…
-
Ordering for the manufacturing run of the USB cable tester is now complete. There may be additional boards available for purchase after testing of completed boards has finished. If you wish to go on the waiting list, fill in the form at https://forms.gle/m35wTfXJ6cwi75Kg9 - no deposit is required, but boards will ship on a first-come-first-served basis until stock is exhausted. Anyone can place an order (not just if you said you wanted one this week). In related news, the one missing part is now in stock and I’ve got a reservation on 150 of them. I’ve started reserving the less-common parts already to ensure no delays due to parts shortages.
EDIT: 126 of 130 boards are now sold!
EDIT 2: you know what? I’ll just order all the components now, it looks like it will get close enough for my liking to a full 150 board manufacturing run (130 plus 20 spare). I’ll also close the colour poll early on Monday evening and do a 24 hour run-off between the two most popular colours (green/white and purple/white)
EDIT 3: (edit edit) deposits are now closed, and any further orders will go on the waiting list. I’m also going to pull the run-off poll forward by 12 hours, starting at the same time and running for 24 hours, then submitting the order on Tuesday morning based on the most popular colour choice.
-
Manufacturing update: I’ve reserved and paid for enough of all the components except the USB-C sockets to manufacture 150 boards. Because the USB-C socket is by far the most expensive part of the board, I won’t reserve them until ordering closes next week. For now, it’s just waiting until orders close!
-
Ordering update: I've matched deposits with orders from form submissions, and have confirmed deposits received so far
-
Ordering update: HOW HAVE I ALREADY RECEIVED CONFIRMED ORDERS FOR 99 BOARDS?!
Unrelated: I’ll do a run-off poll of the top 2 colour choices (currently between green and purple) once the ordering closes.
-
I’ve also had a think about what I’ll do if the ordering reaches the 130 board limit before the ordering window closes: 130 will definitely be the limit for this manufacturing run. I’ll leave the ordering form up, but remove the deposit payment information, and if anyone happens to pay a deposit after orders reach the limit I’ll refund. The reason I’ll keep the form open is because there may be fewer than 20 manufacturing faults, and I’ll offer whatever remains beyond the 130 for sale on a first-come first-serve basis by the timestamp on the form submission. I won’t know exactly how many can be sold until all the boards are delivered and tested. If you happen to place an order for multiple boards that kicks over the limit, I’ll supply the entire order, subject to enough boards working.
The other possibility is that there are more than 20 boards with manufacturing faults that can’t be manually fixed. If that happens I’ll refund the last deposits until the number of working boards is reached.
In either case, if you don’t get a board this time around after placing an order, I’ll do another manufacturing run and you’ll get first dibs!
-
Order is now submitted and paid for! Total of 160 boards being manufactured - 20 panels in 2x4 layout. Will update as it progresses through manufacturing.
Eeeeeeeee exciting!
-
(oh, that $365 cost is in US dollars)
-
… that’s a lot of bubble wrap!
-
3 rounds of questions so far from JLCPCB, but I think it's at the point where they will actually make the things now.
1. What do you mean, don't put PTH components on X out boards in the panel? (if any boards in the panel fail manufacturing tests, they get crossed out as not usable. The PTH parts need to be manually placed, so just don't place PTH parts on any board that's X-out) Oh, ok
2. We need to add extra space between the boards in the panel because the PTH parts over-hang the board edges and will bump into each other (sure, I made the edge rails larger in case you needed to do this, shrink the edge rails and put in a mid-rail)
3. We are confirming your components are supposed to go <here>, which is different to the original positions you uploaded (uh, yes, because the original positions are only for a single board, and there's 8 boards in the panel, so of course the positions are different)
Anyway, this is what the entire panel of boards will probably look like:
-
Hooray in production! Estimated PCB finish time this evening.
-
PCB production finished, pending component assembly.
-
Manufacturing is finished! Now pending shipping, and everything should arrive to me next week.
-
One single board out of 160 has failed assembly quality checks - not too shabby at all! This probably something I can manually fix.
-
:pakidge:
Still in the factory, waiting to be picked up though. But now UPS is Aware
