Apelete Seketeli wrote: > Simulator was a great move, but what about getting some prototypes in > the hands of (a few) people ?
That's certainly a good idea. But how to do it ? The complete design information (schematics, BOM, layout, software) is publicly available, so anyone who wants to make an Anelok PCBA based on the current design could start immediately. Well, if anyone plans to do so, please tell me first: I would then fix a few bugs I found in the design verification. I left them in so far since that way, the design files correspond to the boards I have and I don't have to work with two sets of files. But there would be no point in carrying these bugs forward to new boards. Making a case would be a bit trickier since my tools generate RML-1 and one would have to adapt the toolpaths to the target machine anyway. But nothing there is overly hard - it just needs to be done. Anelok can also be used without case, by not separating the two boards and gluing a 1 mm piece of plastic on the slider. This would then be the same setup that I currently have, i.e., like this: http://downloads.qi-hardware.com/people/werner/anelok/tmp/brd1-oled-0818.jpg But this of course has haptics that differ dramatically from having a real case. I could make some boards and send them out, but that a) takes a lot of time (maybe two days for a complete board, and with such a repetitive task there's always the risk of making mistakes, which could completely ruin a board), and b) it would drain my already precarious stock of parts. Running out of parts would be particularly bad if I hit some issue that forces me to make changes large enough that they need another board revision. E.g., I have five OLEDs left. They're fragile and in experiments they suffer some amount of rough handling. One of them will go to the 2nd board I still have to populate. One may be needed to replace anything that fails. That leaves three for future experiments. Oh, and I have one FC-135 (32.768 kHz) crystal left. I was lucky to have any around at all ... So my current plan is to bring the design to a state where the main questions can be answered and where a low-volume production run has a reasonably low risk of ending in disaster (*). These devices would be mainly of use for developers and may differ substantially from the final product. After finishing the design, the next step would be to define a financing strategy for such a run, and then try to implement it. Production would be by a contract manufacturer (to be defined), like we've done with UBB, ATBEN, ATUSB. (*) E.g., pending unknowns are: Will it work on battery ? If yes, how well ? Will the slider feel "right" and be sufficiently accurate ? Is the Flash large enough for at least basic functionality ? > I guess producing prototypes may be linked with setting > up a structure/company around the project ? Yes, the centralized prototype production approach would need that as well. > Overall, the more I read about Anelok, the more I wish to get my > hands on one. That may just be geek lust though :-). Great ! I hope lots and lots of people will think like that ;-) Cheers, Werner _______________________________________________ Qi Hardware Discussion List Mail to list (members only): [email protected] Subscribe or Unsubscribe: http://lists.en.qi-hardware.com/mailman/listinfo/discussion
