Byron, > While I know that Myke can explain this himself, I'll take a crack at it. > Like the rest of us, I don't think Myke really realized the type of facilities > that you have available at your plant. We're all used to having to deal with > items on the small scale or facing the exhorbitant fees that large scale > manufacturers impress upon designers. > I think Myke simply wants to ensure that none of us take a bath on this > project. After seeing this post, I think those concerns can be put aside. The key point I have been trying to make - "My way of contributing" > >> >>> If and when we get something together, I strongly recommend that you >> >> It was never going to be free. I said from the outset that I would put >> up the costs for PC Boards, setup costs - blister pack, box, printing >> etc. and maybe even a sexy little plastic enclosure to house it in - >> like the PICStart+ and that if we could cover the costs from there, > * First is that it's totally cool that you have facilities to do this! Thanks! > * Second is that it may be a bit hasty to simple mark this as a nonprofit > project. In addition to the project costs, there are several folks around > here that work very hard to make our list and site work. James and Dale and > the other admins are an invaluable resource. And I know that James' > facilities do require funds for bandwidth. I'm just thinking we should > price so that we guarantee a profit on the sales and plan to invest those > proceeds into the list infrastructure. OK, It would be EASY for me to buy another Hard Disk or pay for new hardware for the list or whatever. But I have seen that people have done this in the past. This is MY way of contributing. If you read my earlier posts, I said that I feel the "Gurus" of the list spend FAR to much time answering questions about "first PIC" and "which Programmer" and "Why won't my programmer work?" - If the list got itself into a position where it only supported one programmer, the aforementioned gurus could simply say "Sorry Bud, go out and buy the XYZ programmer from your nearest distributor - it's only $XX and if you still have problems, we'll help. The list would have to be a little cruel to be kind, but I think follow on effects would be that list members with LESS experience than the gurus - such as myself - could start helping the newbies - instead of consuming the gurus' valuable time. Because we are working to a "STANDARD" and will have probably read all the answers a dozen times by then. > * This is a separate topic that if applicable should be taken up later in > another thread. Sean, do you think that there may be a win/win situation > where list member (such as myself ;-) can arrange to have small to medium > sized runs of product done in your facility? Say from somthing in the low > 100's to maybe 2500 units. Yes and Yes. But I never started this thread in order to pick up business. This is another way we can help. I have already been contacted off list with similar enquiries. I can not make 6 off. It will cost more in freight and mucking around than you will save. But once you get to 100 to 200 off, then we can start talking. To be honest with you, you could not even dream of approaching an Asian manufacturing company for this sort of quantity. Even if you want to buy something standard from an Asian company, they want an order for a container - 1000 pieces at absolute minimum. And you say you want something special? 5000 or 10000 pieces. We are different. I am Australian, and our company has a very different culture. Our staff are very well looked after and as a result, we will never be the cheapest source. We supply products to some of the World's largest companies and we've had comments such as "We have never seen a product of that quality come out of Asia" - I don't know if that comment is true, I've certainly seen some excellent products come out of "Asia" (I am sure they didn't include Japan). But could certainly be true of our industry - and perhaps that's the key to our success. The list member would of course have to front > for materials,assembly, and shipping, and the proceeds of the sale of the > units be split in some fashion. It could be a win/win all the way around > as most of us don't have access to large scale manufacturing facilities. Of course for commercial ventures, we won't be doing these out of the goodness of my heart. We all have to eat, but I think we can be cheaper than sources in the west. What is important is that we can find all the componentnts or modify the design to use more popular components from local sources. > I'm asking out of the blue because I really don't know the logistics of > doing a run. But I have a half dozen consumer grade products that I'd be > interesting in manufacturing. It would even be better if it were possible > to do small preproduction runs too, say 25 units, for demos and focus groups > before committing to final production. Please feel free to take this item > to another thread as it isn't directly related to the task at hand. Yes. Can do. Another thread or off list - you call. Again, I am not trying to advertise here, but if it's another way I can help.... I think I need to sit down and make a page explaining what equipment we have, what our next invesments are and what our capabilities are. > Well it's crystal clear to me now what the hardware should be now: > > * A preprogrammed 16F877 that serves both as the initial target and as a > programmer for future PIC devices. I don't get this. > * The part is proprogrammed with a Wloader style bootloader and a WISP style > ICSP programmer interface. The box interfaces to the PC via a standard serial > interface. I'd only provide the ICSP interface and leave programming ZIF > sockets out of the equation. Nah! We can buy these quite cheap. Why leave them off? Note that the bootloader/program interface would > not use the hardware USART. That interface is left free for the user to learn > and design with. Softwarewise I'd be sure to have a cloner so that the > bootloader can be transferred to subsequent chips. > > * I/O would consist of at minimum LED indicators, 7 segment, LCD, buttons, > pot/opamp for A/D testing/input, and RS232 serial interface to the hardware > USART. Also I'd like to see at least one PWM based RC low pass circuit. > Finally I'd like to propose for the first time adding a canned IR > demodulator so that IR remote experiments can be performed. Yes!!!!! Thanks for your comments Byron, Cheers, Sean -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.