Tuners II, The tuner strikes back!

Hi.

Well.

The previous thread broke all records, so has achieved it's purpose and given me a warm fuzzy feeling (although that might just be the cat) However, it's gotten to the point that it's a little top-heavy, so I'm starting another one, lovingly handcrafted from only the purest ingredients.

The current status of the tuner kits is as follows:

I have many, many tuner modules.

I also have many, many PCBs.

What I don't have is a sufficient quantity of MAX4544EPA SPDT mosfet switch ICs. There were thousands in stock a couple of weeks ago or so, but when I went to order a couple of hundred last week, I was told I could have 23, which was the sum total of (apparently) the entire existing world supply. Some awkward sod of a very large company seems to have bought the lot. I have been calling every Maxim supplier in Europe, and some further afield, trying to get more, but no-one seems to stock the damn thing. So I will have to wait for a while until the little Maxim gnomes carve some more.

The 23 parts I ordered haven't yet turned up, but I have half a dozen or so which will suffice for the alpha-build testers. I will be sending those test kits out soon, once I have written the manual. Unfortunately, pressure of work (needed for the cash-flow to pay for all this) is quite high at the moment, with at least two different projects on a 'finish-yesterday-if-not-before' basis. As a result, I won't be able to do the manual for probably a week or so. Rest assured that it will be done as fast as practicable. If nothing else, I need to shift some kits fairly soon since I'm so far about 3500 quid in the red on this project!

The first batch of 25 will certainly be able to be shipped, but it will be a couple of weeks after that at least before I can get the parts for more. If anyone on the list happens to work for Maxim and know where I can get some of the right chips, I would be very grateful!

In addition, I will soon be setting up the website where orders can be placed. This also will be at least a week, for reasons discussed earlier (you are taking notes, I hope. You will be tested on your knowledge...). Once this is up feel free to place orders, although I would appreciate it if people would be reasonable and not order dozens for themselves, at least until I am in a position to make them in larger quantities.

Please DON'T email me placing an order, or say you want one here and expect me to remember it! I simply don't have the facilities or the time to winnow out orders from statements of interest and the like, and things will get lost in the shuffle. Place orders via the website when it goes live, which will be announced here.

By the way, a kit in the first batch has been reserved for you, Loren, if you want it It seems only fair.

pca

By the way, a kit in the first batch has been reserved for you, Loren, if you want it It seems only fair.

/me wipes small tear from eye...

Maxim website shows a 6 week lead time. Digikey list about 3 week lead time. I will contact my local disti's for you. How much should you be paying?

Edit: And what sort of quantity are you after?

Did i mention that this is the best user community on earth? 'Cause it is.

Patrick, thank you for making my otherwise bleak day a good one.

I have been quoted between 4 and 8 weeks from Maxim and all their distributors, who all say a new crop is waiting to ripen. No one seems to have stock.

The price I'm getting the things for is about 60 pence (just under a dollar US) each. I guess if someone could find some, I'd order a couple of hundred. It seems likely that I'll sell at least that many tuners. I have a hundred on order at the moment, with as I said above 23 supposedly shipping this week.

pca

Hey, someone has to be on the side of good to balance out all the rest

pca

Well, you could get lucky and find a disti with some just sitting there in stock. I'll ask mine.

pca... you make many people happy with your work on this project. i sincerely hope that you've added in enough cost to make it worth your while. my smashed empeg is off on it's way to the hospital, and when it comes back, i hope to eventually have one of these wonderful gadgets to attach. good luck getting the gnomes to cooperate!

Unfortunately it's not a commonly used part, at least in Europe. No one seems to ever keep stock of it bar Maxim themselves, they just order it on demand.

pca

Oh, don't worry, I come out a little ahead. Not a huge amount, but I feel I'm worth it

If nothing else, I need to make money on the thing so it can be self-supporting.

pca

You are a great, great man, sir. So when I order the tuner, who do I list as the receiver/builder for my tuner?

I have no hope of building one of these things myself, and unless there's someone in either the DC Metro area or in the Williamsburg Virginia area, I'll have to ship it to someone. I'd be willing to pay a fee.

I'll be saving up my nickles and dimes waiting for this web page to go live. A tuner would really complete my installation and let me seal up the dash for good...

That being said, who in the sf bay area is interested in teaching people (or learning) how to do basic assembly of these things? I have no experience with a soldering iron short of dripping large drops on things, and wouldn't want to go at this alone. I'd prefer to learn how to instead of just mailing it off to someone for a quick assembly job. Pizza/Chinese/Indian food, a large table and some good lighting could all be aranged...

Matthew

What I don't have is a sufficient quantity of MAX4544EPA SPDT mosfet switch ICs.

One of the MAX462x switches won't work for this?

I have searched through about 4 of 8 chip distributers I know. I have seen prices ranging from 55 cents to 1.20 dollars a piece. Hopfully tomorrow they will call me with quantities in stock....

I can only hope for the best...
(I am going to buy 2 tuners!!!)

Two words: Woo hoo!

Maybe a video guide is needed?

David, you're really a closet video producer, aren't you?

Nah, I just don't have any kids or the money to go on exotic holidays, so need something else to use iMovie for.

If I get hold of a tuner kit and Hugo will lend me his DV camera, I'll do a build video.

I've never seen a closet video before, is it rude?

Would it not be a good idea to start a thread of Empeg people around the world who feel capable of offering an assembly service at a realistic price?
The price offered would have to take in a realistic indemnity insurance, which I'm sure that a good commercial broker would quote for.
I need an extra tuner, I'm in the U.K. and my last electronics project was a valve amplifier with resistors bigger than some contemporary amplifiers. A healthy liking for beer and wine means that the tip of my soldering iron generally prescribes a 1/2 inch arc over the subject matter - I'll pay through the nose!

There seems to be stock from brokers. Check here and RFQ:

http://www.broker1.tv/index1.html

Has Mark Lord offered this service yet, if not, do you plan to, Mark?

Try www.usbid.com and others, there are parts out there.

Chris

TunerI vs TunerII:
differences???

Well, I contacted them and they say they have a minimum order value of $1000 US per line, which is about 1800 chips. So no go there.

pca

I have a distributer who can get them for me from Asia in about 7 days, assuming they make it through customs... He quoted me $1.50 a piece in US dollars. I live in Pennsylvania, so I assume I would have to ship them to England... I know he wont do any better on the price, but maybe he would ship them right to England for me (you are in England arent you???)

It seems the only source of these chips left are in Asia... the next batch that is coming out will be available in the US, but not for a while...

My DV cam is currently on long-term loan to my brother. As a new parent, it's just unnatural not to have a camcorder to record his offspring's first (insert bodily function here), so I lent it to him.

Hugo

Mmm.. dunno, I haven't had a look at the kit/parts/whatever yet.

I think that if I were to do this, I might just buy a bundle of kits from pca, assemble them, and then resell here in Canada/USA.

Cheers

Good idea, I can certainly see there is merit in your proposed approach versus someone buying a kit and having it shipped to you for assembly. At least, that way, the risk to the buyer is minimal except you'd own the risk of a non-working tuner yourself.

Ignoring pinout/form-factor is that the only CMOS switch that will work? What about a small daughter card that adapts the pinout of a more available part? Or is the part even needed? What is it switching anyway?

This is off topic, but I have to ask as my GeForce's fan is dying.. it's got an Adda AP4512MX-G90 ball bearing fan on the GPU. I need to buy a replacement, but I can't find this damn fan anywhere. I don't really have access to parts distributors.. i found an allied electronics catalog but to no avail. does anyone know where i can get it? i'm in desperate need.. those with parts contacts, i beg of you

thanks

With the turn this thread has taken towards input to the tuner, I thought I should shamelessly plug the thread here :-)

Check out Tennmax

Hi.

Right. A question to put to the general public.

I have had a few hours to work on the tuner build manual, and have got most of the actual electronics bit sorted. There's still the before and after parts to do, but the middle is mostly finished. However...

It's currently a number of documents in different formats, which get merged into a postscript document then converted to PDF. This is in colour, but my original printing method would have produced mono hard copy. See attached file for an example of the PDF output. The component highlighting, which is very obvious in colour, is still noticeable in mono but not as good.

I have had two people so far (out of two I've let proofread it) say that they wished the output was in colour since it stands out more. But, obviously, producing hard copy in colour is a lot more expensive than mono. The suggestion has been made that I should, in fact, not even bother producing a printed manual but just have it available as a PDF for download from the website.

This has a number of advantages, not least of which is the ability to update it and correct any errors. The final file will be, at a rough estimate, 3-4MB in size. Does this, in anyone's opinion, seem likely to cause major offense/hassle/problems/fatwa's, etc? I have to admit I'd prefer to do it this way, but if it's going to cause real problems for a significant fraction of the observable universe I'll have to find another way.

pca

I'm guessing everybody who wants to build a tuner has a (or at least access to a) colour deskjet printer.

So I wouldn't bother making hard copy manuals. The way I see it is it will only take a lot of your time and isn't really necessary anyway.
As you already pointed out it's probably also easier to read when it's printed in colour. So (I'm guessing here) most people will probaly print that .PDF anyway and use that instead if you decide to release it in addition to a hard copy manual. That's what I would do anyway.

So go on, take the easy route for a change. You know you want to!

Manual???
I figured we'd just be working from a picture of the final product. Of course it would be a color picture.....

Downloadable manual is fine by me

PK

PDF is a go for me!

Leave it as a downloadable .PDF. 3-4 Mb is not large - only about 15 minutes on a 56k dialup so I am pretty sure that anyone should be able to get it if that's what you are worried about. Software releases are bigger.

It means you get colour even if you don't have a colour printer since you can just view it on screen (unless of course you are using a B&W monitor...). If we want a hardcopy, then we print it out. I'm sure that most people have or know someone who has a colour printer. And if we're real, real, desperate for a colour hardcopy we can go down to the local copy shop and pay them to do it for us.

I can't really see any problem with a softcopy only. I don't know why you are worried to be honest. I don't think you will cause any "major offense/hassle/problems/fatwa's" by doing this.

Take the easy way Patrick.

If it saves money then I'm sure most people can cope with just using the PDF version. If they want a hard copy then they must know somebody somewhere with a printer...
And as somebody else said, it doesn't take too long to download on a normal modem.

- Trevor

Yep, a PDF would be just fine.

I have a color printer, but I'd probably just use the PDF directly. PDF would be fine.

After looking at the attachment, Building these looks like a ball!! It brings back memories of the Heathkit ham radios and the SWTPC audio amplifiers I built as a kid. Let alone the fact that I'll end up with a superior tuner!!! Yahoo!!

PDF all the way.

Since I was one of the ones initially telling Patrick he should just go online with the instructions, I don't have to chime in with my vote.

But I did want to say that I did Brian's button hack at my computer desk with his web pages up on the screen, and it was a great way to work. Who needs paper?

PDF is better than a hardcopy because as mentioned, you can revise it at anytime and notify customers on your e-mail list of any changes. It is the route I am taking with my boards. Everytime I come across a change that needs to be made, it is very easy to make the change.

Stu

Patrick, you're spoiling us with that manual! I was looking forward to the challenge of matching a poorly printed schematic to a badly labelled board. Did someone change the rules of kit building without telling me?

Anyway, PDF is great. I'm sure that if there is someone unfortunate enough to not be able to download/view/print it, that someone here will help them out.

Whatever the guy who'll be building my tuner for me likes is fine with me.

I think that a PDF version will be the best thing. I'm sure there are some color printers out there for all of us to use if we really want to!

It will also probably be cheaper to download, than for Patrick to copy a lot of color manual, and cheaper is a nice word

TommyE

I agree with everyone.. pdf is a great idea, and it saves you all the extra hassle.

To quote a good friend... Paper is so... so.. twentieth century...

ok, I'm a conformist. PDF!!
Who needs paper?

ROFL! You crack me up

i can´t see any disadvantage with pdf! may be because i am a fan of pdf

Treeware sucks

I'm all for PDF. (especially if it saves money)

HOORAY!

I agree. Paper sux.

Hi all.

Um. It turned out a little bigger than I anticipated. Around 11.4MB pdf, or a 30+MB word (nasty noise) document. I'm not quite sure why it's so big, I think some of my pictures might be a little large.

Anyway, the draft manual is here, (or at least it will be when it's finished uploading) if anyone would like to look it over and see what they're getting themselves into. It's mostly done, although there are a couple of images missing yet.

Any errors, let me know and I'll correct them. Any suggestions of a useful nature, let me know and I'll consider them.

pca

Patrick, that looks awsome. I can't wait to get one of these tuners!

Awesome!

Comments:
I assume we only really need one pair of wire stippers .
You mention silicone/hot glue in the needed materials, but not in the procedure.
Typo in soldering notes? "The tip is made of copper plated, which is plated with iron...."
It might be useful to include a couple of photos of the final assembly stages.

OMG! I cannot wait to build one of these things...

One little suggestion, seeing as we've now got a colour manual (thankyou PDF!) could it be a good idea to colour the components a different colour once you've put them on the board? The constructor could then see, at a glance, whereabouts they are in the manual.

Good grief, so that's how you solder - 40 years of great big globules and finally someone explains it clearly and concisely.

Congratulations on a really good, well thought out manual, you see them so seldom!

Patrick, do you have any idea when you'll be putting up an ordering page for these modules? I'm determined to get one from the first batch () but I'm going on holiday tomorrow so I need to know whether to leave instructions with someone to put my name on the list if it's going to be put up whilst I'm away (only a week but sod's law dictates that it will happen during that week!).

Thanks,

Greg.

P.S. Excellent manual! I was fully expecting the instructions to consist of a piece of A5 paper saying simply to solder everything to the board! That weighty document is definately the way to go for do-it-yourself kits!

Now I know why it takes that long for the tuner project to be finished... look at this manual...

Hey Patrick, I noticed that on the empeg harness pin 7 on the molex connector had a purple wire, there is no purple wire in your kit was it omitted? Also when I was reading the instructions I was wishing that I was actually putting the kit together I can't wait.

Your board diagrams appear to be raster images, rather than vector drawings (I assume that something in your production chain is rasterizing them behind your back). That would account for the large size of the PDF.

And I have to echo the praise given by others. It's 10 years or so since I last soldered anything, but I'm looking forward to it (even if I end up having to buy a second kit to repair my mistakes!)

Patrick,

This project must have taken you a lot of work. Just the manual is the most comprehensive contruction guide I've ever seen for an electronic kit. Excellent job. I look forward to building one.

To everyone reading this, it's upto us to make sure Patrick's hard work pays off. I certainly will!


Regards,
Aragon

Patrick,
The manual looks great, I'm looking forward to assembling a tuner.

I saw an error that stands out. On the top of page 11 you make reference to PL5, I think you mean PL6.

(Will a 3rd PCB become available for i/o?)

Thank you,
Joe Mumme

Patrick,
The manual is awesome. That is some of the best instructions and pics I have ever seen !!! Great Job, I can't wait to get one!!!!!

Holy crap... what are you hosting on? I d/l'd at ~410 kbps! The only other thing I've seen come close to that is easynews.

I am also envious of his host's speed. Did you mean 410 kbps (as in kilobits/sec) or 410 kBps (as in kilobytes/sec)? I got 130 kBps on a 1.5 mbps ADSL line in New Olreans. 410kbps isn't that rare, 410 KBps is.

Nice manual too. I am also have trouble getting the size down on our manual. The word file is actually SMALLER than the PDF, regardless of the image compression settings.

Stu

You guys should be writing these manuals in TeX, anyway, using EPS for your images. They'd be smaller then.

Aren't EPS files mainly for vector based images? That would be fine for Patrick's manual, but for ours which is 95% bitmap, that wouldn't fly. As I understand them, compressed bitmap EPS files are basically JPEG images with a wrapper on them and since we are already using JPEG it wouldn't really prove too beneficial.

Stu

He must mean 410 kilobytes. I can get around 290KB/s from here.
It's not surprising though, Blueyonder is a broadband ISP here so they must have very high bandwidth connection to the internet. One of the few places which give you an affordable 1mbps link as well.

- Trevor

Bps... sheesh... Bytes, not bits.... picky picky picky ;8^)

Patrick,

Do you think the tuners will be ready by November? The only reason I ask is that I've been roped into providing engineering support for my old university's RSL and I'd love to be able to listen to them in the car going to and from work, because the moment they go off the air I'll have to leg it over to campus.
I'm fairly handy with a soldering iron, have you decided who your beta-builders are going to be? I'll stop being so cheeky now!

What kind of internet connection do you have the draft manual sitting on? I just downloaded it at 3.8 Megs a second. I CANNOT BELIEVE how fast your internet connection is...

Yeah this manual looks great Patrick. I got about 400Kbyte/s from my colocation (which is on a multihomed Gigabit line) wooo :P

True. I was mostly thinking about Patrick's line drawings (there should be some way to only embed one image for each of the boards and then overlay that red mask separately). That, and being an anti-MS bigot. But I'll bet that the same text presented in the same way produced by TeX would be smaller than produced by Word, even after both were converted to PDF.

I CANNOT BELIEVE how fast your internet connection is...

It's not actually Patrick's Internet connection, the file is being hosted on one of his ISP's servers, so it should be fast.

First of all - Patrick, the manual looks terrific!

But - I suppose if we were all sucking the manual through a pipe as big as a coffee stirrer, then getting the filesize down to a minimal value would be fairly important. Like others here, though, I got around 200k/sec downloading the manual - so before I knew it it was done downloading. Now, if Patrick has some bandwidth limitations at his ISP - then reducing the size of the file further would make sense to ease the burden placed on his limits.

And BTW - that was a speedy download.

Why can't several of us just host the manual on our web space? I have 2 sites with nothing on them and would be happy to place the manual there.

I have unlimited bandwidth (within reason) on a T1...I could host too.

Hi.

I have updated the manual as a result of the feedback I received, and it is now here, for your perusal.

pca

could it be a good idea to colour the components a different colour once you've put them on the board?

I could do this, but it's an awful lot of extra woirk, which at the moment I simply don't have the time to do. Perhaps later.

pca

there is no purple wire in your kit was it omitted?

The purple wire isn't actually used. I forgot about this, and ordered a 100m reel of the stuff before checking the circuit diagram...

pca

(Will a 3rd PCB become available for i/o?)

Almost certainly. I haven't decided what the final feature list will be, and I want to the the tuners themselfs shipping first, but an expansion board(s) is/are certainly on the cards.

pca

I CANNOT BELIEVE how fast your internet connection is...

When telewest's service actually works, it works bloody fast. Pity it's more than a little unreliable, at least from the standpoint of the connection between me and it.

pca

do you have any idea when you'll be putting up an ordering page for these modules?

I will be setting up the page to take orders within the next two-three weeks. I have to go away on family business for ten days or so from monday (long story, but there's at least one wedding involved), but when I get back I will be working towards shipping the units as fast as possible. At least initially, the tuners will be available on a first-come, first-served basis, with a limit of no more than two tuners per person. Once the supply is increased I'll remove the limit.

I will set up an ordering page, where you can place an order and receive a queue number (ah, that brings back memories!), and when your number is up I will contact you and get your credit card number. The first ten units or so are already spoken for, to friends and the like, but after that they will be available to all and sundry.

pca

There is no great problem with keeping the manual where it is. I'd prefer it not be mirrored elsewhere, at least until it is finalised, because I don't want out-of-date versions floating around.

My web space on blueyonder isn't used for anything else, and as people have noticed has a very fat pipe feeding from it. I'll keep the manual there and link it to the main site on a different host when I get that set up. Thanks for the offers, though.

pca

I will set up an ordering page, where you can place an order and receive a queue number (ah, that brings back memories!)

Would you like to use the original empeg script for doing that? Might make some of your customers really nostalgic

Rob

Might make some of your customers really nostalgic

Sure, if one of your definitions of "Nostalgic" is "Nauseous".

I remember those days. Waiting for a queue number was like having your fingernails slowly pulled out.

In reply to:

---

could it be a good idea to colour the components a different colour once you've put them on the board?

I could do this, but it's an awful lot of extra woirk, which at the moment I simply don't have the time to do. Perhaps later.

---

If you have an eps file of it, I would be more than happy to do it for you this weekend.

Hey do we know how much the tuners are going to be yet?

I will also been very keen to get a hold of one of these.....looking forward to the website details and price!!!

David
Mk2a - just installed today & I love it!!!!!!

me three.

What do you think the chances are of getting tuner kits out before Saturday 2nd of November?

Man, some weeks ago I thought the tuner might come out soon... But now - no activity for a long time.
I hope it's not gonna take another year to put up the website ;-)

He said he was going to be away for a few weeks a few weeks ago, so if you're surprised, I guess you missed that message.

Anyone else notice that this thread is up to 40000 views now?

Given there are only about 2000 users this works to be about 20 views for every single user.

There are a lot of us that are just waiting for the chance to buy one of PCA's new tuners. I check this board a couple a times of day just for that reason!

Every time this thread has a new reply, we all check it to see if it's PCA with an update, usually it's not though.

Ditto. Ironically, I am sure we will have at least a months heads up before the global ordering will begin...

Guess we are all just like kids in a candy store, impatient and single minded...

Guess we are all just like kids in a candy store, impatient and single minded...

or guys in a lingeri.. never mind.

Can somebody rehash what the new features of the pca tuner is versus the original tuner? I recall the number of addresses have been reduced to achieve something... I forget what.

Calvin

IIRC the reduction of addresses from 16 to 4 releases two I/O lines to be used for other stuff... (ie free to play with, not tied up by other standard features of the card)

/Michael

hehe - everybody now hoped pca wrote to this thread ;-)
Well - it's not the case...
Soon we can celebrate the 1-year-waiting-for-tuner-party.

In reply to:

---

Soon we can celebrate the 1-year-waiting-for-tuner-party.

---

Yeah , looks like I won't be able to get a kit sorted before the start of my RSL. Which means I'll have to drive around Manchester with a portable radio instead to check transmitter coverage.

I've been away from this forum for months, but i'm at the computer a bit more now the nice weather's gone! The tuner kit sounds great, just what we;ve been waiting for. Although I don;t have much electronic knowledge, apart from what all the bits are called, and roughly what they do, I can solder ok.
Just upgraded the firmware today to Beta13, and tried out that logo software and made a logo. God you people are good! If only every product had as much behind it as this fantastic forum full of talented and generous people!
Gimme Gimme Gimme that tuner kit!
Will

I just want a tuner so I can take my Truck to the drive in near my house! I have a pretty good system with a sub, but I cant use my truck stereo because they broadcast on FM! When I get my tuner, the FIRST thing I am going to do is take my Truck the the Drive in theater... I have been thinking about this for like two years now!

You got issues! J/K....didnt even know they still had drivins!

You bet I do

Does any buddy know, where's the electronic genius PCA?
Can an.y.bo.dy tell us where his goooooooone?
He's got the tuners, that, we allll wannnnnt.
Hope he won't be gone for long.

Right,
I also wonder why he kept us hungry for the tuner for so long and now when it seems to come out there is nothing happening...

Ok, so it's been almost 2-1/2 months without any sign of PCA. Does anyone have ANY idea what's going on or has this project just died?

I've seen him several times in the last two months. I guess he's juggling project priorities (besides, he's finished the tuner and is waiting on others to deliver goods/package kits/build a web site).

Rob

I'll build the website for a tuner.

Ok.. Nobody is allowed to post to this thread anymore except for Patrick. Everytime a new post comes up I go through an almost Soap Opera like expression of meladrama.

Just trying to keep it suspenseful. Plus I wouldn't mind seeing this thread hit 100,000 views. This thread and the other tuner thread (which is at 88,000 views) are the only two threads in BBS history to go over 10,000 views.

Just having one, or two new posts at a time doesn't hurt. You'll know it's *really* time to look when there are 47 new posts...



...in the last 2 minutes.