USB-to-Serial Module based coders cable

[pboese]

Greetings,

It has been about 1 month (15-Dec-2005) since I opened up the coderscable email address for interested parties to respond to. To date 10 individuals have expressed a desire to purchase a USB Coders Cable. Most of these emails arrived in the first two weeks.

So far the party who seemed interested in helping me produce the device has not contacted me since our initial discussions.

I have 7 (seven) rev D printed circuit boards from my prototype run that I have not built up at this time. I'm am seriously considering making these the first and only units available due to lack of demand.

Since I only get good raw part discounts starting around the 50+ quantity range I would have to charge a few dollars more per unit to make up the difference in cost. The shipping charges I have to pay to each part vendor is a major factor in the end unit cost.

Obviously If I can order hundreds is individual parts then the overall cost for shipping is spread out. For instance; a typical $50 part order at Digikey will usually have a shipping and handling charge of 10 to 15 dollars! That adds a lot to cost of building a unit. So the more parts I can purchase at one time the better.

Therefore I will wait about one more week to hear back from my potential business partner. If I get no response, then the first 7 respondents (Those who already responded) will get first dibs at the 7 yet to built units.

Regards,

Paul Boese a.k.a. Axlen

[Alexvrb]

Well, you put the plans up there, so people can build their own too.

[semicolo]

Do someone know about configuring dreamkey for using the serial port instead of the internal modem ?
We discussed that on a french irc channel yesterday, if it's possible to have internet sharing by this mean, it could boost the usb coders cable demand.

[pboese]

The cable uses surface mount parts which makes it
difficult for some folks to build themselves of
course. I have seriously considered making a batch of
fifty units, but the cost to do it is pretty steep
compared to the stuff of similar complexity in the
"consumer" market today.

I have seven bare REV D prototype boards that I don't
have parts for right now. These may end up being the
first and the last that I make available 'after I pay
down my creditcard a bit' I spent over $1000 since
last August on parts and pcb board services. Most of
which I was able to pay for with cash from a one time
stock sale. It was a lot of fun though so I don't
regret spending the money.

I saw a group of amateur radio operators formed a coop
to design and build electronic equipment. They all
put their efforts and cash together to fund the
project to build them. No profit motive. I don't
know if I could get an effort like that going in the
dcdev community or not. I've already put alot of time
into this, but I've placed all the knowledge gained on
my website. The only thing I have not done it put up
the pcb layout. I'm not entirely happy with it. I
think I could re-lay out the board so the device fits
in the much smaller case.

Anyway that's what's going on. I'll build up the last
seven boards... eventually I 'was' planning on
selling fully built/tested unit for $49 USD (50 unit
production qty), but my potential 'backer' seems to
have disappeared

[Kochise]

nm France powaaaa... What's the steps ? Could not buy a package before April...

Kochise

[Chaotis]

I'm sure there are others interested out there and just don't know about it yet. Make sure you put posts on several of the dcdev sites and stuff. I will be ordering one if they're still available after I get a million other more important things done first. (gotta pay off college classes so they don't kick me out)

EDIT: I would like to join such a coop if one is started. Currently taking many elte and csis courses and hope I would be some help to such a group.

[pboese]

I've been dragging this on too long. Let's cut out the
profit and consider another way to get the cable into
your hands. The current calculated cost for parts to
build each unit sans shipping (vendor shipping charges
to me for raw parts) is between $25 to $30 USD. That
$5 difference is based on the actually number of parts
purchased; e.g. I get a better price for buying 100
resistors vs 50.

I was asking $49 USD for each unit originally to cover
development costs and to compensate me for the time
required to build up each unit. I considered this a
fair price to ask at the time.

Would you consider $30.00 USD plus shipping with
payment in advance via pay-pal. There have been 17
posts from interested parties to this mailbox. That
should be enough to at least start to get better bulk
prices for some of the parts. One of the interested
parties may also have cheap source for the DC serial
plug (VS Cables).

This message is to get your feedback. If you are serious
please reply. I'll send pay-pal info if enough of you
respond.

Email coderscable at sbcglobal dot net

Regards,

Paul Boese, a.k.a. Axlen.

----- 28 Feb 2005 -----
This offer is now closed - no new requests will be accepted unless one of the current first responders opts out.

Paul Boese, a.k.a. Axlen
----- 28 Feb 2005 -----

[pboese]

[quote author=Alexvrb link=board=hardware;num=1093196907;start=90#101 date=01/13/05 at 22:51:17]Well, you put the plans up there, so people can build their own too.[/quote]

Quite true, but so far I have not heard of anyone doing so.

[Kochise]

nm.

Kochise

[pboese]

I need the help of the DC hardware community. I sent a USB Coders Cable to Propeller (of GP/DC FreeDev fame) for him to use. Unfortunately he has not been able to get it too work. Barring some sort of hardware problem I'm at a loss.

Does anyone know if there are any Serial Clock frequency differences between the PAL and NTSC Dreamcasts? That might explain the the problem if there is a difference.