Luke, others,
Has there been any recent progress on the crowd-funding campaign or on other things? I know there's been a little off-list correspondence about Gratipay, which is peripheral to everything else, but for the benefit of anyone following the list (either as a subscriber or reading the archives) an update might be informative.
From what I've seen from following other lists, there's progress on Linux device tree support for various Ingenic JZ-series SoCs, which might have a beneficial impact on any jz4755 card that is produced. My own experiments with the jz4720/30/40 have stalled somewhat for the time being, but I'll get back to them at some point, I imagine.
Paul
On Mon, Jun 29, 2015 at 4:06 PM, Paul Boddie paul@boddie.org.uk wrote:
Luke, others,
Has there been any recent progress on the crowd-funding campaign or on other things?
ironically we just cross-over on what i've been up to, mostly it's been the laptop casework whilst waiting for quotes from china assembly companies.
From what I've seen from following other lists, there's progress on Linux device tree support for various Ingenic JZ-series SoCs, which might have a beneficial impact on any jz4755 card that is produced.
great! oh - it's a 4775 not a 4755. the 4755 is a veerry loooow end SoC, whilst the 4775 is an FSF-Endorseable 1ghz MIPS with a 720p video decoder that has full source code available for it.
anyway, yes: it was very unfortunate that the company in the USA - despite having amazing interactive facilities which made the job of communicating with them both a pleasure as well as a cooperative task - had such high manual assembly costs. ordinarily on USA-based pricing for parts, or if the unit sale price was even 3x to 4x the costs it would not have been a problem, but when the assembly cost is nearly 80% to 100% of the component cost, _that_'s a problem.
so it has been back to square one to find a china-based contract manufacturer, and i just have to let them get on with it and get back to me when they can.
l.
On Monday 29. June 2015 17.58.50 Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
On Mon, Jun 29, 2015 at 4:06 PM, Paul Boddie paul@boddie.org.uk wrote:
Luke, others,
Has there been any recent progress on the crowd-funding campaign or on other things?
ironically we just cross-over on what i've been up to, mostly it's been the laptop casework whilst waiting for quotes from china assembly companies.
Right. What about the mini-desktop, though? Wasn't that the original crowd- funded proposal?
From what I've seen from following other lists, there's progress on Linux device tree support for various Ingenic JZ-series SoCs, which might have a beneficial impact on any jz4755 card that is produced.
great! oh - it's a 4775 not a 4755. the 4755 is a veerry loooow end SoC, whilst the 4775 is an FSF-Endorseable 1ghz MIPS with a 720p video decoder that has full source code available for it.
Yes, I meant jz4775. After a while all the numbers blur into one another. ;-)
anyway, yes: it was very unfortunate that the company in the USA - despite having amazing interactive facilities which made the job of communicating with them both a pleasure as well as a cooperative task
- had such high manual assembly costs. ordinarily on USA-based
pricing for parts, or if the unit sale price was even 3x to 4x the costs it would not have been a problem, but when the assembly cost is nearly 80% to 100% of the component cost, _that_'s a problem.
So, "onshoring" still has a way to go, then. ;-)
so it has been back to square one to find a china-based contract manufacturer, and i just have to let them get on with it and get back to me when they can.
Oh dear! Well, as long as you can identify reliable and reputable manufacturers who can schedule the work.
Paul
On Mon, Jun 29, 2015 at 5:53 PM, Paul Boddie paul@boddie.org.uk wrote:
On Monday 29. June 2015 17.58.50 Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
On Mon, Jun 29, 2015 at 4:06 PM, Paul Boddie paul@boddie.org.uk wrote:
Luke, others,
Has there been any recent progress on the crowd-funding campaign or on other things?
ironically we just cross-over on what i've been up to, mostly it's been the laptop casework whilst waiting for quotes from china assembly companies.
Right. What about the mini-desktop, though? Wasn't that the original crowd- funded proposal?
micro-desktop. yes. still waiting to hear from the china assembly team i selected: they're very thorough (and very busy), which is a good thing.
From what I've seen from following other lists, there's progress on Linux device tree support for various Ingenic JZ-series SoCs, which might have a beneficial impact on any jz4755 card that is produced.
great! oh - it's a 4775 not a 4755. the 4755 is a veerry loooow end SoC, whilst the 4775 is an FSF-Endorseable 1ghz MIPS with a 720p video decoder that has full source code available for it.
Yes, I meant jz4775. After a while all the numbers blur into one another. ;-)
:)
anyway, yes: it was very unfortunate that the company in the USA - despite having amazing interactive facilities which made the job of communicating with them both a pleasure as well as a cooperative task
- had such high manual assembly costs. ordinarily on USA-based
pricing for parts, or if the unit sale price was even 3x to 4x the costs it would not have been a problem, but when the assembly cost is nearly 80% to 100% of the component cost, _that_'s a problem.
So, "onshoring" still has a way to go, then. ;-)
yehhh if it was fully-automated then i'm certain they're wouldn't be a huge difference, but with this being a split PCB design, *two* sets of 80-100% markup for assembly costs and *two* sets of 350% increases in anticipated PCB costs was just too much. there was absolutely no way i could meet the $95/$99 target sale price (which btw at qty 250 will still be barely profitable), i would have had to raise the price to around $130, even possibly as high as $140.
so it has been back to square one to find a china-based contract manufacturer, and i just have to let them get on with it and get back to me when they can.
Oh dear! Well, as long as you can identify reliable and reputable manufacturers who can schedule the work.
yes. i know just the people - they're very very good at PCB manufacturing, i just didn't realise until recently that they do assembly as well. doh!
l.
arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk
-
Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton -
Paul Boddie