Shruti-1 (Page 2 of 3)

yep... analogue power!

Hi all,

We're really getting closer to the release of the first kits! As you have read on the blog the PCB design has been validated and a small number of units have been ordered. I've switched to a different PCB manufacturing company that is cheaper for larger volumes - I had no idea what their validation process was - so I have ordered only 5 units to check that all went well and that their output is correct. This means, if all goes well, 5 kits ready shortly after the end of the Chinese new year festivals (during which many factories are closed), and more to come soon after. I will spend some time over the weekend flashing the firmware on all the chips I have stocked and testing the CEM3379s. Indeed, I have secured a small stock of them from various sources, and have a clearer view on the supply for this chip - it's rare but not going to be extinct tomorrow.

An example with the cz-like filter (the filter modulation is directly applied during the waveform generation, it doesn't come from the CEM3379):
http://soundcloud.com/mutable-instruments/pure-digital

Still, all the more reason to get a kit early!  I don't want to end up trying to scrounge up bits and pieces at higher prices like some of the stuff needed for a x0xb0x. (If it can be found at all!)

Im following this fairly closely and spent a while listening to a few audio samples. Pretty excited, wondered if any time frame/price information is available?

That sounds like a really good price, I liked the new jam you put up also.

http://soundcloud.com/mutable-instruments/fm-glass-jam

From Google Analytics, it seems that more than half of the people interested in the kit are in the US. The main distributors for most of the components (Digikey and Farnell for common parts + Sparkfun for the display) are in the US too, so it makes little sense to have stuff shipped to France (+ custom taxes) put in bags and sent back to the US (+ custom taxes). I don't think that at this small scale it's possible to have the custom taxes refunded just because everything is ultimately re-exported. There are electronic components distributors in France, but most of them end up being more expensive than directly ordering in the US.

I'm not making any profit on this (though I'd rather want to see the money I've invested on a small stock of parts come back ) and would really appreciate if something could be organized to keep the cost as low as possible.

Hi bleo,

I can create a csv file with the digikey references, but some other parts are available from other suppliers only, which makes the whole idea of a ready to use BOM less useful. The thing is, I didn't design this thing with the digikey or farnell or mouser catalogue under my eyes (I should have, my bad).

The culprits are:
- The extra pots for volume/input gain. If you know nice references in the digikey catalogue let me know!
- KLBRSS3-like audio connectors. I thought they were quite popular but they are not. Radiospares has the original Lumberg thing, gold-plated and expensive ; Farnell has the cheap variant I used. What's the most standard PCB-mounted 6.35 jack connector out there?
- The knobs.
- Ribbon cable + connector ; or pre-cabled molex connector. Or anything that will be less messy than having to solder 8 + 3 wild cables. Again, I ordered those pre-assembled cables with a molex connector from a components distributor in France and realized later that it was not available from other places.

Also, I haven't done the maths but I suspect that even with custom fees, it's still cheaper to order parts for 20 kits in one batch than have 20 person individually order parts for 1 kit...