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Re: Promote the Uzebox!

Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 10:05 pm
by CompMan
Correct me if I'm wrong but I think the decision has been made to use SNES connectors.

Compman

Re: Promote the Uzebox!

Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 10:11 pm
by nubie
ladyada wrote:ya getting promotion is easy, but until there is a 'finished and available' project it will not be effective.
im still kinda waiting for the 'standard' connector decision to be made. until that is resolved its hard to move forward :(
My connection standard is wire and solder :D, but others don't exactly view it that way I know (at least not if we want widespread adoption :roll: )
CompMan wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong but I think the decision has been made to use SNES connectors.

Compman
We are quickly approaching SNES as the standard, if the 6-port ebay multi-taps work for $10, then we can just buy a bunch of them for parts :). (and by we I mean Havok and Uze :P)

Re: Promote the Uzebox!

Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 11:06 pm
by ladyada
erk...i hope a connector source is found. im not looking forward to stripping connectors off of working electronics and throwing out the rest. especially if im doing it hundreds of times... :shock:

Re: Promote the Uzebox!

Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2008 12:29 am
by uze6666
I guess we are left with the custom injection molding. Havok mentioned it's expensive in the US, but what about Taiwan/China?

Re: Promote the Uzebox!

Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2008 12:59 am
by havok1919
uze6666 wrote:I guess we are left with the custom injection molding. Havok mentioned it's expensive in the US, but what about Taiwan/China?
The numbers I was getting for a steel tool in Taiwan were on the order of ~$5-7K. The plastic is almost rounding error after that. ;-) To get turned pins (from a US source) was only about $0.04 per pin, but with a $2500 NRE for the tool. So it's a good solid ~$7-9K NRE project. (That's assuming that I get the mechanical engineering and tool design done in trade for my engineering time on another project down the toad.) Even if we could get it down to half that, it's still probably close to ~$4-5 per connector *if* you eventually sell through 1000 connectors...

Something like an aluminum tool might be less money up front, but it could also wear out by ~1000 shots or so, so amortizing the cost of the tool over a long period is harder.

I'm thinking that raiding the Naki multitaps for parts is the way to go for now. If there's suddenly demand for 1000's of UZEBOXen, then tooling something makes sense, but for now, probably smart to err on the side of frugal...

-Clay

Re: Promote the Uzebox!

Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2008 12:29 pm
by antibyte
Parralax produces a Board based on their self developed
8 Core Propeller Microcontroller, called Hydra.
Its a Game development Board too, and uses
NES joypad-connectors.
So maybe just ask them for their source, or
if they are willing to sell some of those connectors ?
I wrote about the UZEBox in the Parallax Propeller forum,
and Chip Gracey, the Chief of Parallax said, the uzebox is cool :)

http://forums.parallax.com/forums/defau ... 5&m=288183

http://parallax.com/Store/Microcontroll ... fault.aspx

Image

Re: Promote the Uzebox!

Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2008 4:26 pm
by CompMan
I asked parallax already. He wouldn't tell me what the supplier is but he did say he could sell us some. About $1 each, but I think we wanted to go with the SNES.

Compman

Re: Promote the Uzebox!

Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2008 1:10 am
by antibyte
hmm, 1$ doesnt sound too bad, exept you get the SNES for less.