Hi guys,
I am addressing to all of you asking for your comment on the following subject. I can't stress enough the importance of your contribution since we've reached a critical stage of the project and have to make crucial decisions, some with no returning point.
As you may well know from recent news we have finally concluded our Beta 2 version for the VCA consoles. We're are still testing it on a real console, but we are very confident we've finally reached a very good & high quality hardware design, which, after much testing in a real production environment, will eventually be tagged as the final 1.0 version. The next phase, starting in the following weeks, will port this same architecture into the Ultimation systems.
Through the several beta versions we've worked on we were able to try out several architecture approaches, some less complex in terms of hardware but which didn't delivered the performance and features we were hoping for. This latest design is the best of what we could achieve being restricted to trough-hole technology. Despite this limitation, no corners were cut and it fully accomplishes our initial goals, meeting all the hardware/feature requirements we've planned. Unfortunately this comes at the expense of a slightly higher component count and real-state usage (card size), when comparing with the earlier simpler designs or if we've opted instead for SMD technology.
- please refer to the images attached below -
The VCA I/O card ended up with a component number close to 210 (including connectors). It may seem much, but in our experience it's a very easy and straight forward card to assemble, since most components are very simply laid down (next to each other), and many of them are ICs anyway. Despite this, they are a total of 210 and if you have a system with 8 of these cards we are talking of assembling 1680 components just for the I/O section.
Although much much simpler, there will be also the Total Recall+Keyboard+Transport card (this one is also much smaller) and the Motherboard (which is more like a back-plane connector with a few components) to assemble. The Ultimation I/O card will be also a bit simpler (less components) than the VCA I/O card, but similar in terms of complexity.
Now that we are finally able to show you how a final through-hole card is going to be, it's much easier to assess the complexity of the entire DIY project, considering the complete set of cards a system will need and the effort necessary to assembly it.
Knowing this information, we believe that at this stage it's an obligation to ask the entire community how they feel about this. Is this a project you, as future clients, will be willing to handle as a DIY project? Or, would you instead prefer we abandon the DIY goal and do it as a ready-made system (using SMD technology)?
I know this goes out of the initial project motivation, but we believe it's paramount to reach out to you all and hear what you have to say about it before we pursuit any further. This way we can decide knowing that whatever decision we take will meet the overall forum opinion.
For us eventually moving to an SMD route will have a big impact in terms of business model, capital investment and commitment. So it's very important to get this right from start.
Please be as complete as possible in your comments and reasons behind your opinion. Also lets not be shy to rise questions and start a discussion if necessary. Anything that help us steer in the right direction is welcome.
Thank you,
Project Manager
Artur