The final drill sample was perfect and I tuned up my pcb to fit it perfectly and now the whole works is perfect and ready to go! The first round of boxes is already en route to me even, it's coming together fast! The first boxes will be black with rainbow sparkle, should have a pic to show you next week.
Here's a couple pics of the latest prototype:
These pics don't show it but I'm going to use a clear light plate on the back of these in lieu of any screen printing on the box. The pcb has all the info on it like the logo, name, date, all that stuff.. so I'm going to use a clear plate for the back and you can just read the brand infos off the pcb inside. There'll be a red light in the light plate so it glows red around the edges, giving you a visual cue that it's powered and on even if it's not displaying any audio at the moment. I'll show that better when I do the next builds when the production boxes arrive. (for the pre-order the light plate LED colour will match the bar graph colours, no worries!)
So here's what I'm thinking... I could use a bit of help to round up the funds to make these badboys... they're made out of parts I don't normally stock so I need to buy a lot of stuff at once to get these going. I've been doing up the costs and all that stuff and I think these will have to have an MSRP of $225, that's the price in store. I agree, that seems pricey for a doodad that you just look at but it's made out of expensive stuff and it takes a long time to build one. The price will also include everything you need to use it right out of the box though.. a good power supply, 2 x barrel connectors for your pedal board, and 2 x audio cables for your device/computer/stereo. Plus the usual lifetime warranty and some stickers and a pick. The production ones will be in red, it's the only colour of bar graphs that are readily available and a decent price.
To get these off the ground I think we should do a little pre-order here, make the price be $50ish less, and give you a choice of the colours.. I've been rounding up some cool bar graphs so you guys can have a choice of yellow, green, red, blue, or a mix if you like, plus some old school ones that are red/yellow/green/yellow/red. Lots are en route now but when I start the pre-order I'll show you a few different styles and you can let me know what you want and then I'll order more.
The pcbs are the other big thing for the pre-order, I'm going to get them in white and red and they'll take a few weeks to arrive, giving me time to round up all the other parts. I predict the pre-order will just be a month wait, just long enough to get the pcbs on hand and then a week or so for me to get a bunch built and shipped.
So let me get the final box and pcb proto in and make up a few more, week after next I predict, and then I'll officially start the pre-order. Thanks for your patience while I get it all ready, it always takes way longer than expected and there's always surprises along the way.. I'd say this little box has been the toughest thing to get into production that I've made yet but I think it's also the biggest passion project I've ever made, I really dig these lil analyzers.
More pics and pre-order to start soon, gimme a week or two, I'll keep you posted as things progress![/quote]
