[NTLK] Next followup on EM300 and SER-001 boards

[NewtonTalk]

> Lats year I?ve made Jake?s internal WiFi board for Newton. I ordered board
from here: 
>
https://www.itead.cc/open-pcb/pcb-prototyping/2layer-green-pcb-5cm-x-5cm-max
.html 
>
<https://www.itead.cc/open-pcb/pcb-prototyping/2layer-green-pcb-5cm-x-5cm-ma
x.html>

Pawel,

Thanks for the info. I'll sure keep that in mind.

The good news is that today I had the phone call I had hoped for. The lady
told me that she found the board thickness info in a text file in the zip
file I had sent. She admitted that things were her fault. So it seems I
needn't pay for what I got.

The not-so-good news is that they cannot manufacture 0.8mm boards with their
PCB-Pool system. PCB-Pool means they won't manufacture only your boards, but
group the boards of many customers in a way that they can be manufactured
together as one huge board, which reduces production cost drastically. The
thinnest boards they can manufacture with that system are 1mm.

As luck will have it, 1mm will fit, albeit barely, in the eMate's memory
board holder. So I'll be able to order five usable EM300 prototype boards
without any additional cost.

The SER-001 board is a different story. Since a handful of people on this
list have reported cracked case parts after having had this board in their
Newtons for a longer time, chances are good that the additional 0.2mm
thickness would aggravate this problem. Having this board manufactured in
its original thickness of 0.8mm is almost 7 times more expensive than the
1mm PCB-Pool version, which isn't really an option at the moment. Although,
admittedly, I'm stinking rich, I'm not going to shell out 600 bucks for five
prototype boards that, provided I can turn them into working SER-001 boards,
can be sold at 40 bucks apiece at most.

I still have a couple of unpopulated SER-001s board from David that I could
try to populate once I've saved enough for my reflow soldering equipment. I
also have three brand-new originally sealed SER-001 boards from my own
supply that I can (and very much would like to) sell. So for the time being
I guess I can dare putting the SER-001 project on hold without jeopardizing
the satisfaction of the worldwide SER-001 demand.

I'll keep you posted :-)

Cheers

Frank

-- Newton software and hardware at http://www.pda-soft.de