Open For Preorders!
Prorders for assembled UPCBs are now open. The pre-order price is $45.00, and doesn’t include shipping or a PIC, but everything else.
Numbers are based on the first quote that has come back. If the second quote is less, I’ll come back and update the numbers, but I doubt it will.
Everything on the board will be soldered and ready to be installed. The only things not included are the PIC, and the shipping. The only soldering that will need to be done is to solder the ribbon cable to the female DB15 output. 15 solder points and that’s it. (I debated using the blue IDC Dsub 15 thingy from last time, but that blue piece is just too much of a bitch to install. If you have a left over motherboard to gameport cable, you can use that instead and not have to solder anything. If anyone knows where I could pick such cables up in bulk I’d appreciate it, but I can’t find any source for a reasonable price. Something like this: http://www.intolan.com/MIDI_Gameport_Back_plate_Adapter_p/misc-bkplt-game.htm )
Kit will include:
-UPCB board, with all components installed and soldered (No PIC. 40 pin IC socket is soldered in place, ready for PIC to be installed.)
-3x 20 pin female IDC connectors. These are the pieces that go on the ribbon cable and plug into the UPCB for the buttons and/or piggyback connections.
-1x 6 pin polarized female connector. This is what plugs into the UPCB for the stick. Take your JLF harness or whatever wire you’re connecting to the stick, crimp the pins, insert into the connector, and plug into the board.
-7x crimp pins for above. I included a spare in case of human error.
-1 meter rainbow colored 20 conductor ribbon cable, for connecting buttons, the output DB15, and piggybacks
-1x 16 pin female IDC connector, for connecting the UPCB to the output DB15.
-1x female DB15 for the output connector
-1x 2 pin female connector for program button. If you want a program button, crimp the two wires to the pins below, insert into this connector, and it plugs right into the board.
-3x crimp pins for above.
Board will NOT have any DB15s soldered to it; if you want to use it as a NeoGeo->Whatever converter, you’ll have to solder those on yourself. Since most people will want this in a stick, no need for everyone to pay for something few people use.
As anyone knows, the per unit cost goes down by volume. The price of $45.00 secures a preorder for an assembled UPCB and the extra bells and whistles. This is the worst case cost; if I can get preorders for 35 pieces, everything will be kopasetic. If I can’t get 35 preorders, then I wont be able to afford the assembly. I’m a man of my word though; If I dont get 35 orders, I’ll be assembling these by hand for those that did preorder, and there will not be any assembled UPCBs available for those that didn’t preorder. God that would suck though. If I can get 65 units preordered, the preorder price will drop to $40. Anyone that preordered 1 unit at the $45 price will have the difference used to pay for shipping. If they ordered more than that, paypal refunds will be given immediately after shipping has been paid. If I can get preorders for 100 units, the price will go significantly down, but I havent crunched the numbers yet because Im a bit of a pessimist.
After the preorder, the price will go up to $5+preorder price. If I get 65 preorders, $45. 35 pre-orders, $50. Less than that, no assembled boards will be available.
Some very good news though: The price of the PIC has gone WAY done since last run. Newark has them at just under $5 each (http://www.newark.com/08J9678/semiconductors-prototyping/product.us0?sku=MICROCHIP-PIC18LF4550-I-P). For those that pre-order, I’ll be offering to get the PIC for $6. After the shipping cost, I may make a few cents, but since I can order the bunch prepaid, I wont be putting any of my money at risk. Price for the PIC will also go up a dollar or two after the preorder is closed. As always, I’ll program any PICs sent to me for free. This is just to be nice to those that preorder that dont want to mess with sampling their own.
Testing: All boards will be tested by me before they get shipping to the end user. I am setting up some equipment to make this as fast and painless as possible; you can be confident that the board you receive will work right out of the box.
How long will it take? This pre-ordering window will be open until midnight MST Feb 16th. I expect the worst case scenario for getting everything ordered, shipped, assembled, and shipped to me, and shipped back out to you, will take 4-6 weeks from the time I place the order Monday Feb. 18th.
If you wish to secure your part of the pre-order batch, paypal $45 each to toodlesdc SPLAT yahoo . com. Shipping costs or PICs costs can be paid later if you wish. Estimate US shipping to be $5 for every two. Any extra from actual shipping cost will be refunded.
Many of you purchased hand assembled UPCBs from me at the cost of $62 each, the price Numbski paid for the ebay auction for an assembled UPCB. I sincerely hope none of you will be offended by the lower cost for an assembled UPCB; I should have made it clear that assembled boards would likely be available in the future for less if there is enough demand. If it weren’t for people like you, I likely wouldn’t be doing this to begin with, so you do have my thanks.
For those of you wanting bare PCB’s, they will be available for $12 for 1, $10 each for 2, and if you want 3 or more, get ahold of me over PM.
Please feel free to ask any questions. I’ll be sitting here with knots in my stomach wondering if there really is enough interest in the community to pull this off.
, I’ve translated enough to give me working code decoding traffic between Naomi and I/O board, in Linux through a RS-485->USB serial adapter. I will put up what I’ve got on JVS once I figure this PIC stuff out (got the pickit2 a couple of days back :)). Right now it’s a bit in my head, a bit in a crappy translation and a bit in ugly hack code 
)