Target Launch Date for our Kickstarter Campaign!
A lot has happened since our last progress update in More Chips Please! As reported then, the industry’s chip supply problems due to Covid meant that we had to make a number of component changes, find new suppliers and review the cost structure for PCB manufacturing, components and assembly.
Having reached out to a number of PCB manufacturers, we are really pleased to have been accepted into PCBWAY’s Crowdfunding Project Sponsorship Programme!
With this dedicated programme of support we were able to rapidly compare component choices and pricing, and with their expert help and amazing discounts kick off the manufacture and assembly of our final prototype! As we know you might well be thinking of using the Red Reactor as part of your own custom projects, we are now able to pass on an introductory discount for your own PCB prototypes by using this link to sign up with PCBWAY, https://www.pcbway.com/setinvite.aspx?inviteid=406159
We’ve been using KiCad for all our PCB designs and if you’re just starting out, this is a really intuitive and fully featured schematic entry and PCB layout tool. And it is totally free! There are many videos on using KiCad, but when it comes to exporting all your layout files I must have watched this video “An Intro to KiCad – Part 8: Generate Gerbers” more than a dozen times!
If you are at all interested in the PCB manufacturing and assembly processes, you’ll be amazed at the production flow videos you can watch on PCBWAY’s site, just start here: https://www.pcbway.com/pcb-service.html
With the backing from PCBWAY’s sponsorship programme, we are now on the final stretch before launching our Kickstarter campaign! We expect to get new prototype boards in August’22, and we’ll update you with progress of our final testing then. We’ve also ordered a custom made set of Pogo-pins that enable our board to easily connect underneath your Pi, and we will be looking to make these available in our launch campaign as an add-on for your own projects.
All being well with final testing, we have set our target Kickstarter launch date for September 2022, and we’re very pleased to continue to receive your support when you subscribe on our site (and don’t forget we’ll send you a great discount voucher for use with Fogstar Ltd for all your battery needs). By subscribing we can notify you first so you can hopefully catch our early bird discount!
We are happy to work directly with the Red Reactor team as part of our Sponsorship programme，and excited to see our PCBs could be one part of the final project!
Let’s look forward then!