ST536 assembled interests (canceled)

[exxos]

I took these images last night. The board cannot be moved any further back because the the drive and simms are in the way.

Even so the board as it is still too tall to miss the bottom of the floppy drive. The bitter creativity it could be lowered using low profile header pins and soldering the CPU down maybe. But the front of the board is still protruding too much with the IDE connector. it could be relocated on the bottom of the board elsewhere but is getting into a very messy project I think.

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[exxos]

The Veloce fitted like this. The keyboard support must of been done away with as it is so massive board. But notice even this barely clears the bottom of the floppy drive and the CPU is soldered down.

VELOCE.JPG

[arti040]

If people are expecting this to fit in the case on original machines,then I think I will abandon this project.
(...)
But again with developing more prototypes and more costs, I am not sure it would really be worth it if only 5-10 people would be interested.

Yea, when I dug into Atari ST world I quickly noticed that many (if not - the most of) ST users treat their machines like game/demo launchers and nothing more :-( But still, I hope, there are people around who would want to make this amazing computer more up-to-date. There is so many cool system replacements which just scream for megabytes and megahertzes - multitasking environments like Geneva or MINT, for instance, new software new ports - whatever. And without that we will never see any progress in this matter so please, don't abandon this project! It is far from perfect in design terms, right but it's a good start anyway. People surely will find the way to fit it inside their machines. And maybe, in the future, some more matching PCB will be created, maybe not but still - SOMETHING is always better than NOTHING.

[exxos]

I just had a message about wanting to buy assembled ones of these ST536's. So I thought I would do a final post to say I have abandoned the assembly of the ST536. As mentioned previously, some people are expecting to fit this in a STE. Which there is no way this will fit.

AFAIK only @PhilC As built and sold the TF536 / ST536 but I don't think he has much time these days. I certainly cannot build "one offs" for anyone. My soldering days are over because of my RSI. I'm only one person and rather poorly one at that. If you want one assembled then YOU look for all the parts to assemble the thing then spend endless hours looking for some soldering company which can build it for you without charging a arm and a leg.

It generally costs around £2,000 to put something into production in a small batch. Certainly 5-10 people interested is just not enough (***). So fully assembled ST536's are simply not going to be done by myself, sorry. The PCBs are available in my store until those stocks run out. I certainly have no objection if people want to buy the PCBs and sell them assembled. The only criteria is that people charge reasonable prices and not rip people off by people selling stuff on evilbay tend to do.

People also have to realise there are parts shortages which has squatted basically every project development under the sun over the past couple of years. Some chips have been in access of £200 last time I looked. I have spent considerable amount of time trying to track down parts all over the world to keep as many projects going as possible. It soaks up a hell of a lot of time. So even if someone is willing to assemble them, obtaining the parts could well be impossible anyway. As people know, I am dealing with PCB houses and testing all the stuff which arrives every week. Plus keeping stuff in my store is soaking up all my time. I barely have any time for project development or assembly of stuff these days anyway.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to sound like a a$$Hole here. It is not unreasonable for people to ask things of course. But when you have hundreds of those "won't take long jobs".. I generally work on this stuff 15 hours a day with only a short break for dinner. All unpaid hours I might add. So those couple of extra hours for those "won't take long jobs" means one of those days I will be working even longer hours. I'm just not such a young man any more, and I am struggling multitasking with all the current projects without adding more onto it. I have stuff from a few years ago which I got the PCBs made and just lay in a box because I don't have time for those projects either.

I have however started the STE536 . But I had to temporarily stop work on that because of my RSI again (I hope to get back to this relatively soon though) . I'm sorry to regular readers as I am sounding like a broken record but I really cannot emphasise enough how painful day-to-day living is never mind doing basically repetitive things like soldering. Building up almost 100 STE boosters which involved testing 100's of chips has caused me a great deal of pain. I certainly do not get any enjoyment out of such work.

(***)
I think this thread of the future of exxos Is also relevant here. I have been working on Atari stuff for the best part of 30 years now. Certainly the Atari user base and Atari activity is not getting any larger.

[Badwolf]

I just had a message about wanting to buy assembled ones of these ST536's. So I thought I would do a final post to say I have abandoned
the assembly of the ST536. As mentioned previously, some people are expecting to fit this in a STE. Which there is no way this will fit.

...

I have however started the STE536 .

Pity to not have a fully built option for sale, but given how hard it is to fit these things into original hardware (unlike on the Amiga side), I don't think asking the end user -- who will have to be a dab hand with a soldering iron anyway -- to part build it, is unreasonable.

Glad to hear you're still working on the STE one though, since that *does* have the ability to be a solder-and-wirecutter-less experience.

Cheers,

BW

[mrbombermillzy]

That's a shame. :(

But I get it.

I've always thought you have too much going on at once and if there's no way to delegate down to others, then, of course, trim it back a bit (by cancelling some projects/tasks) to ease the pressure.

I'm sure everyone on the forum understands the situation.

Just do what you need to do.

[exxos]

Pity to not have a fully built option for sale, but given how hard it is to fit these things into original hardware (unlike on the Amiga side), I don't think asking the end user -- who will have to be a dab hand with a soldering iron anyway -- to part build it, is unreasonable.

Yeah, if people want a plug and play solution they probably move to the PC world :lol: But on a more serious note, I cannot be the only person in the entire world who can solder SMT stuff.

Glad to hear you're still working on the STE one though, since that *does* have the ability to be a solder-and-wirecutter-less experience.

My port of the 536 was really a " weekend project" more than anything. Of course it was never specifically designed to fit anything. Whereas the STE one will be designed from the ground up to specifically fit the STE. I mostly thought it would be useful to have a more Atari orientated port of the 536 considering the design was basically done anyway.

[JezC]

I'll add my thanks for all you do & fully understand that you need to put your health first.

At least the birdseed boards are available for people to buy & build still.

Might be time for me to hone my soldering skills ;)

[exxos]

Thats a shame. :( But I get it.

Ive always thought you have too much going on at once and if theres no way to delegate down to others, then, of course, trim it back a bit (by cancelling some projects/tasks) to ease the pressure.

Im sure everyone on the forum understands the situation.Just do what you need to do.

Indeed. I'm not happy about scaling back but again I really have no choice with my RSI. but it is not just the time which goes into things but to produce a batch of anything costs a lot of money and there are no guarantees that the things will sell. Like if I have £2,000 to spend on a project then which of the 10 projects am I going to invest the time and capital into... The market just simply is not there to take such huge financial risks. I am still about £3,000 out-of-pocket from the last H5 motherboard run for starters. So I just have to be a little smart in what projects I invest into for various reasons.

Doing lower volume stuff would generally be the way but I cannot do that work myself anymore anyway. @PhilC Has been building the 536 prototypes up for me. I don't think I have ever actually built one of those up personally. He has a lot more experience in building up those then I probably ever will. A guy I used to work with is still working in the background finishing up the power supplies and a few other projects. Of course I have to pay him which pretty much wipes out the profit margin of a lot of this stuff anyway. But it is either that or have several huge boxes of transformers and parts just sat around until the end of time.

Probably nobody noticed but I stopped selling my STE SIMMS a long time ago. Just basically lack of time again. I do actually have all the DRAM and PCBs. but just no time or no real enthusiasm to solder 100's of ICs then test all the SIMMs afterwards. So just basic " lack of interest" is also a factor. I could send a lot off to PCBWAY. But again it would end up costing a lot to build them where I doubt I would be able to sell enough SIMMs to recoup the costs.

Of course when something gets abandoned it does not necessarily mean the end. It really just means it is "not important right now". I would rather help out in a project like @Badwolf's Falcon booster than solder 800 DRAM chips on simms for example. A lot of projects may get put on hold maybe indefinitely maybe not. It really depends if I think something is worthwhile going back to or not.

But again like the STE boosters. I doubt all of them will sell but also it is kind of the point/idea as well. In that that project is now "done" and I can forget about it pretty much completely now. I do not plan to ever do another batch of them.

[exxos]

I'll add my thanks for all you do & fully understand that you need to put your health first.

At least the birdseed boards are available for people to buy & build still.

Might be time for me to hone my soldering skills ;)

Indeed these are all "projects" after all ;)