Here’s a video of me assembling one of the IO boards. I hope to speed this up once I get the skillet setup, but this is how I’ve been doing it so far:
Parts Arriving
Parts for the first 50 orders are due to arrive today. I hope to make some good headway this weekend and I will keep everyone updated how it goes.
Here is a picture of the first order to go out from my prototype run. Includes a 1.1 XS SDRAM board and 5.5 IO board, along with a heat sink for the DE-10 Nano and a jumper to put voltage on pin 9 of the VGA port.
In this picture the fan is on upside down. In order for the air to flow onto the nano, the blades will be facing up, but the speed is pretty slow so it shouldn’t be able to hurt anything. You can add a cool 3d printed fan grille if you’d like to cover it up.
The bags for the extra parts and IO boards will be different, but everything else pictured here is what you should expect in the final product.
Thank you everyone for your patience and I will get these out as quickly as I can.
Payments Captured, Discounts later today
All payments have now been captured. Several people messaged me saying they had forgotten to put in their discount codes. I’m going to issue partial refunds to those people today. Just use the contact form or message me @tinkerplunk on Twitter if you forgot the code and I’ll do the same for you. Just let me know the code you want applied and your order number. Thanks!
Payments Capture at 12PM EST Today, Mini Toslink
This is just a reminder that all remaining orders will have their payments captured at 12 noon EST today (5 hours from now). Please let me know if you’d like to cancel before then. Again, I will issue you a refund at any point if you’d like. Thank you all for your support.
I tested out the mini Toslink port. Amazingly, it works great; I was a bit surprised that a little LED was all it took. You may have to bend the LED up a little so that it’s pointing directly at the tip of the connector, but that’s all.
As you can see, the first USB3.0 ports still have not arrived. Soon!
To All My Fans
I’m working on buying a lot of 100 fans, so I’ll include them with the IO boards. I tested out a 12V fan and these have the benefit over 5V fans by running slowly – the MiSTer only needs a slow airflow over the heatsink to cool it off, making 12V fans a great choice for noise consideration. Many 5V fan users need to add a resistor to slow down the fan to silent levels; a 12V fan eliminates the need for this. With a heatsink the nano doesn’t need much airflow anyways. If you’d like you can swap out the fan for a nicer one like a Noctua if you feel like splurging.
I hacked together a tool that should make it easier to place components on solder paste, all for the low price of $0:
Progressing well, I will continue to update as things change.
Orders Closed
I’ve reached the cap for SDRAM! Now it’s time to get to work. I’ll post updates frequently. Thanks!!!
IO orders closed, a few SDRAM left, planning kits.
I’ve reached the cap on IO boards. Totally amazed. I’ll do everything I can to get these out to you as soon as possible. I have 13 spots left for SDRAM boards if you want to get in still.
I am also planning on offering these in kit form for those who want to save some money or just build yourself (or both!). I will be ordering all of the parts needed for all orders next week, plus extra, so I should be able to put a few of these together in 2-3 weeks. I’ll post them on the store tinkerplunk.myshopify.com and let everyone know. No preorders, direct sale only.
Reminder that you may cancel at any time for any reason if you decide you want a kit instead.
Thanks everyone!
Almost out of IO, Update
I have 9 IO board spots left and 22 SDRAM spots. Probably closing IO today, and SDRAM next week.
I ordered all the parts I need for the first half of orders, they should arrive next week (fast shipping is always worth it).
I am playing with the idea of including fans with the IO boards, I found some that work well and silently so far, and the price isn’t too bad. I will let everyone know how it goes.
I tested out the first few SDRAM boards I built for myself and for the trial run preorder I did. Came out with no errors at full speed for 2 minutes, but finished boards will run for a bit longer.
Ill start building and testing IO boards in earnest this weekend and continue trying to bring down build times. Thank you for your patience!
Capping Orders
I’ve been absolutely floored by the orders. I’m going to close them in order to keep lead times from being just completely unreasonable. I will close after I get 30 more IO and 40 more SDRAM orders, which could be a few more days or maybe weeks if everyone who wanted boards has gotten their orders in.
Just to repeat, all payments will be captured at 12PM EST on Monday, please let me know if you change your mind and want to cancel before then. If you want to cancel after that I can issue you a refund.
Buyers from Europe
I noticed I got a few orders with very high shipping costs, going to Europe. I just wanted to let everyone know that there are several options for sellers located in Europe (especially the different RAM boards) so look over those options and you should be able to save a bit on shipping. At this point you’ll also likely get your board sooner as well.
Thread with sellers is here.
Tinkerplunk 