New Aleph-X PCB group order...

[hifiZen]

Hi folks, I'm finally back!

Interest generated by the first group order has held a lot of momentum... I recieved daily emails for months, and still recieve emails at least weekly asking if there will be more boards. My apologies to those who never recieved a reply - I tried my best to keep up with it all, but I'm sure there were lots of people who slipped through the cracks. I had hoped to get a second order organized mid-summer, but the past six months have been intolerably busy for me , not even allowing me time to work on my own projects at all.

But, for better or worse, I was recently laid off along with a whole lot of other engineers from my company (it seems all our hard work wasn't enough ). Now this can only mean one thing: I have time on my hands. For the time being, I'm busy organizing my move back to Canada, but expect to be settled by mid Dec, at which time I'll get busy so that the order is put through around early January-ish.

There are a few things I want to do differently than the last time. The first is a wiki sign-up sheet, so I'm not overrun with emails. I'm about to create that, so please wait till I've put that in place. I'll post a message in this thread when it's done. I'm also considering the possibility of ordering a fixed quantity of boards. Most of them would be sold right away, hopefully leaving a large enough reserve to cover the latecomers who were tragically undersupplied the last time . If we need to increase the order quantity partway through, I will keep the unit price the same. This should prevent the runaway snowball effect that ballooned the last order to galactic proportions and caused some accounting havoc and difficulty collecting payments in a timely fasion. Any difference in price this time will simply be sent to charity... perhaps the World Wildlife Fund or something like that. I'm open to suggestions. (WWF seems fitting, given the amounts of electricity all these Alephs are going to eat). Having a little headroom to work with should really help too, and I don't think anyone will mind supporting a good cause. Thoughts anyone?

The last thing on my mind is distribution. I'm inclined to have the orders shipped to a US address to prevent the cross-border taxes on every order, since a large portion will likely just be sent back to the US. I have a friend in Seattle who can help, and it's easy enough for me to drive down across the border for a few days to take care of stuff. Are there any volunteers in the Seattle area and-or are willing to drive down from Vancouver to help out? I have to sort out the details here, but if you can volunteer your time, please add your name to the wiki under 'volunteers'.

OK, that's all for now. It's great to be back in the game!

[Brian Donaldson]

Kick ***!
I've been following the Aleph X thread for a while waiting for this post.

Could you post a pic of the layout and some details. I would like to scale it up to 20 fets or so (5 per bank) and 200 watts. I'll want at least 6 boards.

[hifiZen]

OK, the wiki page is up. I will try and get some preliminary pricing over the next two weeks or so, when we see how many people sign up. For now, I would estimate a price in the range of $7 - $10 USD per board.

Aleph-X PCB rev1.0, Jan 2004 Order

[BobEllis]

I'd be willing to work the redistribution in the US.

[grataku]

Hey Chad,
I had a job interview today and one last friday, looking for jobs SUKSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

Anyway, are you planning to use the old fabrication company?
I wanted to make pcb for other stuff and I'd like to use them.
What was it?

There are a couple of useful mods that should be applied to make tuning up easier on the AX.

[hifiZen]

No kidding. It seems many companies are just interested in using contractors for now. But, I don't have a green card, so I can only stay here and work if I have a company to sponsor my visa. Oh well... I like Vancouver, and I'm happy to be moving back. Maybe in the future I'll be back.

AP Circuits (www.4pcb.com) did the last order, and I was indeed going to use them again. I'm not sure if we'll change to rev1.1 or not though... if we do, we'll have to pay the NRE charges again (something like $150). If we re-order the design, then we won't have to pay that. Let's see how many people sign up first.

[Brett]

I'm certainly interested in a couple of boards, 4 at least. Added to wiki.

[tonywong]

Please count me in, I need 10 boards.

Tony Wong

[grataku]

Originally posted by Brett
I'm certainly interested in a couple of boards, 4 at least. Added to wiki.

I wasn't expecting an interest from Mr TUUbe guy...

[Brett]

Originally posted by grataku
I wasn't expecting an interest from Mr TUUbe guy...

Well..........
A friend has expressed some interest in me making them some quality (SS) amps, and I thought these would fit the bill. Whilst I'm ordering, I thought I'd grab a pair for myself and see how they sound. The parts aren't expensive and I can build 4 identical boards in almost the same amount of time as 1.
Now I've just got to find some heatsinks.