First of all I’d like to apologise for not being able to send out the planned quantity of kits before Christmas. I’d hoped to have the new PCBs here earlier in the month, allowing a few days to pack and send them out before the cutoff date.
After spending most of November and early December working nonstop when time allowed to make a large quantity of parts it was a disappointment to find the boards wouldn’t be ready in time as planned and I sort of ran out of steam. However they’re now here and done so after the 26th we will start packing the currently outstanding 10 kits, ready to post early next week.
This is the complete board as manufactured before removing the under-coil sections:
A section of the board partially built:
The layout has been kept as close to the original routed PCBs as possible. It uses the same components and positioning but the links which joined the quarter sections have gone of course and a couple of others have changed places.
I hope you’ll find the large improvement in quality – the tinning and resist makes assembly much easier – and stability due to being in one piece will have been worth the extra wait.
The new boards look awesome. I cannot wait till mine arrives
The new board looks awesome. But why aren’t all the circle cutouts printed? Or are they printed on the back instead? When are you going to release the thermometer/clock thing so I can get that new PCB at the same time? And will I need to get some extra components for the new PCB design?
All the circles are used for something, they’re just not visible under the resist ;). No new components will be needed to build it, the parts list is identical.
The thermometer is out of my control as it’s a design for another company and I’m waiting to see what they want to do with it.
Yeah but I’d still need to desolder the components on the original PCB and put them onto the new one. This chessboard is a pain in the ass to build…
I’m not in a hurry to get the new PCB as I haven’t even had the time to get all those coils done yet…
I hadn’t realised you’d already got that far. I can easily send an extra ‘bag5’ with the PCB, the components aren’t very expensive.
Sounds good. I’ll just wait until you release another project before you ship them to save on shipping. The wood base isn’t even started yet… As I said a long time ago it’ll probably be summer at the absolute earliest that I get done with everything (though it’ll probably be longer…).