[Open-graphics] Re: inexpensive project vga card batch?

[Michael Meeuwisse]

On 8 Mar 2008, at 14:49, John Griessen wrote:

> Michael Meeuwisse wrote:
>> On 29 Feb 2008, at 23:51, PcgScrapAddy wrote:
>>> I am interested in getting my hands on one, what's my cost for  
>>> the little gem?
>> At the moment the price is €150 ex shipping, mostly because  
>> startup costs are high and with the little profit that's in there  
>> I can start setting up a company, etc. I'm afraid this sounds a  
>> little high for people used to US dollars, but I can't afford the  
>> USD ;)
>
> I could maybe make this as a small volume product...  I found a  
> machine vision assembly company
> that can put together a 7 x 15 cm board for $4 if you get a batch  
> of 50.

That would be brilliant. I have to admit that I haven't put a lot of  
effort into it yet to see if I could some bottom price somewhere. I  
just knew some people wanted a card, fast, and was polling for interest.

> And I'm
> working with a Chinese board maker on single copper plus conductive  
> ink 98% SMT boards with few holes that
> are cheap and good.  For high speed paths, a separately made ground  
> plane adhered to bottom of the board
> and solder connected by some through holes or wrap around edge  
> clips might be needed, but the cost of
> a PCI card with gold plated edged connector could be BOM + $5 in  
> volume of 50, higher $$'s if lower numbers,
> lower  $$'s if higher numbers.

I'm not entirely following you here, but are you suggesting a single  
layer design? In that case, forget it. It was nail-biting annoying to  
get it to fit on two layers, I am somewhat convinced it can't be done  
with any less.

Also, when I speak of some people, I currently mean 5 cards counted  
for. I'm personally not interested in 45 spare ones. :) If you can  
realise the proposed price point however this might change.

> Can your board be done with < 300 SMT pads, 105 cm sq, some paths  
> used for jumping over others
> with 1 or 2 Ohms resistance, the rest heavy etched copper?  If so,  
> maybe I can be your supplier
> now that the Euro is so expensive, (USD is so cheap).

We could trim a little at the edges I assume, but not much. I'm not  
sure how much cm sq it's right now. I do know it's currently at 310- 
ish vias, so <300 is probably doable.

> I'm not offering to fab for you, but to make and sell an open- 
> hardware product to early adopters
> on this list, including you...as a way of boot-strapping up my  
> operations.  For a BOM of
> fifteen different parts costing $22 total, + $5 for fabbed,  
> untested boards, and a pre-order of
> twenty boards, I could probably do the layout and minor design  
> tweaks needed to fab my way
> and sell tested for $87 US + ship if paid by VISA to a google  
> checkout button.

Right now it's 33 different parts, of which the first one (the FPGA)  
is already $25 each, or $22 per 25 from digikey. Feel free to see if  
you can get them cheaper, but I doubt the entire BOM will be $22 if  
you try to make 50 boards. Full list with digikey order codes here;  
http://wacco.mveas.com/digikey_order.php

Please note that this list isn't definitive. The CPLD needs to be  
replaced with a XC95288XL, the VGA adapter isn't held in place by  
anything (the holes for screws are empty - I know there are adapters  
with pins at those spots) and the USB mini connector is 'too low' in  
the sense that the connector won't really fit any cable if the card  
was held in place by a PCI bracket - the thick cable would touch the  
lower side of the bracket. And speaking of the bracket, people will  
probably appreciate one. Although for early adopters this might be  
skipped. :)

Also, I went for the €150,- pricepoint for much the same reason as  
you're saying that you can boot-strap your operations - whatever is  
above the actual costs (I doubt it'll be much in the end, but still)  
can be used for setting up a little company around the project, or  
ads, etc.

> That would depend on some unknowns like:
> how easy is it to run enough free open code on some 2001-vintage- 
> cheap-extra-computers
>         with PCI slots to test the hardware assembly,
> connectors,

I'm not going to create any cards before I verified basic  
functionality like the PCI connector. At the moment once the card is  
plugged in, the entire system is downgraded to an elegant power  
supply. I want to make sure it's because of the complete lack of PCI  
protocol in the CPLD, and not some design error.

> how fast after the  prepaid order everyone wants boards...
>
> I am thinking 6 weeks could be possible, even with the
> bare boards coming from China.

I think that too. Do please see if you can make some work out of  
this. I very much favour playing with hardware designs, not so much  
with setting up a business. If you can push the price down  
considerably, I wouldn't mind buying one from you instead of figuring  
out everything myself.

> John Griessen
>

Cheers,

Michael
www.projectvga.org