Contaced a Factory in China about producing a run of fully populated Mini-migs

[Crom00]

UPDATE:

The factories have replied, they reiewed all of Dennis work, confirm that this project is possible. My old contact in HK says he has the perfect factory for this.

They all want a Bill of Materials, that I'm preparing right now.

[Crom00]

Hey Guys is there a link for all the parts needed for the board? The factory is asking for a Bill of Materials. I have the info for the cardboard, esd bag, and packing, and what will be included but they want a list of all the parts used to make poulate the board with part numbers and manufacturers listed. Is there such a list. Must be if folks are making their own boards...

[Crom00]

Whatever we can do to get a complete BOM helps here. The factories are on board they just need a detailed BOM that lists every capacitor and resistor and IC. Will see if they can work with less.

But in my expereince a factory can never have too much info about a project.

I was sked about testing procedure. So I assume we will also need beta testers and software to test the units on the production line.

TO ANYONE THAT's ASSEMBLED A WORKING MINI-MIG PLEASE PM ME WITH BM.

[Crom00]

UPDATE:

Sent a prelim BOM on the PCB. They are disgesting the data and will get back to us. Just a timeline of what to expect during the next 2 weeks. A complete BOM (right down to package spec and pack in materials will be sent by me) followed by the factory quotes. This could take a couple of weeks so if you don't hear from us it's becuase we're waiting to hear back from the factories.

Wish us luck!
Crom00

[Crom00]

... but you'd never get any games.

That is why I think that for version 2.0 it is important to add a floppy drive connector (and maybe a usb connector for a cd-rom). [/quote]

At the very least the next feature added should be UAE hard file support. If that could be added to the current board that would be ideal!!!!

Imagine a 2 gig MMC with a 1 gig hdrfile tuned for Mini-MIG?  Joygasm! Or better yet, a minimig on a 32" lcd? IN VGA no less... NICE.

[Crom00]

ChrisH wrote:
@Crom00
If you want to avoid wasting a LOT of money, with only a load of NON-working MiniMigs to show for it, then I think you need to be REALLY careful:

Won't go into details about proccess but we have worked with electronics before and had some nightmares as well. We're experienced in dealing with factories in Asia and have dealt with more "worst case scenarios" then we had any right to bear.

Well...It builds character is all I have to say.

Rushing things to market and cost reductions create problems. There is no pressure to meet a mass market deadline and pricepoint for insretion into a Target or Wal-Mart, BestBUy planogram so there is debug time.

We have a good "advocate" or liason working on our behalf to insure this won't happen.

Thanks for the heads up, we've been there. Keep the comments coming.

Once things get rolling I would gladly refer to the expertise of this community in testing boards.

Paramount goal is developing a list of working titles.

[Crom00]

JimS wrote:

Back when Commodore was still around, they has a "systest" or burn in disk for repair centers. I might still have a .dms copy around somewhere.

I kinda left the Amiga scene in 2001 and burned everything I had to DVD, checked the DVD and although I have WB disks, and HD setup disks (even a A1000 sidecar disks) no burn in disks...

There's a fellow selling one on ebay... of course it's $99...

[Crom00]

Working 1.1 Board...


Anyone have one of these? I'm willing to buy one to help speed up costing. It's going to take a couple of weeks to get costs back. A working 1.1 board will speed this up.

[Crom00]

Good point, none!
VGA monitors at low-res still provide a great picture and few manufactures make HDTV(LCDTV) that can do 15.75 klhz. Getting away from a 1084 style monitor was a pain. The best solution I had was the Toshiba Timm...20" CRT that did VGA, and AMiga 15.75 klhz.

[Crom00]

Is there anyone on this thread that has assembled a working Mini-Mig?

If so would you like to assemble another? We will need 2 assembled Mini-Migs. Although there are folks here that can do the work we understand that they're quite busy with school or work,etc.

If there is anyone out there with the time and technical expertise or an assembled board they would sell us, please PM me with costs.

Factory is advising that a working protoype is ideal for costing and pre-production purposes. They can make one themselves but it will take longer.

They are currently on national holiday and will be back Oct 8th.  If we could get them a working sample shortly after that we would be in a good place, knocking off a couple of weeks of any future schedule.

Thanks for all the help and support so far...

[Crom00]

Eclipse wrote:
Be careful of giving working prototypes to Chinese companies if you don't have a contract or own a copyright.
Chinese electronics firms have been known to copy and mimick items which have then been seen for sale at a vastly reduced rate.

The design is open source, as long as they release the sources on any future work or revisions they're golden.

Low Cost Chinese "Mini-Mig Mc68000 developer boards" that happen to run our favorite retro computer games can only be a good thing.
 :roll:

The design is open source so no-one save Dennis can claim onwership on the design.

We are just trying to take the lead and get somethig out there as it seems there is no way of running our old game libraries other than aging Amigas and PC emulation.

I just destroyed a pristine A1200 motherboard in a botched hard drive swap operation... Something I've done 1000 times.

Dealing with aging hardware is just too risky and expensive, I'm tired of scouring craiglslist and ebay.
We have to move forward.

 

[Crom00]

Getting info back from the factory now we're talking about order quantities. Lookin good guys! hang in there...


 :-D

[Crom00]

$20 USD there is a sega master system clone with 2 PSX controllers (without rumble or analog controls, but with db-9 conectors),

Has anyone verified that these PS1 Style db9 contollers work with Amigas? If so I can get them costed in China. My agent can probably find out who makes them and do a small run.

[Crom00]

Maybe get the Minimigs first then look at controllers... please!

Much like the Amiga we can multitask with low overhead and resources. LOL!

[Crom00]

UPDATE:

We are working to get 2 functional units made, after that we have a quote to get 10 test units made up on the same production line that would make MORE Mini-Migs. The cost for such a low run comes out to about +/- $200 per unit plus shipping. These numbers come down with higher volume runs.
A small amount from sale of each board would go to the kickstart bounty.

As for costs on a production run that depends on quantity of the run, and all the hidden costs that come up, still getting quotes back on all that.

Is there enough interest here for an initial run of 10 test units? $200 saves you the time and insanity of soldering your own components, I tried this... not fun.

These are best described as TEST /BETA UNITS and are great to draw up a compatiblity list. As early adopters you would be paving the way for future productin runs.

Any thoughts...?

FOR THOSE THAT ARE INTERESTED:
Factory would need the funds up front so would you guys be willing to pay up front? Delivery time would be 3-5 weeks from turnover of funds. IF by chance you ARE interested PM me your info with: "MINI-MIG BETA BOARD" in the subject heading and if this develops further I'll have your contact info.  
 

[Crom00]

RW222 wrote:

How complete is complete? Just got a little confused 'coz there was talk of cases and joypads etc.  

Mentioned estimated costs and the idea of costing out controller. We were very carefull NOT to mention those items are inlcuded.

A fully realized console would require LOTS volume. This is a limtited run of just the board, as you understand 10 units is too low a run to get everyone the low cost unit we all want with all the bells and whistles.

So we're clear no plans to include a case or controller.

This is for  developers and early adopters, I suggest waiting for a production run if/when that happpens for a lower cost item.