SkunkBoard: Collector's Edition (v5) - Ordering Thread [The List!]

[jguff]

On 3/29/2021 at 2:47 PM, cubanismo said:

That's a good point. In general, I prefer USPS because they have nice flat rates that are easy to quote, (as of recently) reliable free home pickup scheduling service, free packing materials, and I've gone through the trouble of learning to use their customs forms and stuff. However, if the difference is considerable, I'll look into switching. In the past when I've checked, UPS, FedEx, and DHL regular consumer prices have been prohibitively expensive though (E.g., nearly $100 to ship small packages to Western Europe).

 

On another note, I have even more bad news: There are going to be further delays in building more boards. The last batch of Cypress USB chips I got has a very high failure rate. Over 50% of them are not working so far out of the ~25 I've tried. Sometimes this has meant replacing the chip two or three times on a given board, which has greatly slowed my progress fulfilling orders. In the last batch of four boards, all four of them were broken on the first attempt and had to be reworked to replace the chip. On the plus side, I'm getting much better at desoldering them, but even so, I sometimes make mistakes (I still haven't outright killed a board yet, but I only sell ones with no cosmetic blemishes since I'm selling things as collector-quality items), and it takes about 50% longer at a minimum when I have to rework a board. Worst of all, it's very demoralizing. I build these boards as a means to relax and unwind at the end of the day, and honestly this makes it stressful and not fun. This is extra frustrating because the first batch of these I got from the same company was 100% good, and the two other chips I ordered from them in the same order (The flash and the CPLD chips) have been 100% good so far as well. Unfortunately, they claim they don't have any alternate suppliers for this chip at a reasonable price (They offered me some at $20/piece, which is over five times more expensive), so the best I can hope for is a partial refund there.

 

I've found another supplier (I think. I'll believe it when it ships) that has some at only twice the price as the originals, so hopefully I can continue making progress once those arrive, but that'll be at the whim of SpeedPAK, so it'll probably take a few weeks at least. In the meantime, I'll get some boards populated with most of the other chips that don't get in the way of soldering the Cypress chip down so the pipeline will be primed.

 

Apologies for the further delay. I'll provide more updates when I have them.

You holding off on invoices that were requested a few days ago?  I'm in no rush.  Just want to know if i missed an invoice or not.

 

Bob

[+cubanismo]

Not holding off, just wasted all my time playing with BJL last night. I'll try to get them out today.

[Danifdez77]

Quiero uno como realizar el pago

[Danifdez77]

QUIERO UNO, AGREGAME A LA LISTA, PARA ESPAÑA

[troed]

Is this still live? If so I'd like to order a Skunkboard please.

[jguff]

On 3/30/2021 at 8:17 PM, cubanismo said:

Not holding off, just wasted all my time playing with BJL last night. I'll try to get them out today.

Received my Skunk Board Saturday.  Was able to upload a ROM to it.  More importantly able to upload an early small bit of code i wrote that writes directly to address of current line buffer.  More advanced code i had running in Virtual Jaguar, is not working on Skunk, due to Virtual Jaguar not correctly emulating the Jaguar.  Really nice to just plug a USB cable between laptop and skunkboard (versus 20-30 year old deprecated port connectors).

 

Anyone having trouble getting the USB drivers to install, make sure you have your PC/laptop audio turned on, and ensure you hear a sound indicating that usb cable is connected.  I spent 45-60 minutes trying to debug why USB drivers wouldn't install, only to find out i was using a bad USB cable.  Plugged in a good USB cable, heard the sound, and sure enough the drivers installed successfully.

 

Any chance you could share video of you assembling a Skunk Board?  Think it would be interesting viewing for some us purchasers.

 

Bob

 

 

[TrekMD]

I'd like to get one if still possible.

[+cubanismo]

3 hours ago, jguff said:

Any chance you could share video of you assembling a Skunk Board?  Think it would be interesting viewing for some us purchasers.

What, and show the world how poorly I solder? ? If I can manage to get these parts sourced again, perhaps some day. I don't have any actual recording equipment though, and the parts are quite small, so it would just be a bunch of shots from my low-quality phone camera of my hands holding tiny blurry things and me cussing at them. I'm really not sure why I enjoy building these, but I do. It would be good to document a build for posterity though, as it's somewhat involved.

 

Glad to hear your board made it. I have 9 more partially assembled, but won't be able to complete any more until I can get more working USB chips. Sorry to those still waiting. Stay tuned.

[nowy80]

We are stay tuned and we are waiting for information about ready-made devices. Regards

[im_joe]

Standing by

 

I recall you mentioning you were offered the USB chips at a premium $, push comes to shove if you can’t source them at a decent price, I’m pretty sure most would be willing to bite on the difference

[+cubanismo]

On 4/10/2021 at 3:57 PM, im_joe said:

I recall you mentioning you were offered the USB chips at a premium $, push comes to shove if you can’t source them at a decent price, I’m pretty sure most would be willing to bite on the difference

Good to hear, but fortunately push has not come to shove. I finally have some good news: I got another batch of USB chips yesterday, and of the four I've soldered down and tested so far, I've had 100% success rates. As such, shipping will resume shortly. In the end, the original supplier made things right. They gave me a refund for all the unused and non-working chips even though I was a bit beyond the return period, and I ordered another batch from them, which is obviously working out much better than the last one.

 

The reason I gave the original supplier another chance at all was I had pretty much given up hope on the new supplier I had found. I ordered from them nearly a month ago, and they still hadn't shipped as of this morning. I was going to cancel the order tonight after I verified the fourth build from the other batch I ordered, but of course, as I was eating dinner, I got a notification they had shipped. So... if those work out as well, I'll actually have enough of these increasingly rare USB chips for nearly 100 more boards. That's probably enough that I'll either be tired of building them or have exhausted demand by the time I run out.

 

For those who recently requested a board here, noted, I'll get you added to the list, incluyendo uno para España @Danifdez77. Thank you everyone for your patience while I worked through this issue.

[+cubanismo]

If you've indicated you'd  like to order, make sure you can receive private messages from me on this forum and that your Inbox isn't full, as that's how I confirm shipping details. Currently, I'm looking at you here, @TXG/MNX

[leech]

I would like one.

[tbs123456]

Got mine today and it is beautifully package! Great job on it! Very professional. Looking forward to playing with it.

[Wilco]

Mine just came in, I am incredibly happy with it! It’s great to finally be able to play most of the ST ports! 

[+jgkspsx]

I got mine earlier in the week and it’s really marvelous to get to play all these games I’ve only read about before. Really amazing work and quality.

[+cubanismo]

Glad that everyone is enjoying their boards! At this point, I've worked through the order backlog to the point that I'm shipping boards to those on the list in this thread. I have shipped 27 boards, and have 27 open orders to go.

 

I have some good news and bad news on future orders. Bad news first:

 

I'm going to close this ordering thread now. @leech, you're the last order I'm taking directly. The fulfillment process is a bit of a pain, especially handling the VAT/sales tax issues. I likely won't be able to ship to the EU after July when their new import VAT handling system supposedly goes into effect. If you have an existing, outstanding order, see this, and live in the EU, please hit me up in a private message and I'll try to prioritize you so I can avoid the need to cancel any orders. Dealing with the UK process was painful enough that I don't want to sign up to collect VAT/sales tax in a 3rd jurisdiction.

 

But there's still the good news: Once I finish fulfilling the outstanding direct orders, the collector's edition package will be available from @Songbird at https://songbird-productions.com. I'll leave it to Carl to share any additional details on that arrangement when he's ready.

 

I'm hoping this will give me more time to focus on building boards and more importantly, my other projects going forward. Thanks again to everyone's help, support, and interest. You all helped bring the Skunkboard back to life!

[+cubanismo]

Quick update: To those who are still waiting for their orders here, thank you for your patience. Though ordering is closed, I'm still steadily chipping away at the existing order list. I was running low on parts, as even basic things like the serial EEPROM chips and some basic capacitors are in short supply lately it seems, but I've managed to source enough parts at this point to finish out the remaining orders. Fortunately, the reason I was running low is I have been building and shipping a fair number of boards. Latest batch ready to go:

 

 

If you're on the list and want to cancel your order, no worries. Please let me know as soon as possible if that's the case so it doesn't hold up shipping for those still waiting.

[JagChris]

I've just got my invoice and will be fulfilling shortly if that is ok

[joeatari1]

I received my Skunk Board today in the mail.  It looks beautiful.  A finely crafted piece for sure.  Unfortunately I will not be able to try it out for a few months as I am remodeling my basement and living room.  Thank you very much for making this wonderful cart!

[Killjoyy27]

I just got mine in the mail and looking very good, I hope I can test it very soon. I have a 7 month old lol .
Also does anyone have a good .stl to print a nice case?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[+cubanismo]

Glad those who have received their boards are enjoying them! I just finished another batch and sent out the notifications. After this, there's only one more batch left to fulfill all the orders on this thread. If you haven't heard from me yet, hang in there. It's almost time, and thank you again for your patience. I know it has taken a lot longer than I'd hoped.

[leech]

On 6/3/2021 at 10:40 AM, cubanismo said:

m going to close this ordering thread now. @leech, you're the last order I'm taking directly. The fulfillment process is a bit of a pain, especially handling the VAT/sales tax issues. I likely won't be able to ship to the EU after July when their new import VAT handling system supposedly goes into effect.

Woo hoo!  Also fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your point of view) I am in Utah, do no VAT nonsense.

[omf]

well it looks like i truly missed the boat on this one doesn't it!

 

if by some miraculous chance there is one free ill take it, unfortunately i'm in the UK though

[+cubanismo]

Don't worry, I can still honor your existing order @omf. It's been another busy month, but I'm nearly done building the last batch (Just need to solder the passive components on the last two boards and test them), which included one extra board by my count, and I haven't yet closed out my UK VAT account. To you and the handful of others still waiting, watch for a PM in the next week or two.