Paul

I think the NJQRP DDS Daughtercard is a good model for something that would
sell. Indeed, NJQRP has had to take a break on making them because the
volunteers who actually kit them are totally fried from assembling literally
thousands of the things.

NJQRP and AmQRP have had remarkable success with their kits lately, not just
the daughtercard. The PIC-EL had to be stopped after only a couple of
months, again, because they neede a break more than anything else. Ditto
with some others. I'm not sure what the magic is, but the daughtercard is a
component in a number of other kits, as well as providing a simple module to
solve a hard problem for folks homebrewing their own stuff. Of course, they
have the unfair advantage of free labor, but on the flip side, they don't
have the access to volume discounts that someone who was making a lot of
other stuff might have.

With high quality circuit boards, I think the TSSOPs are within reach of
most amateurs. Most of us, however, can't make circuit boards with that
sort of feature size. The appearance of even more frustrating packages like
BGAs is worrisome, though.

One of the challenges, of course, is that with these newer, more complex
circuits, amateurs don't become comfortable with them until well into the
product lifecycle. By the time the amateur community latches on to a part,
it is already obsolete. This can lead to a pretty short life for some of
these things. Some kits like the Small Wonder Labs DSW had to be pulled
because the parts went out of availability almost before they appeared.

A potential way around this might be to package functionally complete
modules that folks could use without really having to get to know the
innards. This eliminates things like the synthesizers that really need
microcontrollers to operate, thus requiring builders to get familiar with
them, but perhaps something like a mixer, IF strip, etc. might work.

A lot of the builders these days are QRPers, and they are always looking for
reducing size. I would think something like the FAR Circuits 9850 board,
but entirely surface mount, might be a hit. You would need to provide some
sort of ICSP port for this to play, however. And the 9850 has to be well
along in its lifecycle. Personally, I would like to see some sort of
quadrature DDS along with a Tayloe mixer pair.

Another angle you might pursue is using AmQRP to market the things. AmQRP
is having trouble keeping up with the demand for their stuff. They really
do seem to have figured out what sells and what the price point is. What
they haven't figured out is how to assemble the kits in the sorts of volume
they are seeing. I don't know how comfortable they would be with that sort
of model, but given your production capability, and their access to the
market, it seems to make sense.

...


wrote in message
...
This is a bit, long but bear with me it is hombrew releated.

I'm one of the principals in a company called NetBurner.
We build Network enabled CPU modules etc...

The company has some core capabilities,
PCB design, Fab, SMT Assembly (BGA, 0402's ) ,
Order processing, order fufilment UPS shipping etc...

As a ham and an engineer that likes to build things
I'm frustrated with some of todays finer pitch SMT technology.

I've often contemplated using the business to come out with a line of
"Hobby" oriented PCB's
Things like an ADI high end DDS
Some of the cool direct conversion mixer IC's ...
Simple switching power supplies...
Small uP boards (AVR etc...)
RS-232 level shifters....
MOSFET full bridge motor drive.
ADC's
DAC's
Audio amp chips...

and so on....

I'm not looking to make any $ on the hobby product line, but I'm not
looking to loose any $ either.

As a first pass we would build things that I would find fun to play
with.

The boards would be fully assembled, with a minimal implmentation of
what ever function they are supposed to do. Nothing fancy, nothing
extra just modules hobbiests can play with.
Support would be limited to Schematics and E-Mail.

Since almost all sales would be 1's and 2's cost would be about 4X
the 100pc component cost.


Would one sell any of this stuff?

What sort of modules would you personally buy?


Paul (KL7JG)