- Thread starter MatinatorX
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Absolutely!
I'll likely discount them slightly in return for your feedback, and you should be aware that there might be changes to the next batch based on that feedback. If big changes are needed I'll send you a new one, but if it's just a few non-critical tweaks then you might miss out on them.
Right now based on the BOM, the cost of having a case printed on 3DHubs and my time investment, the most likely price will be $30 CAD, or about $23 USD. About 90% of the BOM goes to the SAMD21 MCU, the supercap and the case. No idea about shipping cost as it will probably depend on your country and I think tindie handles pricing on that anyways.
Any profit I make off of this is going to go towards getting myself a couple of Anycubic Photon SLA printers and a PCB stencil and reheat oven. If for some crazy reason I sell 100 of these and can afford the above equipment, assembly would be both faster and cheaper and the price would likely drop to $20 USD at that point.
It's still pretty early to be thinking about such things though!
Last edited by MatinatorX,
Bought another SX license yesterday and I'm going to give a hacked switch to my sister. I've not bought any dongles yet. Using reed switch with tegragui on pc. With this I wouldn't need to carry extra jigs or dongles and that's what I want...even though nxloader really does the job the few times I'd have to restart the console.
That's really nice of you, I'm sure she'll love it!
I've used my PC, NX Loader and a Trinket M0 as my Switch loader but my Achilles heel is remembering to bring the right cable with me. I've been stuck with a "dead" Switch at friends' houses a few times now. On top of that, I butchered most of my cables to find out if I needed OTG circuitry anywhere in DragonInjector. I know I'd forget the dongle if I had one. I use AutoRCM right now but it makes me a bit uneasy, hence why I was so adamant to include a jig somehow.
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What's the resistor on the (presumably) Jig?
and $25? Dx, Wish I had enough, Gonna save up now >:3
and $25? Dx, Wish I had enough, Gonna save up now >:3
The resistor is just in case. If something goes wrong and you accidentally short out the wrong pins somehow, it won't be a dead short and should prevent whatever you shorted from leaving this mortal world in a puff of blue smoke.
I don't have a full BOM yet, but I can tell you that in quantities of 1, the ATSAMD21E18 is $4 CAD, the supercap is $1.20 and the USB connector is $1. That's before any shipping costs. The case stuff is about $6.50 if I order 10 of them. There will also be a cut of whatever I make going to tindie. $30 CAD is about the minimum I can sell it for to at least make it worth my time and make a little bit to invest back into my hobby and make new and better boards in the future.
Also, I've cleaned up the main post a bit and attached the finished poster I've been making which should answer a lot of common questions.
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Dude - didn't even realize this project was yours! It's bad ass!!
We should collaborate! And how on earth are you soldering that USB c?
We should collaborate! And how on earth are you soldering that USB c?
Thanks! That means a lot coming from another circuit junkie. I'd be down for a collab, got any cool ideas?
The USB Type C and everything else will be soldered by hand - I'm hoping my experience hand soldering TQFP and 0603 packages will keep me sane. The boards I ordered are 0.6mm thick and should just fit between the pins of the port. It was the most expensive Type C male connector available, but it's also the thinnest at 2.4mm, and the ones that have a metal clip on shield seem too fragile to me. I'd rather not have a bunch of people emailing me that their ports broke. This one lets you use the actual case as mechanical strength instead of just ground pins, and I put nice big pads for it, so it should be much more robust. I've got a 32 mil tip for my trusty TS-100 that should do the job.
Now you know why I want a pick'n'place so much
Thanks! That means a lot coming from another circuit junkie. I'd be down for a collab, got any cool ideas?
The USB Type C and everything else will be soldered by hand - I'm hoping my experience hand soldering TQFP and 0603 packages will keep me sane. The boards I ordered are 0.6mm thick and should just fit between the pins of the port. It was the most expensive Type C male connector available, but it's also the thinnest at 2.4mm, and the ones that have a metal clip on shield seem too fragile to me. I'd rather not have a bunch of people emailing me that their ports broke. This one lets you use the actual case as mechanical strength instead of just ground pins, and I put nice big pads for it, so it should be much more robust. I've got a 32 mil tip for my trusty TS-100 that should do the job.
Now you know why I want a pick'n'place so much
I agree entirely about the risk of breaking a USB c connector, they just seem very fragile. It's much better in a housing, though.
Well anyway, if you ever want me to place parts or anything I am happy to do so for next to nothing. I can send the partially finished units back to you for final assembly.
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Nooooooooooo, Good luck on the USB C port soldering, it's absolute hell lul
another thing you could do, is just make a mold for them, probably not now, but it'd be cheaper I think overall.
Btw, if you are still using CAD, what shipping carrier do you use? I was ordered from them, and it was like $15 for cheapest(granted it was like 30 boards altogether I think, three different designs)
wa? But if you have the jig, why would it short? :? like, I don't see how, cause it's solid metal(unless you are using something like foil). Like, I don't see it shorting? (I just don't understand.)
another thing you could do, is just make a mold for them, probably not now, but it'd be cheaper I think overall.
Btw, if you are still using CAD, what shipping carrier do you use? I was ordered from them, and it was like $15 for cheapest(granted it was like 30 boards altogether I think, three different designs)
Let's say you manage to bend one of the pins of the jig so far out of alignment (which shouldn't really be possible with my design, especially if you glue or epoxy the leads as recommended, but anyways) that you short pin 4 (+5V) and pin 1 (GND). You had better hope the Switch has some kind of power limiting circuit so whatever is feeding that +5V doesn't get damaged. It's likely there's protection circuitry in place, but I'd rather not chance it, and honestly resistor wire is the perfect diameter and malleability and not any more expensive than bare wire, so why not? Besides, it looks cooler. These things are important lol.
Molds start at $2500 each and I would need 3 of them. As mentioned before, if you guys kill my tindie page with 10K in orders, I'll make injection molding happen.
I switched to PCBGOGO for the latest batch of boards entirely because of shipping costs. Seeed doesn't seem to offer a value option anymore and wanted like $30. PCBGOGO charges $9 via ePacket and you have a chance of getting the surface finish of your boards changed to ENIG for free if you tick that option, which is awesome.. I considered JLCPCB but they charge a premium for colors other than green.
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Wait wat lol, I was talking about making your molds lol, which is pretty cheap, the mold itself would be like $30, and then resin for a couple of cases(atleast 10+) would be another $30 (you'd have to look, it's been a bit since i've checked)
Ah, you mean print negatives to use as molds. I've tried this before, it's a nice idea but doesn't really work out in practice. You really need metal molds, otherwise you only get a couple good parts out of them and that's if you're lucky. Removing the part from the mold without damaging either of them is near impossible when both materials have similar properties, and even if you do it perfectly after a few cures the edges of your mold start to get rounded and things deform. It's really not worth the trouble in my experience.
I plan to get an Anycubic Photon before the end of the year and anything I make from this project will make that happen sooner. Once I have that I'll just print the cases myself.
Good resin is usually about $100 CAD/L. The best I've tried for functional parts is Vorex resin, which is a bit more costly. I may be able to get away with printing the case and cap on my FDM but I think the jig might require SLA.
Last edited by MatinatorX,
Are you sure your cap system is actually functional? From my point of view, when you would try to get your donglecart out of the cart slot, you'd push it to trigger the cart slot spring, then your donglecart would stick out a bit... but just a bit, and the only thing you'd be able to pull out is the cap while the actual dongle cart stays in the cart slot lol.
Anyway, I love that project. If it actually works (after a fix or not), I'd most likely get one (or more, depending on shipping costs).
Anyway, I love that project. If it actually works (after a fix or not), I'd most likely get one (or more, depending on shipping costs).
D
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This is a genius idea, and pending reviews going well, I may well grab a couple for myself and a few friends who're going to get switches for hacking.
Good luck!
Good luck!
Yeah, this was a tough problem to solve since there's not really any room for a latch or snap fit or magnets or anything. I toyed around with a few ideas, like a string that keeps the cap attached but everything seemed kind of janky. What I ended up deciding is to make the Type C opening a pretty tight friction fit and to print the cap from FLEX filament on the final version so it's hard and rubbery and won't wear down like normal plastic or resin. This is another reason I went with a really strong Type C plug. If this doesn't work or it's a bit sketch I'm just going to add a dovetail or two to the back of the cap that slips in the main body. If there's a better idea though I'm all ears!
Really appreciate the feedback from everyone, I'm new to the community here but already I can see it's a great one!
Pardon my misunderstanding, how would you change the payload files on here? I see no USB port.
The USB Type C port doubles as the host for payload injection, and slave for the TRINKETBOOT drive access for payloads. Just plug it into a computer or a phone with a Type C female port to update the payload, or if you don't have one, you can find adapters pretty cheap. I bought a bunch on eBay for $1.
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