[hpsdr] Lurker and Atlas

[Eric Ellison]

Lawrence

Thanks for un-lurking! Your concerns are also my concerns as a mentor of
this really neat project. There is no question that a 208 pin fine pitched
FPGA does not have solder lugs like in the ARC-5 therefore we definitely are
into new territory with now increasingly more shaky hands.

Although it may not be a 'cheap' project/product with all boards. The
current designers are committed to open source everything, that WILL save
some $.

Phil Harman and Leon, and perhaps others, have mentioned 'offshore' FAB
houses so we WILL need them to mount the SMT stuff at least. Otherwise, the
project just dies when it goes to production. We gotta walk before we can
run, and I have about $700 in PlayPal money to fund 3 Alpha's of each
flavor, so that when we do go to a SMT mounted product at least folks who
order the production boards don't have many yellow jumpers running around.
Also as a 'user' of the product that these fine designers create, it is not
fair to expect them to carry the burden of purchasing and testing all this
stuff for us 'users'. 

It is my feeling that the Atlas is do-able assembly for most people with a
fine tipped soldering iron. Also all the parts are available from a single
source as Chris and Horst have created BOM's.

The next part in the chain is the Lionheart. It is crucial for further
development. I have not seen too much on this lately. It is Leon's baby, but
unless we have something pretty quickly we will have to 'step on toes' and
get on with it by calling for volunteers. All due respects, but otherwise we
will have a lotta Atlas's out there without a heart!

I'm committed to the results, just TOO much potential here to let something
crucial drop.

Thanks
Eric


-----Original Message-----
From: hpsdr-bounces at hpsdr.org [mailto:hpsdr-bounces at hpsdr.org] On Behalf Of
Lawrence Stoskopf
Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2006 5:39 PM
To: hpsdr at hpsdr.org
Subject: Re: [hpsdr] Lurker and Atlas

***** High Performance Software Defined Radio Discussion List *****

 From a long time builder from the ARC-5 conversion days, my comments: 

Take a look at the N2PK list:  Everyone is getting group buys of 
oscillators, boards, etc. together and the list goes on and on.  TAPR has a 
version which they farmed out to Ten-Tec with the USB version and the price 
came out at more than I paid for my SDR-1000.  There will be a bunch of the 
homebrew ones in various states of construction.  Much time spent on 
incidentals. 

Your project is technically/mechanically difficulty enough that my idea 
would be to get some FAB house to get the boards out.  Let us stick them in 
one of our old standard PC cases with power supply and get on with the rest 
of the fun. 

Whatever, keep having fun as this is all interesting to lurk. 

N0UU
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