[hpsdr] Excaliber and pennywhistle availability?

[John Ackermann N8UR]

Alberto I2PHD wrote:

> Scott Cowling wrote:
>> I am thinking that we will likely build toroid-less 
>> boards and offer a partial kit. This *will* be decided in the next 
>> few weeks, as my goal is to produce Alex by the end of the year.
>>   
> Yes, please... A lot of us, myself included, haven't the slightest 
> problem in winding toroids.
> And the considerable saving in the cost of the kit would be quite 
> welcome... :-)

All --

Since there have been several responses to Scotty's message, and he's 
probably not going to be on-line for a few more hours, let me jump in.

Unfortunately, replacing the finished toroids with do-it-yourself cores 
and wires is *not* going to reduce the Alex pricing.  In fact, the 
alternate plan may be a little more expensive (though we haven't 
finished crunching the numbers yet).

The problem is that the Chinese CM quoted a price for wound toroids that 
was much lower than our cost to buy good quality cores by themselves. 
It turns out that low price was probably based on the CM's assumption 
that they could get away with using cores made of mud.  They apparently 
never had a customer before who actually checked the inductance of the 
finished product, and when we called them on it, they seemed utterly 
unable to find a source of cores that would work.

So, the original Alex price estimate was assumed those very inexpensive 
coils.  Unfortunately, they were useless.  Based on all the pricing 
we've done, buying cores that we know will work, together with the wire, 
is going to cost quite a bit more than the original quote for the 
finished coils.  (And, by the way, there's very little incremental cost 
in having our US contract manufacturer solder the coils, so there's no 
real cost savings in skipping that step.)

We've investigated just about every source of pre-wound and empty 
toroids and now need to figure out the path to produce Alex at the best 
cost with best performance with best supportability.  Hopefully we will 
take the final decisions at the TAPR board meeting next week at the DCC.

But despite the fact that you (or someone...) will now have to wind and 
solder the toroids, I'm afraid that's not going to result in a lower cost.

73,
John

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