Rockit Kickstarter Update

This week things really picked up thanks to some helpful blog posts from some of the music world's most notable open sourcerers. Last night, the project crossed over the 50% mark, which is pretty astonishing to me. I set the end of date of the project at the end of August because I figured this would be a slow moving train taking some time to build steam, but this week's growth was exponential. I'm expecting a plateau which will hopefully carry it through to the end. Time will tell, but I'm expecting the project to be funded and am taking appropriate action to get everything sorted and squared. Click through for a project update on my search for a case and a bit of musing.

On a development note, thanks for everyone's suggestions about putting this synth in a case. I've looked into all of the suggestions and have some inquiries into a number of case/enclosure manufacturers. I think the PacTec PT-10 is definitely an option.

[caption id="attachment_344" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Pactec PT-10 - Potential Case for the Rockit"][/caption]

There are a couple of concerns about this case though.

First, I may have to increase the size of the pcb to work with the case.  The present pcb is 8.6 x 5.125" and the recommended board size for this case is 9.3x6.65".  PCB pricing is basically priced by square inches, so it would be a not insignificant increase to the cost of the pcb. I might be able to make it work with more screws and standoffs to mount the board to the front panel, but if you're going to do that, you might as well make the board a little bit bigger to fit in the case and save yourself some extra parts.

Second, the board is designed with all of the output connectors built into the board. For the case, the i/o connectors, MIDI/Power/Audio, have to be mounted to a back plate and then wired to the board. This might mean stocking two different sets of output connectors, one with pcb mounting facility and another with wire soldering facility. The alternative is making people solder wires to little tabs not intended for the purpose on the pcb mount parts, which may a bit much to ask. I suppose stocking two sets of connectors isn't the end of the world, but there's only so much room in the garage!

The big shocker is how much cases cost.  This is a relatively simple case and it costs $28.20 just for the parts. I'll have to send the aluminum panels somewhere to get laser cutting done which will add more cost. In the end, the case is going to be nearly as much as the electronic components! C'est la vie, I guess. I'm trying to arrive at the lowest cost possible to keep the Rockit competitive while keeping it as awesome as possible.

To me, this says a lot about how cheap electronics are these days.  The low cost and high quality of modern electronics, combined with the ease of setting up shop on the internet, are entirely responsible for the emergence of indie electronics shops around the world. Twenty years ago, somebody like me would have to develop my product, then shop around for financing, and then convince stores to put my device on shelves hoping it would sell. You can imagine how hazardous a choice this could be. If it flopped or a competitor came out with something marginally better, you'd be done. These days, I can run a kickstarter project to determine if people are interested, buy all the parts, put them together in my garage and send them out. If it doesn't pan out, I'll still be able to continue for the long haul doing what I like to do, not much worse for the wear, and having had a blast along the way.

I've been contacted by some contract manufacturers who must be trolling kickstarter for potential customers. I've heard many mixed reviews about these guys.  The ones near me seem to be pretty small operations who I've been told seem to invest more in getting your business than performing it. I'm going to have to do something because I don't want to take too long to deliver all the orders and I'm not sure I'll be able to build them all myself. I'll have more to say on the subject after I meet with a couple of them to determine what I'm going to do.

Cheers everybody and thanks for taking the leap with me and thanks to the open source community for such a warm welcome.