8800 kit status?

[Grant Stockly]

I'm not happy with the PCBs. I will be ordering more to replace these, and I can only hope they give me at least 50% off. I didn't catch the problem and since I ordered them last November it doesn't look good for me to complain now!

I was packing the PCBs into padded envelopes and on the 15th set I noticed problems with both the 1k memory PCB and CPU board. These kits are (to me) more "art" than useful. Don't get me wrong here, you can do everything with them now that you could in the 70s...but at $1499 they had better look good, right?

I have handled quality control with these kits based on if -I- would buy the parts. I don't like these PCBs, I wouldn't want to pay $1500 to get them from someone else, so I won't ship them to you guys!

This last batch of 8800s has hurt. I bought 20 extra front panels for $800, and now it looks like 20 CPU and 20 1k memory cards (about $1200) are bad. Now I'm hoping to get my $800 back, and I'm hoping to get half or more back on the PCBs... That doesn't matter to you guys though, as long as you get good parts.

The kit and all of its parts need to look perfect, regardless if the parts are displayed individually under glass or not.

IF they do not take the PCBs back, who would be interested in them at $20-$30 a piece?


Keep in mind that these bad PCBs were from a reorder. In other words, I did NOT resubmit any files!!! Here are the problem images:



I pay an extra $8 per PCB to get gold fingers. The latest batch doesn't have any gold on the power traces. Not too bad, but looks bad and considering the extra money I paid for the gold...




The card edge on the CPU card...there is a long story with this one, it anyone is interested then ask.





Regardless of which one is "good" and which one is "bad", I don't understand why they have to mess with my CAD files!

I will keep you guys updated. This will delay by 1.5 to 2 weeks. I hope you understand...

[Grant Stockly]

Once upon a time, 2 years ago, I bought a batch of 10 1k memory boards. They were the first boards that I'd ever had made with a solder mask and silk screen, so I was very nervous. These boards did NOT have gold fingers and they turned out GREAT!

On the second batch of PCBs I decided to add gold plating to the fingers and a beveled edge to the card edge. I created a "mask" to go over the area that I wanted to be exposed to gold. This mask was larger than it needed to be, but it didn't bother me since it hung over the edge of the PCB. The tops of the fingers on the boards without gold fingers are covered up with green solder mask.



They sent me $3500 worth of PCBs in that first order, and about $3000 of them were wrong. All of the boards looked like the top board in the above picture, some worse. They thought that the entire gold finger should be exposed, so they bumped my mask up. Since my mask was too large, it made the board look bad. They also modified the solder mask/silk screen in quite a few areas.

Because of this costly error on their part, they set it up so that they would send me a check plot on every order before it went to manufacturing. This is basically them e-mailing me my gerber files back to myself. I don't understand why they need this process, as far as I'm concerned they should just stop editing my files!

When I went to reorder the PCBs, they assured me that they would be using the latest batch of engineering files, but they didn't. They used the old files, and modified them AGAIN...

The reason I want to reorder the PCBs from the same part number is I want to save $200 or so in "engineering" fees. Regardless of saving money, there is also no guarantee that a new part number wouldn't be edited either...

The thing that surprises me is that the CPU card (shown above) had the bad gold fingers AND at least one area of modified silkscreen. The bad gold finger area was actually in the check plot that they e-mailed me, but NOT the silkscreen modification! So what good are the check plots if they are going to modify the files further after sending them to me!

I may try to get them to discount the CPU boards because of the modification made after the check plots, but I'm doubting they will do it. I am at fault for not catching the gold finger issue.

I will let you guys know as soon as the new boards arrive. Every part of the kits are ready to ship. I would have taken pictures but I left my memory card at work!

[kaluce]

I'd like to get a kit, but I'm a 21 year old college student with bills, loans, and a need to get a "new" car. spending $1.5k to me for something that while really nifty on the geek scale, but has no TRUE practical function.

I could get a fully functional desktop that emulates the fully assembled kit. But that option lacks the hard physical experience.

While I understand the artistry and novelty aspect of this device; a scratched case, and a bad (but functional) PCB mask is NOT a bad price to pay for a discounted machine. especially if the cosmetic defects are unnoticeable once fully assembled.

So if they were functionally ok, but cosmetically defective, than why not rid yourself of them by selling, especially if they refuse to take them back.