Sometime in early 2014, I backed a kickstarter project that was supposed to create a breakout board for the MSGEQ7 chip from Mixed Signals Integration. As it turns out, the project creator has abandoned his backers somewhere during the fulfillment period. I did a little bit of public domain research to see if I could find a way of getting in contact with him, and I am NOT here to drag his name through the mud. He may very well have real world issues that are preventing him from following through. So, rather than bother with trying to get him to finish this thing, I figured I’d just do it myself since it should be relatively easy – there’s no engineering involved really, just design.
Here’s a link to the original Kickstarter.
Provided there is sufficient demand, I will recreate the project and provide it to the original backers at cost. I’ll keep a build log of it, where I’ll publish all those costs in detail. I figure that will be a good learning experience for the Rheingold Heavy readers in general as well, to see the generation of a BOM behind the scenes. I’ll sell the board to non-backers for COGS X 2, and since I’ll be publishing the cost of goods sold, we’ll all know exactly what’s going on. I’ll do this in spare time as a fun side project since I can’t work on my own current kickstarter continuously without burning out.
The plan will be to use OSHPark for the boards, and hand solder everything myself, since I can do it all as through hole which is quick. I can probably send it out as a kit too, but we’ll see if people want that. I’m flexible. I would expect to be able to ship this sometime in the first quarter of 2015.
So, if you’re interested, please fill out the form below. I think I’ll realistically need to have 20+ people interested in order for it to be cost effective for the group: that will allow me to create a medium run order for fabrication which really brings the costs down. As I’m gauging interest, I’ll start throwing some numbers together.
I will not use the information you provide below for any purposes other than to communicate with you regarding this project specifically. No marketing; no links to other things I’m doing. This is only to figure out if we want this to happen.
Updates to follow…
[contact-form][contact-field label=’Name’ type=’name’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Email’ type=’email’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’If you%26#039;re an original backer%26#x002c; please provide your kickstarter username for verification’ type=’text’/][contact-field label=’How many are you interested in’ type=’select’ required=’1′ options=’1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10’/][contact-field label=’Kit or Assembled’ type=’select’ required=’1′ options=’Kit,Assembled’/][contact-field label=’Comments’ type=’textarea’/][/contact-form]
