Page 1 of 21

QL 34th Anniversary new hardware.

Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2018 12:01 am
by Dave
Hi all, January 11th has arrived, and I am turning 50 today. The QL is turning 34 tomorrow!

So, without further ado, I'd like to announce some hardware. I'll announce one per week, and start easy this week with the big hitters coming over the next two weeks :) Today's items will go on sale on February 14th, to show the love!

Item One:

Q-Buck. A QL buck regulator that is a lot more efficient than the 7805 regulator. It reduces load on the QL PSU by about 40%, and is 96% efficient. We did our own design at first, but in the end I chose the TI reference design as it was much smaller, more efficient and ran cooler than my own design. It can be preset to 12, 9, 5, 3.3, 2.5 or 1.8v or to any custom voltage. Also, it's a bit cheaper. Comes set to 5V, and with a small mounting clip so it's not just flopping around inside your QL. They can be used anywhere a 7805 would have been, in any machine. 2A continuous (3A peak), 0.85v drop out, adjustable range 0.8 - 15V, 550 KHz switch frequency, output short circuit and over current protection, ripple <10mV @ 5v 700mA, max input voltage 24v.

They will go on sale for £5. I have 150+ in stock.

Item Two:

Minerva upgrades. Just your basic Minerva plug in card, all new design. You can request any image be burned onto the ROM, if you supply the image. If you don't specify, you'll get Minerva 1.98 and TKII. They use a standard EPROM and SMD logic.

They will go on sale for £7. I have 300 in stock. I know, I went a little crazy with that PCB order! 50 are assembled and ready to go.

Item Three:

I have four Miniplanes left, for £20 for 2 thru connectors or £25 for three thru connectors. I sent the rest of the PCBs to Paul in Germany some time ago. Call dibbs on one in comments below. There won't be any more once these are gone.

These are just a few small items, but after next week's announcement on January 17th, these will make a lot more sense. :D

No orders until February 14th. This is because I haven't set up a payment system yet, and I'd like people to order everything they'd like in a single order to save on shipping costs. Shipping for any of these items, no matter how big or small the order, is £10 flat fee.

Please ask questions here, or if you'd like to chat privately, please email me at dave@sinclairql.com. Please do not use the PM system here, because it only allows me to keep a limited number of messages. I have had to delete important information to make room, and inadvertently lost customer order details. So, please, email :)

Ok, that was underwhelming. It's all stuff I've talked about or sold before! Well, here's a slightly anonymized sneak peak at next week's announcement.
IMG_1808.jpg
Yeah, a real board! That says QL on it! And has a thru-connector! And no thru-holes so it must be entirely SMD! OMG! WHAT COULD IT BE!?!?

Have a great week! Happy 34th Birthday, Sinclair QL!

Re: QL 34th Anniversary new hardware.

Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2018 12:38 am
by NormanDunbar
Happy birthday Dave, welcome to the 50s! ;)

Cheers,
Norm.

Re: QL 34th Anniversary new hardware.

Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2018 12:46 am
by Dave
NormanDunbar wrote:Happy birthday Dave, welcome to the 50s! ;)

Cheers,
Norm.
I feel as old as you smell :P

Re: QL 34th Anniversary new hardware.

Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2018 12:52 am
by Zarchos
You only have the age of your guts, so : do not panic !

Happy birthday.
Bon anniversaire !

Brilliant work of yours, I will be a customer, for sure !
Thanks for your commitment, and the prices kept very low.

Re: QL 34th Anniversary new hardware.

Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2018 1:27 am
by Dave
Thanks, Zarchos. :D

There's a formula to work out the retail price of electronics. The mark-up to break even is at least 2.6 times the cost of the components and assembly. Luckily, I do my own assembly using my own reflow oven and SMD rework station, which about halves production cost. I also shop components very carefully from better reputation suppliers, and in larger volumes to get price breaks. So I have 10,000 BAT54, 2,597 1N4148 and 4,000 470pF 0805 caps.

I'm just going to try to get some momentum going by releasing something new every week or two for a while.

Re: QL 34th Anniversary new hardware.

Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2018 8:27 am
by NormanDunbar
Dave wrote:
NormanDunbar wrote:Happy birthday Dave, welcome to the 50s! ;)

Cheers,
Norm.
I feel as old as you smell :P

Hmm. And to think I'd only just had a bath! :D :D :D

Cheers,
Norm.

Re: QL 34th Anniversary new hardware.

Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2018 8:53 am
by duncan
Happy Birthday Dave and I'd like to put dibs on a miniplane with 3 thru connectors.

Cheers

Re: QL 34th Anniversary new hardware.

Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2018 9:35 am
by Derek_Stewart
Hi,

I would of liked a Mini Backplane, but they do no seem to be on sale.

Put me down for one of each, I can build if required.

Re: QL 34th Anniversary new hardware.

Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2018 11:15 am
by Pr0f
Happy birthday Dave, and a Minerva carrier might be useful... I will order on the 14th Feb

Re: QL 34th Anniversary new hardware.

Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2018 11:41 am
by martyn_hill
Happy Birthday, Big D!

Thank you for your enthusiasm and perseverance supporting our community :-)

Can't wait to hear about the bigger projects coming soon!