FUNcube Dongle

Folks

Sorry we sold out. I will provide a new post when I have a clear idea of the next availability, hopefully it will be during the week commencing 9 May. We’ve had some unexpected delays with a supplier during the recent public holidays here in the UK (four in ten days) but we’re confident we’ll be quickly back on track in the next few days.

Our assemblers have again managed to deliver another set of boards despite the frenzy of puclic holidays here in the UK (four in ten days), so we’ll have some more units available on Tuesday May 3 at 21:00UTC.
Howard

Folks

Sorry, we have sold out: I am in discussions with the manufacturer to see if we can have some more ready for May 3 at 21:00UTC.

My manufacturer has pulled out the stops this week even though we have the Easter holidays ahead of us (as well as holidays for some wedding you might have heard of next week too) and has already delivered another 100 assembled boards so I am delighted to announce that there will be a sale on Tuesday 26 April!
Howard

Folks,

Today I have received the latest boards and have tested and encased enough already to say that we’ll be good for a sale tomorrow (19 April 2100UTC).

Sorry sold out: nest sale is due on Tuesday 26 April 2011 21:00UTC.

Many thanks, Howard

Folks,

*** Sorry, sold out: look out for next week, tentatively 19 April 21:00UTC if all goes to plan ***

Firstly apologies for the short notice, I have been unexpectedly out of Internet access as I forgot my ac adapter for my laptop on a trip.

The subject line I think explains everything.
Thank you, Howard

Folks,

If you have a 1.1 FCD (Serial numbers from 810, and it will say V1.1 on the back), then one of the modifications we did was to the crystal. This reduces the amount of manual placing: the old crystal was in a surface mount HC49 on the rear of the board, and looks enormous, but those crystals were reasonably priced when we were only thinking in terms of building a dozen or so at a time.

Now we’re making 100s at a time, in order to reduce the assembly costs I’ve moved all the parts to the top side. It’s swings and roundabouts for assembly because although there is no work on the back any more, there are now more parts on the front for the bias T so in the end I am left with a net zero change in assembly costs, in fact it’s slightly more expensive over all because of the cost of the bias T parts (and the crystal, but read on).

As the HC49 was never going to fit on the top, so the new crystal is in a tiny 3.2×2.5mm surface mount package. These cost about three times as much as the HC49s but they are better tolerance. A lot better in fact. The old HC49s were consistently about 115ppm off. These new ones seem to only be about 12ppm off on average.

So the reason I’m telling you this is that the host software I wrote for controlling the frequency assumes a frequency correction by default of 999,885/1,000,000 (-115ppm). For the newer 1.1 units a better first hit will be 999,988/1,000,000 (-12ppm).

Howard

Folks

Front end filtering on the FCD continues to be a hot topic for some users. Although the FCD has front end fixed and programmable filtering, particularly at VHF, in the presence of strong out of band signals the front end can become overloaded (as has been discussed before on these pages for example https://www.funcubedongle.com/?page_id=74, https://www.funcubedongle.com/?p=456 and https://www.funcubedongle.com/?p=321).

We have been working on this and with help from the team we are presently looking at using SAW filters which presents a no tune solution. Here are the latest incarnation.

The span is 130MHz to 160MHz, and as you can see the 3dB points are at about 142 and 148MHz. The attenuation to the infamous UK pager frequencies at 138 and 153MHz is 45dB.

This prototype is not pretty! The PCB has been re-laid out and is 1″x1″ to be able to fit inside the feed point of an antenna.

It is powered either from the coax (it is designed to be comapatible with the 5V bias T in the 1.1 version of the FCD) or it can be powered separately.

Howard

Folks

All UK units were mailed this morning (Monday 4 April) and should arrive tomorrow via Special Delivery 1pm. If you have not received yours tomorrow (please note that it requires a signature), let me know and I will get you the tracking number.

For non UK deliveries, with the new shipping system in place I have managed to pack and prepare every unit from this batch already this morning, so all non-UK units will now ship today (Monday)! This means many North American and Western European buyers will receive their FCDs tomorrow (Tuesday 5 April). I am currently awaiting the Fedex tracking numbers so that I can collate them with the email addresses I have for you from Paypal. The process to make this work at all was frought with difficulty (eg, the Office email merge and all my AV software assumed I was sending spam!) so it may be later today or early tomorrow before I manage to get these detail out. Irrespective, all the units will have already shipped.

Howard

Folks,

Some reminders for you about shipments before ordering:

1. Please take time to check that your delivery address is correct in your Paypal account;
2. Please check your delivery zone (https://www.funcubedongle.com/?page_id=286);
3. Please note that Fedex will not ship to PO Boxes.

Shipping for non-UK deliveries will occur on Tuesday 5 April via Fedex International Priority. This is a time definite service. I will endeavour to email tracking numbers to all recipients. This gives us Monday to prepare the shipping labels and other paperwork: in a typical FCD batch, we print around 700 sheets of paperwork!

Here are Fedex’s International Priority transit times (you can check the precise timing for your destination on their website):

• Next business day delivery by noon to over 75,000 zipcodes across Europe;
• Next business day by 10.30 a.m. delivery to 20,064 zipcodes across the USA and Canada;
• 2 day delivery by 10.30 a.m. to rest of USA;
• 2 day delivery to key Asian destinations;
• 2-4 day delivery to all other FedEx destinations.

For UK customers, I anticipate being able to ship on Monday 4 April for delivery on Tuesday 5 April via Royal Mail Special Delivery.

Thank you!

Howard

Folks

Update: Just visited the assemblers and tested a batch, so I am confident we’ll have some units available for this weekend, and have updated the timing appropriately to 21:00UTC (22:00BST, 23:00CEST, 17:00EDT, 14:00PDT).

I anticipate requiring Monday 4 April to prepare the logisitcs, with shipping taking place on Tuesday 5 April.

Sorry, we have sold out: I hope to have more available around 12/13 April.

Howard

Folks

Parts delivered – check!
Assemblers ready – check!
PCBs tested – check!
PCBs tested? Are you sure? – Errrrr…

I was hoping to have had some units ready last week, although that would have meant everything would have gone smoothly.

Manufacturing is totally unlike my real job. In my day job, where I deliver and troubleshoot enterprise financial technology systems, time really is money, and when you say you’ll have something by a given time, in general you aim to do just that. If there are unforeseen glitches during the way, you flag them up at the time, not after your deadline when it’s all too late. Common sense you’d thing. Managing expectations is all.

Manufacturing is different, a complete mind shift. Over promising and under delivering seems to be the name of the game.

So, for this next batch of 500 units, we had a change to the PCB layout, predominently to integrate the HPF to save me days of monotonous of rework, but also I managed to squeeze on a bias tee. Two test panels (10 PCBs per panel) arrived from the PCB house (albeit a day late, but not a complete disaster) and built and tested fine. In the meantime, 52 more production panels were ordered from the same board house but on an 8 day turnaround. That turned out to be 11 days, due to St Patrick’s day, the moon phase and some other reasons seemingly too complex for me to understand, and equally apparently unnecessary to to tell the customer.

Once the production boards finally arrive, I take out a couple of panels for myself from the production bacth to check while the others are left with the assemblers. What can go wrong I ask myself?

Uh-oh, they have manufactured the production PCBs on 1.6mm FR4, not 1mm as specified, and as used in the test units, and as I flagged up in emails, and on the telephone when the original quote came through from the board house. So I am back to another “8 days”.

What’s wrong with 1.6mm boards?

The problem is that the SMA edge connectors that I use and have ordered and are in stock, ready, are for 1mm PCB. The PCB lands, the PCB width, the length of the threaded socket are all carefully chosed to be just right. Not all SMA edge connectors are made the same. Too short and you won’t be able to properly screw on a plug once in the enclosure. If the edge fingers are too long they’ll hit other parts on the board. Too wide and they won’t fit the PCB lands or the routed indent.

So I spent three days last week tracking down appropriate 1.6mm edge connectors that would be compatible. I ordered 550. They have already made the jouney from Hong Kong to Heathrow, then to East Midlands, then back to Heathrow, now they are at the Lambeth distribution centre. So tantalisingly close. Maybe I’ll get them today, maybe tomorrow. Until I have them and have tried them I’ll no idea as to whether they’re right or not.

So wish us luck, or we’ll have to hold on another week.

Howard