Updated: 27 January 2025

Production planning

27 January update:

Finishing about 30 DivMMC EnJOY! PRO ONE interfaces today!
Made 75 semi-finished ones on the pick and place machine last Saturday.

This was slightly delayed since bookkeeping again took 2 days longer than planned.

The new lower IC sockets for the vRetro chips should arrive today, so let’s see if that solves the bulging problems in rubber-key cases described underneath.

Also getting back to emails and messages from today, doing a handful each day.

And this week Spectranet will be done as well.

23 January update:

So I’m working on PRO ONE interfaces, and Harlequin 128K DIY kits.

With the Harlequin 128K boards we just switched to bundling vRetro clones of the AY-3-8912 sound chip, instead of the original ones that are no where to be obtained anymore.
However since the vRetro clone is a module (circuit board), it’s slightly bigger than the original AY chip, about 2mm.
That will cause it to bump against the top of a rubber-key case.
It can still be closed up fine that way, but it bulges slightly:

So I decided to do do a detailed design of the rubber-key case, and see exactly how the dimensions of the chips are different.
Then I added some potential solutions:

I found that just replacing the normal IC socket with a low profile female pin header, should do the trick:

Of course I will test it, but nearly done!

16 January update:

Underneath you will find roughly the planned work, and what needs to be done after that, at the date of writing (it changes over time with new orders, and what’s done).

Some of this may already be on the shelves, need to check if we have enough.
And what is not listed, is already picked for orders or on the shelf to be picked.

The list is somewhat prioritised – we do products in batches.
Roughly estimated this should all be done in 2-3 weeks now, but most will be done in 1 and a half week I expect.

I will do a lot more than what’s listed here, but this is the intention / what needs to be done at least:

Week of 13 January (current week)

  • Processing email and social messages – this takes days, but I try to do a handful of it every day
  • Shipping out about 40 packages on Friday or Saturday
  • Finishing Q4 ’24 bookkeeping

Week of 20 January

  • Finishing Harlequin 128 DIY kits – mainly need to update the manual, then ship out about 25 orders for these
  • Producing a huge batch of DivMMC interfaces, which will take about 3 days

Then:

  • Spectranet
  • DivMMC PRO MINI
  • DivMMC PRO MINI lite
  • ZX-AY
  • Speccy Breadboard
  • Harlequin 128 assembled
  • Harlequin 48 assembled
  • Opus Discovery upgrade kits
  • PlusDlite
  • Dual Floppy Drive sets
  • Joystick tester / adapter
  • ZX Plus cases
  • Rainbow LED case
  • ZX rubber-key cases
  • ZX mainboards
  • Complete ZX 48K
  • Complete ZX Plus

Production work

Some snapshots of the ongoing work..

Picking ZX-HD orders:

Finishing ZX Diag Carts:

About ByteDelight

ByteDelight is run by me, Ben Versteeg, with the occasional help of some family members, in their spare time.
I started ByteDelight in 2014 and been doing that fulltime since 2018.

We use a semi-automated production line with pick-and-place machine and reflow oven, but still do a lot of manufacturing by hand, which we love.

Production and repairs live on YouTube

I often stream live on YouTube doing all kinds of production work and repairs and more.
So subscribe to our YouTube channel and click the notification icon!

 

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