ACL Strobes - Interest post

There has been a bit of a discussion over on the following thread: http://auschristmaslighting.com/forums/index.php?topic=4890.new;topicseen#new

So lets get an idea of how many people what strobes. Reply to this post with the following information.

Name: your user ID
Complete ACL: the total number of ACL strobes you'd like
PCB only: the total number of printed circuit boards so you can get your own mouser BoM later
Ray Wu String: you really don't want ACL, but want a Ray Wu string of xx lights
Country: where do you live
Timing: when you want these to arrive at your door step

 

-saved for future use-

 

Name: drlucas
Complete ACL: 55
PCB only: 0
Ray Wu String: 1 string of 25 strobes
Country: Canada
Timing: September

 

I will throw a spanner in the works early. The ACL strobes are fine once they are built but are horrendous for novice SMD solderers. They have the advantage of being standalone strobes meaning that they don't require any controller to run them. I originally designed up a 2801 based strobe that drove a 0.75W led at full brightness. When Ray transferred the design to 2811 there was a design failure and the 0.75W led was massively under driven. The design I made was designed especially for novices and it would still be available if there was interest. This required the strobes to be driven either by a J1 Sys P2 or similar pixel driver with a strobe setting, a dedicated pixel strobe board like David_AVD was working on or an Arduino or similar based controller.
Ray was given the opportunity to make the strobes as the original ACL ones were difficult to make and terrible to try and seal up and put lenses on. The finished units were nicely put together and were cheap but just weren't as bright as the original ACL ones.
I no longer have any interest in loading strobe boards but I could organise either a MK2 ACL strobe that could be supplied fully loaded less the leds or the 2801 board I designed last year. Fully loaded boards can potentially supplied at about 5 weeks notice and are quite similar in price to bare boards and components.

 

My question before posting the interest, what's the worst case scenario cost per board and then with the stobe pixels themselves, I'm confused is there a choice between ray's under driven and ACL properly driven?


IMHO, it's hard to gauge interest without a ballpark worst case they will cost this much before shipping and then you need to spend this much more per unit, etc..


Alan

 

Well since we don't have a cost, I will throw out a dollar amount. I have $200 in a budget for strobes this year.


I tried the Ray strobes last year, wasn't impressed.


If someone starts something count me in.

 

Name: AussieDoug
Complete ACL: Around the $200 mark
PCB only: 0
Ray Wu String: 0
Country: Australia
Timing: Whenever they arrive

 

What is the difference between the two? is there a bill of materials (ball park costs for either to address Alan's concern)?


I'm also in the $200 budget range if possible...

 

If there was sufficient interest I'd do a redesign that used the same pic and program but had a different layout to allow easier assembly.

The below are a couple of strobe pictures that someone who has done a reasonable amount of soldering tried unsuccessfully to solder up using solder paste. To give some idea of scale the pcb is about 18mm x 12mm (3/4" x 1/2").

 

here is a image of them being soldered decently


and


photo's supplied from "lights on the ridge" and "lithgow lights"

 

There is a new micro ssc controller that went out to a board assembler for the smd parts, realistically what would it add to the cost to have them built in quantity?


My guess looking at parts, and it's a guess, is three dollars worth of components there not including the lense or led itself?

 

solder paste good
soldering iron for smd not so good.

There is an easier way.
Never did this before the ACL strobes.

http://auschristmaslighting.com/forums/index.php?topic=466.0

Joel

 

Sorry to go a little off topic, but what is a SMD.

 

Surface mount device compared to through hole device. SMD is smaller and cheaper and costs less to have loaded onto a pcb.