[Pre-Order] Sign-ups for the CeMu Partner (Compute Module add-on)

[inches]

The boards shipped yesterday! As soon as they are in I'll put the prototypes together.

[inches]

My boards went out on July 18th. I'm waiting for them patiently, as I have no tracking number on them.

Once they arrive I will assemble one or a few. If it works, then I'll send the latest files to my manufacturer and have them assemble me 5-10. This will also give me the cost for manufacturing at different unit counts.

I'll also go to my post office or a UPS and take one to see how much it will cost to ship to various locations to get that cost.

I will open pre-orders as soon as I can confirm that their assembly is satisfactory and I have a picture of the full cost. Then once I get the final count from the pre-orders in I will place my order with the manufacturer.

After they all hit my door, I'll need to test each one. As I do so I'll begin to ship them out.

I don't have final dates or cost now. That all comes with the steps outlined above. I'm not just going to slap a big price tag on it to cover what it might cost. I haven't done this a dozen times before to be able to properly estimate and publish a number. And I'm not targeting some MSRP and building around that either. I'll share what I know when I know it.

Does anybody have any questions about the process?

[nuneberg]

Do you have any updates?

[inches]

I've got my boards in! I assembled them yesterday and they look really nice. My silkscreen didn't end up on the board due to some file back and forth I was doing with the manufacturer, but I made it by.

Some of the little bits were hard to get proper connections with by hand, even with a hot air gun. I ended up taking about 1 hour testing all 200 pins two by two along the SODIMM connector.

My intention was to provide a solder bridge that skipped the reg if you didn't need it, but the way I routed my 1v8 reg is that if the 3v3reg wasn't there it wasn't getting any power. That's why it's completely removed in the picture here. On a Helder build you'll need it and on a SAIO build it's unnecessary. On a SAIO build you'll route both 5v and 3v3.

IMG_20170815_135844.jpg (1.31 MiB) Viewed 15279 times

I'm really happy with the form factor of this guy. It fits in just perfectly and slides in the back with all the components on. All the cables are much more nicely routed inside, and the FPC cable is especially happier. You'll notice that it's all JST cable connections now and no more soldering holes. The exception to that is the Wi-Fi USB data lines if you're running a Helder build.

IMG_20170815_135911.jpg (1.26 MiB) Viewed 15279 times

I'm not getting it to boot currently, and am working on diagnosing why that is. At any rate, with the unexpectedly slow shipping on the board, and the fact that I'm still going to need a little pre-production run from the manufacturer before preorders, it's looking like my date will push out to at least September.

I know that the community is very patient, but I apologize for the mis-judgement of the project and that it will be later than I had hoped for you guys.

[neolith]

Thanks for the detailed update!
I don't mind the delay, cool things are worth waiting for.

[JakeB5]

Delays are to be expected with a new product.

Rather have something that works than something that doesn't.

[sybr]

Hey there,

first of all thanks for your work! This board is the last thing that was missing to make the GBZ I want to make. I've been trying to find a CM3 breakout board, that isn't huge and full of components for a while now and this is of course perfect.

One thing though, after seeing your build log, I was really happy at the very end when you realized, that the CeMu Partner fit without obstructing the cart bay. As I understand it this is now not the case anymore. With the SD slot on kite's board this is of course unnecessary, but I would really love to have the roms folder mounted from an SD-cartridge while running the OS in kite's SD slot or flashed on the CM3. Is there any chance this will still be possible? If not it's fine I guess, I'll just build one with the CeMu Partner and for the other version I'll just cross my fingers and hope kite puts out a CM3 SAIO.

Cheers!

[inches]

Hey there,

first of all thanks for your work! This board is the last thing that was missing to make the GBZ I want to make. I've been trying to find a CM3 breakout board, that isn't huge and full of components for a while now and this is of course perfect.

One thing though, after seeing your build log, I was really happy at the very end when you realized, that the CeMu Partner fit without obstructing the cart bay. As I understand it this is now not the case anymore. With the SD slot on kite's board this is of course unnecessary, but I would really love to have the roms folder mounted from an SD-cartridge while running the OS in kite's SD slot or flashed on the CM3. Is there any chance this will still be possible? If not it's fine I guess, I'll just build one with the CeMu Partner and for the other version I'll just cross my fingers and hope kite puts out a CM3 SAIO.

Cheers!

Can you explain what you are trying to do and what you believe is preventing that from happening? I don't quite understand.

[sybr]

Sorry, probably less text would have been better. I was so excited, posting on here for the first time

The pictures of the red PCB above look like it won't fit on top of the cartridge bay anymore, but has to be put into the cartridge bay. Am I wrong in this?

[silentjames]

The pictures of the red PCB above look like it won't fit on top of the cartridge bay anymore, but has to be put into the cartridge bay. Am I wrong in this?

As I understand from pictures, this board uses all space from cartridge area - so you'll need to cut your cartridge and keep only front and top areas. Check other builds which use RPi3 - almost all of them are in the same way.

@inches, I have one question.
As I already said, your board uses all space from cartridge area, and some space below. Does this mean that I can't use some boards for L&R buttons which usually locate right above battery bay?