Re: Rosetta progress report

[nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Houston)]

I've finished the board layout and put together a bill of materials. It
looks like my estimated cost was fairly close to the the mark.

I don't yet know what the board itself will cost so am estimating it based
on a similar sized, low volume board (i.e. BX24-AHT).

For those buying the parts from Mouser and doing all of the assembly, it
will cost about $35-40 plus shipping. This excludes the ZX-24 chip ($60
after March 1, $45 currently ), an enclosure (Polycase LP31F), the xPort
Ethernet module (Mouser $49) and cables. This requires soldering of 4 SMT
chips and several SMT resistors & capacitors (805 size) plus through hole
connectors and capacitors.

If there's sufficient interest, fully assembled boards could probably sell
for $50-60 including the enclosure but excluding the ZX-24, xPort & cables.
Users can jusp plug-in the ZX-24 but the xPort cannot be socketed and will
always require soldering - it needs the copper on the board for a heatsink.

So it will vary from about $80 to about $160 depending on whether you
assemble it, when you buy the ZX-24 and whether you buy the xPort.

If you want X-10 RF input, it will require soldering a jumper on the main
board (+5V power for the MR26) and replacing the serial cable on the MR26
which will also involve soldering. There is a replacement PIC I did a couple
of years ago for the MR26 that allows it to handle X-10 security codes. This
requires soldering an SOIC-8 SMT chip.

If you add the xPort, it web-enables anything connected to Rosetta.