Can you list places to purchase or have made?

[ebo]

I am interested in getting involved, but I need to first access the time I can commit to the project (I am already overbooked). That said, besides working as a software engineer contractor at NASA/NOAA, I also served two formal apprenticeships in my 20's with a tool and die machinist, and a master blacksmith. I should be able to help design, prototype, and test tooling. In addition, I have an electronic technicians diploma, but that only makes me relatively safe to work with the electronics, not help much with the design.

BTW, some of my past work at NASA involved processing 100's of terabytes of sub-meter satellite imagery to identify trees and shrubs in the Sahel, and I still work with, and teach, python on the supercomputers.

Anyway, getting back to my question -- can you list locations to get various parts, including the RPi hat? I quickly skimmed the site and could not find the info.

I look forward to learning more about the site, and see if I can do stuff to help.

[tlalexander]

Hello! Sorry for the delay. I just finished a complete redesign of the hardware, now based on the Raspberry Pi Compute Module (CM4). There are no sources to order the boards yet, but we will be working towards a production release and wherever we get things fabbed, we will share as much as possible on how to get them made. In time once the project begins to get some traction, hopefully multiple sources of compatible boards will pop up. But that is some time away.

[tlalexander]

Currently I order PCBs and stencils from JLCPCB and hand assemble them at home. But we will move towards an outside assembler in the future and I will see about a group buy on the forum once I get all of that fab process working.

[OpenSourceIronman]

I would also love to purchase 3 to 5 raw PCBs to help offset your initial costs.

[tlalexander]

Thank you! We now order fully assembled PCBs from JLCPCB. I just got back the new PCBs and we are honing in on a stable design. Once we get to that point I will work on improving our documentation and cleaning up our resources, in anticipation of full kit sales.

@OpenSourceIronman Would you prefer to buy some PCBs over making a donation? I have thought about selling merchandise to people who like a little stuff for their donation. I am curious what motivates you. I wanted to print and sell some high quality posters of the robot, but PCBs is an interesting idea too. One note is that shipping stuff takes time so it can end up costing us a fair bit of money to do it! But I want to at least hear what people are interested in.

[OpenSourceIronman]

I like collecting cool hardware so yes I would be willing to pay 150% above your cost for prototype hardware instead of donation.

Ship it nice and slow to save cost. I can send my address via Twitter @BlazeDSanders or Mastodon @blazesanders@tech hub.social

[ebo]

It has been long enough since I first came across the project. I have a couple of use cases for setting up a low mobile platform with fork-lift tines to move small pallets into a crawl space for storage. Other projects include precision seeders, transplanters, and possibly inspection. I can see doing some image processing and building a weeder as well. I would need to check to see, but the weeders I would probably base mine off of may still be under a patent lock (not like I am planing to sell the beasts, but due diligence is what it is). Anyway, once I have a platform that I know and learn to trust, it is hard to say what all I would do with it -- I picked up a couple of small 20hp tractors with blown engines, but the hydraulic motors on the wheels still looked good, so I could step the power up[ to 10 to 30HP, and put it on a converted machine. Anyway, not bad for literally $10 at auction, and the one has 5x hydraulic motors and the pump...