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Lo-tech PCBs Now Available via TexElec

pearce_jj

Veteran Member
Joined
May 14, 2010
Messages
2,808
Location
UK
Lo-tech products are now available via Texelec at https://texelec.com/ In a big change this means that these boards are now available complete and assembled, ready to go!

The Lo-tech site will be changing to focus on reference materials over the next few weeks, the wiki and associated materials continuing to be published at lo-tech.co.uk.

Please support Kevin, I can vouch for the quality of his work and this is a great opportunity to consolidate the availability of lots of these retro projects and so make more design time available for new stuff.
 
Tried to place an order today, the website keeps telling me there are no shipping methods available. I'm in Oregon, USA.

Also some PHP errors when it goes to display the shopping cart.

Other than that, nice looking website. Nice to see the boards available!

Scott
 
Lo-tech products are now available via Texelec at https://texelec.com/ In a big change this means that these boards are now available complete and assembled, ready to go!

The Lo-tech site will be changing to focus on reference materials over the next few weeks, the wiki and associated materials continuing to be published at lo-tech.co.uk.

Please support Kevin, I can vouch for the quality of his work and this is a great opportunity to consolidate the availability of lots of these retro projects and so make more design time available for new stuff.

Are you going to keep selling blank PCB's direct? Some of us prefer to build our own gear as we can make a few extra units to sell and basically cover the cost of our own builds + it's more satisfying to build your own kit.
 
Most of the boards have assembled and unassembled versions.

What finish is being used on the edge connectors? The photos suggest ENIG (Electroless Nickel Immersion Gold), but this language from the FAQ implies that the current products are using HASL (Hot Air Surface Leveling, copper covered by a layer of solder) : "We do plan to offer ENIG boards on our next production run."

Hard gold is the professional standard finish for edge connectors, ENIG is less durable and HASL is even less durable. If you buy these boards and they use HASL, consider it as a permanent upgrade. Don't remove these cards from the ISA slot unless absolutely necessary, or the solder over the copper will scrape off and the underlying copper will oxidize. Some people may find ENIG acceptable for internal upgrade options that are not intended to be interchanged often like a video game cartridge.
 
I was a bit late to notice this... Does this mean we cannot buy Lo-tech products direct from the UK anymore and would need to order from the US?
 
I was a bit late to notice this... Does this mean we cannot buy Lo-tech products direct from the UK anymore and would need to order from the US?
Yes it seem's so, Whether they will be available again in the UK i don't know, Just be aware of the extra cost involved ie: shipping charges, Import duties and the Vodka And Tonic :-(
 
Yes it seem's so, Whether they will be available again in the UK i don't know, Just be aware of the extra cost involved ie: shipping charges, Import duties and the Vodka And Tonic :-(

James always had a minimum PCB purchase amount anyway, eg iitc I had to buy 5 ISA Compact Flash boards when I wanted one and sold the remaining 4 (fully built) to mates.
 
James always had a minimum PCB purchase amount anyway, eg iitc I had to buy 5 ISA Compact Flash boards when I wanted one and sold the remaining 4 (fully built) to mates.
James gave a 'quantity discount' but there was no 'minimum purchase amount' as far as i know, I bought bare PCB's in 1's or 2's from his website when he was selling them.
 
James gave a 'quantity discount' but there was no 'minimum purchase amount' as far as i know, I bought bare PCB's in 1's or 2's from his website when he was selling them.

You are probably correct, it was a quite few months ago now and my memory isnt that great these days.
 
Does anyone offer a CF rear-bracket mount adaptor that can fit in the same slot space as the Lo-tech rev.2b card? Is there even enough clearance above the top of the PCB for CF card slot hardware? Losing a usable ISA slot on a 5150 just for a bracket mount is a pretty big deal.
 
Hello,

Sorry to be so behind on responses, we've been super-busy and building cards like crazy. We do sell just the bare PCBs for all of the cards we licensed from James. They are on our store @ https://texelec.com, and on eBay if you prefer. As far as the CF bracket, I'm afraid this version of the card is likely never going to be able to have a CF slot in the same slot as the adapter. I looked for such a card, but there probably isn't enough room anyway. I believe James built the cards half-height to fit on certain machines. I tried my hand at building the CF based cards he made, and we had too many problems with the surface-mount CF adaptor, even with our reflow oven. After killing 5 of them out of 10, I decided just to go with the more universal version. My desire down the road is to design an SD version of the card. It will take some time and is likely to have some bugs for awhile once we finally get to work on them. We're working on several other projects, so this isn't even something I've started to tackle yet. CF cards are getting more expensive as SD cards take over, you can get them a lot cheaper now.

BTW, the shipping issues should be worked out now. I think you may have gotten to our page just before we went live. Please feel free to message me if you have any issues, and thanks!

We have a pretty good stock at the moment, so please feel free to check our site out.

Thanks!
-Kevin
 
My desire down the road is to design an SD version of the card. It will take some time and is likely to have some bugs for awhile once we finally get to work on them. We're working on several other projects, so this isn't even something I've started to tackle yet. CF cards are getting more expensive as SD cards take over, you can get them a lot cheaper now.

-Kevin
Unless you can make them cheaper than the chinese its probably not worth the effort. Makes more sense to just make the XTIDE and use the chinese adapter for SD
44 pin IDE
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/44-Pin-...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649
I ordered one a couple of weeks ago, when it arrives I'll peel the sticker and see what chip its based on if you are interested.
40 pin IDE
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/SD-SDHC...747137&hash=item3af97ccb38:g:wY8AAOSwa3BaJS5s
Ordered just now.. because I just realised what I ordered before was 44 pin
 
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