Re: New project...PCI based servo control board

[Jon Elson <elson-at-pico-systems.com>]

Malte Rütemann wrote:

>Hi,
>I've a simple but i think good idea:
>Jon why dont you sell the FPGA alone? 
>I think most people want to build the interface at home, to save a lot of 
>money, and if they could get the FPGA for around 100-200$,more people would 
>buy it. So if you only sell the FPGA, and perhaps the PCB, you could "make 
>more" money, and we(??), would all be happy, and nobody wants to invent it 
>new. 
>
Now, which project is this?  The PPMC (analog servo interface) uses a 
small FPGA, and
2 CPLDs, as well as a bunch of other parts.

The Universal Stepper Controller uses one big FPGA.  Anyone can buy the 
FPGA,
as the program is held in a serial EPROM.  YEs, I suppose I could sell 
the EPROM
for some small fee.  But, I really can't imagine hobbyists are going to 
want to solder
in a 144-lead chip with 1/2 mm pin spacing!  I have had to work hard to 
develop
the techniques to do this myself, by hand.  This entire board sells for 
US $200,
complete with testing!  That includes the circuit board, EPROM, power 
supply,
connectors, opto-isolators, LEDs, etc.  My cost to produce these is 
about $150,
not counting my labor!  I'm obviously not making a killing at $50 for my 
time
to assemble and test them.

Take a look at http://jelinux.pico-systems.com/univstep.html to get some 
idea
what is on there.

Jon