Hey guys,

Last week I placed the order for the next run of Positron kits. The kits are now being manufactured, with an estimated completion date of July 31st. The kits will ship shortly thereafter.

The reason for the two week delay is because I had to make some minor modifications to the design in order to reduce manufacturing costs which had unexpectedly increased by several thousand dollars.

Fear not however… these changes won’t affect how the kit functions in any way, and for the most part they’ll be completely transparent to you.

There is one alteration that’s worth mentioning though, and that is that I’ve combined the extension, switch, and LED modules into a single more compact ‘thrower module’. This thrower module will require only two flat flex cables instead of the four you needed previously; one for the main strobe, and one for the bargraph. In addition to reducing the cost of manufacture, this will make for a cleaner and easier installation and reduce the chances of damaging the cables should you drop your thrower or catch the hose on something.

Also this time around I’ve hired someone to help with final assembly (soldering switches and LEDs, and crimping connectors), so the kits should ship within a week or so of getting them in, and you will receive them in August.

And if you haven’t pre-ordered but are looking to purchase a kit, I have good news… I’ve ordered a bunch of spares, so there’s still time to get in on this run!

Note that the purchase page will say “backorder” until I actually have the kits in stock and ready to go out the door, but that’s only to let you know they won’t ship immediately. You can place your order at this time.

And when I do run out of kits, I’ll update this page to reflect that and let you know when the next run will be manufactured.

Hey guys!

Just wanted to give you an update on where things are at at the moment with the Tachyons, proton pack kits, and ghost trap kits.

I’m still working on the code for the Tachyons, which I need to get done before I can order them so I can test properly. I’m gonna try to have that ready around the end of the month, but it may spill over into December.

As for the proton pack kits , I’ve got around 15 of those from the last rum left to assemble the switches, pots, and LEDs for. I’ve assembled 90% of the switches and pots, but I ran out of heat shrink and just got more of that in today. It’s probably going to take around a couple weeks to get the remainder of them done, but like the Tachyons that work may spill over into December since I’m trying to get both done at the same time.

The ghost trap kits I haven’t begun work on yet, and those I’ll start in on after I get the Tachyons and proton pack kits done. Most likely around mid-December. They won’t take long to do, as they’re based heavily on the Positron’s design. It will probably take me a couple weeks to do the modifications, then 3-4 weeks to get back the prototype from the manufacturer.  So sometime in January I’ll have a functioning board to show you.

And speaking of the ghost trap, a question I get asked often is whether the Fincher smoke kit is easy to hook up. It will indeed be very easy to hook up! You’ll connect it the same way you do with the proton pack kits. It’s just servo cable attached to a relay that plugs into some of the pins on the Positron that trigger when certain things happen.

Anyway, that’s all for now!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rabidprototypes/tachyon-the-lightning-fast-120mhz-arduino-compatib

Hey guys,

I’ve finally decided to design the ghost trap light and sound electronics kit of your dreams…

But I need your help!

I need you to pre-order so I can spend the next month making a few modifications to my Proton Pack kits to make them function as Ghost Trap kits, and order the prototypes!

Unfortunately it’s unlikely these will ship by Halloween as there’s a lot of work to do and very little time to do it in, the main issue being how quickly I can get back the prototypes and program them, but I’ll give it the old college try!

I’ve posted a whole bunch of information on how the kits will function and other details on the pre-order page, so head on over there now!

Ghost Trap Electronics Kit

Hey guys,

Sorry about the delayed update on the Positrons!

I had to take a week off from working on them to ship out around a hundred Firecricket XL’s and TLC59116 LED drivers for my last Kickstarter campaign, set up the product pages on the site with their photos, schematics, sample code, and instructions!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rabidprototypes/firecricket-xl-bring-your-costume-props-and-toys-t

Both boards are now available to purchase at the link below!

http://rabidprototypes.com/product-category/arduino/

I also had to do some work to prepare for the launch of my  next product on Kickstarter… the Tachyon! I’ll post a separate update for that once its campaign goes live!

I’m back at work on the Positrons now however, and as you can see I’ve finished up the next batch of cyclotron cables:

With these done, I’ll be shipping ten more kits out in another day or two, and the rest will soon follow as I finish up the remaining cables.

And don’t worry, I’ll be emailing out tracking numbers as I put the kits in the mail, so you’ll know when yours ships! I have 30 more of these cables to do, but I should have them finished up within the next couple weeks.

That’s all for now!

Hey guys,

As you can see, I’ve finished crimping the connectors on all the vibration motors! …and also on the slo-blo LED cables, but I forgot to take a picture of those.

I also shrank all the heat shrink on every LED, switch, and potentiometer I’ve assembled so far!

All that remains to be done is to assemble the cyclotron cables, which is probably a couple weeks of work, so I will be shipping kits as I finish them, and programming the kits, which will only take a couple hours.

In fact, I’ve already begun shipping the kits with the first three having gone in the mail over the last couple weeks! As I said in the last update, I’ll be sending out tracking numbers as the kits go in the mail, so don’t worry, you’ll know when yours ships.

That’s all for now. Back to the grindstone!

Hey guys,

Time for another bi-weekly Positron update!

As you can see, I’ve now finished soldering all the power switch and charge charge cables, as well as all of the slo-blo LEDs.

I’ve also prepared all the cyclotron cables for soldering, and finished a couple of them, but it’s going to take a while longer for me to get through them all. That’s 164 RGB LEDs that still need to be soldered!

In addition, I still need to crimp the connectors on the vibration motors, and program the kits.

The programming will only take a day though, so now that I’m down to the cyclotron cables and vibration motors, I’ll be able to soon start shipping the kits out in smaller batches. I hope to get the first few out sometime next week, but judging by how long the slo-blo LEDs took, I probably won’t have all of the kits in the mail until the end of the month.

Anyway, that’s all for now.

And don’t worry, I’ll let you know when your kit ships and send you a tracking number!

PS:

If you’re looking to buy a kit, I’m all sold out for this run, but I’m now taking orders for the next one. See the Positron’s product page for details!

http://rabidprototypes.com/product-category/kits/

Hey guys,

Just wanted to give you another quick update on the status of the Positron kits!

But before I do, if you haven’t pre-ordered, you’ve still got a chance! I have 3 kits left in stock. Don’t worry if when you go to order it says they are on back order, that’s normal. I’ll update that page to state the orders are for the next run once I run out of kits for this run.

I expect the few remaining kits will be sold out in the next couple weeks, so act fast if you want in on this run!

And now back to our regularly scheduled update…

As you can see, I’ve finished soldering all the toggle switches, all the push buttons, all the volume pots, and all 200+ 3mm LEDs.

Tasks that remain to be done are crimping connectors on all the vibration motors,  assembling the switch and charge cable harnesses, assembling the cyclotron and slo-blo LED cables (which involves soldering 200+ RGB LEDs and crimping connectors), programming the boards, and formatting the MicroSD cards.

That’s probably a couple more weeks of work, though I’m going to do much of that work in smaller batches so I can begin shipping the kits soon. It’s less efficient, but those cyclotron and slo-blo cables will likely take a week all by themselves.

PS:

In case you didn’t notice, the cables for the volume pots are now  significantly longer (12″ / 300mm), so you’ll have more options as to the exact placement of the kit in your pack without having to cut the cable and extend it yourself, as some have.

Hey guys,

Just wanted to give you a quick update on the status of the Positron kits!

…But before I get to that, if you haven’t pre-ordered, you still have time! I have 5 kits left in stock. Don’t worry if when you go to order it says they are on back order, that is normal. I’ll update that page to state the orders are for the next run when I finally run out of kits for this run.

I expect the few remaining kits will be sold out by the end of June, so act fast if you want in on this run!

Now, back to the update:

First, everything’s going great, but things are a bit behind schedule. There were a number of unforeseen obstacles along the way that caused delays though, some of which I mentioned before and some I haven’t yet.

I mentioned in an earlier post for example how I had to find a new source for the vibration motors because my old manufacturer no longer wanted to supply small quantities.  I overcame that and ordered enough spares that I won’t have to worry about sourcing those again for the next several runs.

But issues with getting certain parts didn’t end there. The next issue I ran into was that when my PCB manufacturer finally got around to ordering the parts for the bards, three different chips I use… for driving the LEDs on the bargraph, the powercell, and the main strobe… had all gone out of stock. And after calling TI and the distributors they insisted should have thousands and having no luck there, I managed to find some in Europe and bought up their remaining stock.

Then, when I received the bargraphs in the mail from China, they looked like this:

It took me two days to straighten all those pins out by hand with needle-nose pliers!

All those troubles are behind us now of course, but the delay in getting the parts to my PCB manufacturer did mean that I didn’t receive the last of the boards for the kits until this past Friday.

And because I was busy putting out all those little fires, I myself am behind on assembling all the LEDs and switches and  doing the rest of the stuff that needs to be done to put the kits in the mail.

But I’ve got all the parts now, as you can see here:

And you can see above that I’ve assembled all the toggle switches for 43 kits, and yesterday I finished up all the black pushbuttons, and today the red pushbuttons will be done.

Once all the switches are done though, I’ve still gotta do a ton of 3mm LEDs (5 per kit), and assemble enough cylotron LED cables, slo-blo LED cables, volume pots for 43 kits, as well as crimp the connectors on their vibration motors, program the boards, format the SD cards, and assemble the power switch and charge ports. Whew!

I’m working as fast as I can, but it’s just gonna take a bit more time.

At this point, I think the kits will be ready to ship around the 22nd, but obviously if I can have them ready sooner I’ll ship them as soon as they’re done.

So that’s all for this update… Back to the grindstone!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rabidprototypes/firecricket-xl-bring-your-costume-props-and-toys-t

Hey guys!

Just wanted to let you know my next Kickstarter campaign is live!

The Firecricket XL is the successor to the Firecricket, based on the Neutrino instead of the Tau (Fully Arduino Zero compatible!) and features more I/O pins, more RAM, a stereo amplifier for twice the volume, and a 5V logic buffer for driving strings of Neopixels!

And the TLC59116 LED module is our first add-on board. It allows you to drive 16 LEDs with constant current (no resistors needed, and software controllable brightness) over the I2C bus!

You can check it out here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rabidprototypes/firecricket-xl-bring-your-costume-props-and-toys-t