June 2022 Stock and Status Update

PSPi Zero

I’m building a batch of boards now. The ATmega328P-AU microcontroller chips are still expensive and very hard to find, but I managed to get a few recently. I still don’t have a stable source, and the large order I placed in 2021 now has a ship date in mid 2023. The ship date keeps moving further into the future.

PSPi Compute

The situation is similar for the PSPi Compute. The board is designed to use the same ATmega328P-AU chip, and a very large amount of effort would be needed to change to another microcontroller. I can’t be confident that those chips will stay in stock either, so I’m just going to wait a bit longer and keep things as is. I’m also having trouble sourcing the 100-pin CM4 interface connector, the DF40C-100DS-0.4V(51). In the meantime, I’m gradually improving the design and I think I’ll end up making it a sort of PSPi Zero 6/PSPi Compute hybrid board when I finally release it, so that I can focus on making just one large board with a small interface board for the CM4. I’m still working out the details on this, and I’ll share more info soon. I’m also stocking up on every other component in case they have shortages in the future.

Product Reviews

Since the shortages are keeping me from making the PSPi boards, I agreed to do some product reviews. My goal with the reviews is to focus less on the uses for the product, and more on how the product was designed and built. I recently reviewed the Raspberry Pad 5 from BigTreeTech.

I’m working on a review for another display, the 10.1″ WIMAXIT.

I may make a video soon comparing some charge modules, focusing on the common TP4056 and the more efficient IP2312 Module.

I just received my Starlink kit after a very, very long wait. I considered showing it and running some speed tests, but YouTube is already saturated with those sort of videos and I probably won’t do that unless you guys have something specific you want to see.

I also have a dozen or so other projects at different levels of completion, and I’ll share more about those as they are closer to finished.