ZombieVerter VCU Part 4

[@tanner3801]

I think the price hikes on parts with minimal availability is a good thing, a sign that the free market is working (with JLCPCB anyway). The reason it is a good thing for prices to be inversely proportional to supply and proportional to demand is that it prevents a shortage, or a complete lack of availability. If the need is great enough, the parts can be purchased. If nobody purchases them at all, price discovery may enable the price to decrease until it becomes worthwhile for someone to buy some... all this is true until manufacturers finally are able to get tens of thousands of units to all these suppliers, so the price can return to 'normal.' Right now, my company would be willing to temporarily pay many times more for some of these chips, IF they were available at all. They are not.

[@Pats-Shed]

I spent a summer working in an electronic assembly plant and I was mesmerised by the speed of the experienced assembly people, especially with drag soldering large ic's that needed rework or that were misplaced by the assembly line . It can be a daunting task to solder large ic's for the inexperienced.

[@AlistairBrugsch]

I'm so gutted that I only found the wonderfulness of JLC assembly just before the shortage spoiled it all. At least I got a few boards made before it all went titsup

[@porticojunction]

Thank you for the update and for doing the heavy lifting on the realities of getting these boards out. Brilliant sourcing on the microcontrollers, you just have to be better than a robot. It makes me nervous just to watch the fine soldering. Good luck and don't be afraid to raise prices, I think most will understand. Those "more developed" controllers will have a price increase soon too.

[@JCHBArchive]

Nice to see you back at the bench !

[@monkeymagic4555]

Only just got back in hook with you after your channel springing to mind 5 mins ago after losing the sub with my original channel getting banned from youtube 2-3yrs ago :/ glad to see your still on the go and at it hell of a lot of catching up to do as appears you have remained regular with content lol

[@MattsAwesomeStuff]

The problem with giving youtube updates, and forum updates, and turning off your PMs, and telling people not to contact you for 1 on 1 support... is that the kind of people doing that, are the kind of people who aren't listening or watching those things anyways. If nothing else though, it's nice to share, to get it off your chest, and for those of us that do care to know some of the annoyances you go through. Myself, I would have a boilerplate "If you're reading this message it's because you didn't follow directions. Again, do not contact me privately. Ask in the appropriate forum thread. Blah blah." And, just copy/paste it when you go through your emails or whatnot every day. Wastes the minimum amount of your time rather than tailoring a special reply to each concerned complainer. Still annoying, but lightning fast to just batch process them with rejections.

[@18avshalom]

The chip shortage is one thing, but why is there a shortage on information on the Gome cat?

[@davefiddes]

The chip shortage is grim. So many parts have lead times of more than a year. A good time to be working on software it seems...

[@jamesnaicker1980]

Hi Damien. I have received my ZombieVerter board today. Their are 5 IC's not soldered. I know you show where these components get soldered but i cannot find the link. Also need to know where to wifi module and 6 connectors go. Thanks for the video it helps a lot. much blessings james

[@jamesadlam9875]

Hi, did you find this info? Damien's latest video on the Zombieverter is kzbin.info/www/bejne/b6fWmHRviseKo5I and this explains the 5 parts that are 'missing' as of early 2023.

[@LaserFur]

I like to point out how Kapton tape helps when soldering these kinds of things.

[@tolekdemczek5544]

Super 👍 👍👍

[@emceh]

Did you ever try GD32 replacement for STM32? Those might be cheaper and easier to get in China

[@dbcooper1435]

I'm looking at digikey and they seem to have STM32s in stock from 3-7$ a piece, even down to 2$ if you order 1000 although you might not get that many. inventory ranges from 10-30 sometimes a couple of hundred for a given variant.

[@dbcooper1435]

or is it a special automotive variant that can't be found. what's the exact part number. You don't seem to list that anywhere.

[@Evbmw]

@@dbcooper1435 github.com/damienmaguire/Stm32-vcu/blob/master/Hardware/Zombie/ZombieVerter_V1_BOM_Rel.ods

[@DavidMG99]

👍👍