189	2006-11-07 23:11:38	Monty N5ESE	New Filter Chips
Message	Date	From	Subject
Very interesting chips, available from Mouser, for about $8 (or a 4-channel version for $19), which are fully programmable digital filter chips that work in conjunction with an analog-to-digital converter and microprocessor of your choice. Could be verrrry interesting for ham radio apps. http://www.quickfiltertech.com/ chips: QF1D512 QF4A512 73, monty N5ESE --- Important Message from Mom - PLAY NICE! Monty Northrup, N5ESE (ex-N5FC) Austin, Texas e-mail: n5ese@io.com web page (ham): http://www.dit-dididit-dit.com web page (home): http://www.io.com/~maddog ______ _ _/ \_/ \ /\/ _ \_ \
190	2006-11-08 08:14:15	Stan	Re: New Filter Chips
The chip price is very reasonable, but the development kit cost $200. Stan ak0b
191	2006-11-08 18:20:48	jr_dakota	Re: New Filter Chips
You'd think a better Business Model for these companies would be to sell the development kit at cost (or slightly above) and get your money back selling a lot more chips as you have a potential for many more users ... Instead they scare people away with an outrageous price .... makes no good sense to me JR
192	2006-11-08 18:37:12	Shawn Upton	Re: New Filter Chips
I dunno--that might be the break-even cost for them. Costs money to design a board and write software, no matter how many you build up. Then throw in support for umpteen calls from customers, and figure out the price per minute for that. Lastly, do up the actual cost to assemble, yes, price goes down the more you make--but it's still a chunk of change. The customers that they want to land probably do get these for "free". Afterall, what's a $200 board when you want to make a few mil? Shawn KB1CKT
193	2006-11-08 20:37:34	michael taylor	Re: New Filter Chips
On 11/8/06, jr_dakota <SG2112@yahoo.com> wrote: > You'd think a better Business Model for these companies would be to > sell the development kit at cost (or slightly above) and get your > > Instead they scare people away with an outrageous price .... makes no > good sense to me It's a dev-kit, not a end-user product. I'm sure you could get them to include the kit free if you order 1,000-100,000+ chips. That's their business model. Since I just noticed them today for the first time when flipping through in my print copy of Electronic Design, I assume they are a smaller company who wants to just break-even, not take a loss on dev-kit. Given that some larger companies like Analog, National, Motorola/Freescale/OnSemi, Maxim-DallasSemi, and TI have been good to amateurs with samples and cheap dev-kits (e.g. TI's $15-20 ez430 USB stick), I expect in time if hams are reasonable when dealing with Quickfilter Tech, there is a chance we might make a new friend who has interesting products to play with. -Michael Taylor, VE3TIX
197	2006-11-09 20:48:36	Monty N5ESE	Re: New Filter Chips
The points about the QuickFilter development kits costing $200 are well taken. In fact, I approached the QuickFilter Appls Engineer about that very issue, and he let me in on a little secret: "We have a complete working design with code using TI's MSP430 uP. We have what we call the MSP Mojo. [snip] This will sell through Mouser under DLP Design for about $39.95 I believe" The Mojo works in conjunction with TI's MSP430 development kit (TI P/N EZ430-F2013 which costs $20). He tells me that the Mojo should be stock at Mouser in about 2-3 weeks. For more info: http://www.quickfiltertech.com/html/qfilter_page.php?content_id=54 I'm very excited about what might be done with this chip in a communications app. I encourage you to view the presentation at: http://www.quickfiltertech.com/html/demo.php It's quite impressive. I'll be ordering one as soon as it's available at Mouser. Looks like the part number will be 'DLP-MSP-MOJO' 73, monty N5ESE http://www.dit-dididit-dit.com At 10:33 PM 11/8/2006, michael taylor wrote: >On 11/8/06, jr_dakota <SG2112@yahoo.com> wrote: > > You'd think a better Business Model for these companies would be to > > sell the development kit at cost (or slightly above) and get your > > > > Instead they scare people away with an outrageous price .... makes no > > good sense to me > >It's a dev-kit, not a end-user product. I'm sure you could get them to >include the kit free if you order 1,000-100,000+ chips. That's their >business model. > >Since I just noticed them today for the first time when flipping >through in my print copy of Electronic Design, I assume they are a >smaller company who wants to just break-even, not take a loss on >dev-kit. > >Given that some larger companies like Analog, National, >Motorola/Freescale/OnSemi, Maxim-DallasSemi, and TI have been good to >amateurs with samples and cheap dev-kits (e.g. TI's $15-20 ez430 USB >stick), I expect in time if hams are reasonable when dealing with >Quickfilter Tech, there is a chance we might make a new friend who has >interesting products to play with. > >-Michael Taylor, VE3TIX > > > >Yahoo! Groups Links > > >
198	2006-11-09 21:36:20	jr_dakota	Re: New Filter Chips
Now this is smart business ... reasonably priced and you still have a MSP430 development kit to work with for other experiments ... I can justify spending 60 bucks but not 200 ... especially after investing 150 or so