Third and last chessboard design finally ready

After yet another redesign the third and final batch of chessboards is almost complete. Components are packed and we’re making the case parts and casting the piece bases now.

This is the third unique version, a new design forced by the difficulties we encountered having the PCBs made for the second version – the printed coils used tracks that were thicker than the spacing between them and were formed by etching 1oz. copper laminate then using a heavier than usual electroplating run to build height. This resulted in occasional tiny shorts between coil turns and a reject rate that made it impossible to continue using this method.

Don’t worry though, I haven’t returned to hand wound coils and they remain as easy to build as the V1.5 boards. Another change is all the parts are now through hole – no SMDs on either the baseboard or the pieces. Externally the board is identical to the V1.5, using a mixture of IN-15A and IN-15B nixies.

They’ll be up for sale shortly and kits will be ready to send out within the next 1-2 weeks.

This Post Has 7 Comments

  1. Any update on when these will be available?

    1. They’re up for sale right now 🙂

  2. And where exactly? 🙂

    1. The large button at the top of the menu to the right of this post 🙂

      There have been so many enquiries about it though that I’m guessing it’s being filtered or not shown on many browsers, possibly blocked as an advert.

      I’ll add a direct link here shortly.

        1. That’s the v1.5 version, I was wondering about the new version 😉

          1. Ah sorry about that. Externally the new version is the same but the electronics have been redesigned to be free of SMDs on both the main board and the pieces.

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