[NTLK] Newton Dongles, the last(?) chapter ;-)

[Martin Queen]

Hello!

I am one of those lurkers Matthias! Been on the list since about 2004/5ish.

Looking forward to getting my dongle.

Thank you for all your hard work!

Martin - Scotland

On Sat, 6 Dec 2025 at 20:03, <newtontalk-request at newtontalk.net> wrote:

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>    1. Newton Dongles, the last(?) chapter ;-) (Matthias Melcher)
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> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
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> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 6 Dec 2025 17:49:38 +0100
> From: Matthias Melcher <m.melcher at robowerk.de>
> To: newtontalk at newtontalk.net
> Subject: [NTLK] Newton Dongles, the last(?) chapter ;-)
> Message-ID: <8BEE9720-71B9-44EA-983B-811D3B03BDC2 at robowerk.de>
> Content-Type: text/plain;       charset=us-ascii
>
> Hi Newton friends,
>
> another weekend of soldering, and I am sending out the last charge of
> NewtCOM dongles today. All remaining orders should have an EMail
> notification by now.
>
> Some statistics, if you are interested: I sent out 48 dongles all
> together, and I still have a hand full for later. Faulty devices during
> testing was 8%, but I was too lazy to test what actually failed. I had one
> batch (25) PCB's with the diodes flipped which was entirely my fault. So
> far no returns from you guys, so I assume that all of them are working. I
> soldered one with the PCB rotated 180 degrees, but I was too stingy to
> throw it away, so I cut it apart and resoldered it. On six, I sent them out
> without light pipes, not a functional issue, just nicer - sorry - they will
> be in the mail in the next days.
>
> I soldered 70 pieces alltogether. Making rigs for everything took a few
> hours in CAD and on the 3D printer, but to anyone ever trying a mini
> series, I highly recommend jigs for absolutely everything during assembly.
> Always build the jigs so that you can't assemble stuff wrong.
>
> Soldering is tedious. Try to offload as much as possible to teh PCB design
> and the PCB manufacturer. Making cases and assembling OTOH is fun if the
> cases fit perfectly. If the product looks good in the end, it's very
> satisfying.
>
> Put a self test into the software. Catch errors and build issues early.
> Try the dongle before encasing it. Make sure you send them out
> preprogrammed and tested with every available function. Mark the tested
> ones in case the dog pulls finished and unfinished dongles off the table
> and mixes them up (suspiciously specific, I know).
>
> Calculate in plenty of time for shipping. Typing addresses and filling out
> DHL forms for 12 different countries is different every time, and if
> countries change their rules, ahead well. In summary, 1/4 of my time was
> for ordering parts, 1/4 for soldering, 1/4 for programming, testing, and
> gluing cases, and 1/4 for shipping. The ratio shift with every batch though
> ;-)
>
> I was surprised to read names that I never see on the list ("Hi, I am a
> lurker for 30 years now..."). Feedback was relatively little, but those who
> gave feedback seemed happy.
>
> And here are some photos of the last batch:
>
>
> https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/11EU3vOx9pzHt27cuZ-9grMablXpSOuEk?usp=sharing
>
>
>  - Matthias
>
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