Finally I have all the parts and I spent last night assembling ten boxes to fill my first order. It looks not half bad.

Next I need to set up a web page and finalize pricing so anyone can buy one.

So what is a Volume Box I hear you ask? Well, the Volume Box is a digital stereo volume control. It has no knobs or buttons, it is controlled via serial commands from a PC or home automation system. It is intended to be used as a component in an automated audiovisual setup such as conference centres, classrooms etc.

Features include:

• Attenuation from 0 to -95dB in 1dB steps
• 3 way stereo input selector
• Line level inputs and outputs
• Optional 7 watt power amplifier
• Mute function
• Preset store and recall

I’m getting orders for the Volume Box already. I haven’t even put up a web page for it. But wouldn’t you know it, the plastic case I want is not in stock with any of my regular suppliers (at least, those ones who are not still on extended Christmas holiday) so I’m having to get some cases flown in from England of all places so I can fill the orders. Of course I am going to have to absorb the extra cost of that, I wonder if Sony ever has these kind of supply-chain problems.

The Volume Box board is assembled and tested, the last few firmware bugs are squished and the only thing missing now is the machined end panel for the plastic case and it is ready to sell!

Here are the lessons I have learned:

1. PICs can be a mighty pain in the bum to debug, particularly the peripherals. I think I’ll use a different chip next time.

2. Always check your component footprints when designing a PCB, the Protel footprint libraries are full of errors. I’ll be patching the first run of boards due to a bad footprint.

3. Don’t try to get a product out the door around Christmas time, many manufacturing companies are closed for the holidays especially here in Australia where we combine our summer holiday and Christmas holiday into one big long holiday. Some companies do not resume business until January 18th!

Anyway, now the design is proven I have ordered some parts to begin producing these things.

I’ve finally taken delivery of my first batch of printed circuit boards for the Volume Box. They look real nice. As usual I got them from Gold Phoenix of Shanghai – The quality of the boards is pretty good and their prices are good for very small runs.

My chips and other parts have already arrived so next I need to assemble it and test. I’ve still got a lot of tasks after that before it is a finished product such as designing the end panels of the box, writing the user manual and setting up a website for it.

Phew, my parts have finally arrived so I can start taking orders again for the RS232 Rate Converter. I was really stressed over the last week about having no stock but now I can breathe easy again.

Sales of the RS232 Rate Converter were a little slow throughout October and November but they sure have caught up in the last couple of weeks. I thought I had enough stock to see me through until January but after a flurry of orders, I am now completely sold out.

So I’ve been frantically ordering parts to build more units ASAP. I suppose having too many orders is a good problem to have, better than having no orders.

I’ve no idea why sales have suddenly surged, it’s not the kind of thing you’d buy as a Christmas present!

Well, the RS232 Rate Converter is pretty mature now. It does it’s job well and there is not a lot of improvements to make to it anymore. So what to do next?

I’ve been talking with a friend in the home automation business and he reckons there’d be a small market for an RS232 controllable volume control. This device would allow a home automation processor to control the volume on an amplifier which does not have any other means of remote control.

Now I thought that would be a pretty simple thing for me to make so I built a prototype. It only took me three evenings to cobble together something that works, thanks mainly to RS Components‘ free next-day shipping for electronic parts. I think this will be my next product.

Of course I can’t sell it in this state, it’s funny but taking a product from prototype to production is usually more work than making the prototype in the first place.

Hmm, this blog seems to be getting a lot of comment spam. I’m going to try the NoSpamNX plugin and see if that helps.

This is a bug fix release based on some user feedback I got. There are a whole bunch of little fixes including some problems with audio sync when playing videos and an issue with the seek bar if your media file was longer than 40 minutes.

There is no public bug-tracker for this software (yet) so if you try it out and find any more bugs, please email me at adam@siliconsparrow.com and I’ll fix them as soon as I can.

The new version is online now and ready to download at http://supertranscribe.com.

Since I changed my other sites, I may as well complete the trilogy. Ka-Ching Pal now has the same snazzy look as my other Silicon Sparrow branded sites.