So, without further ado, I'd like to announce some hardware. I'll announce one per week, and start easy this week with the big hitters coming over the next two weeks
Today's items will go on sale on February 14th, to show the love!Item One:
Q-Buck. A QL buck regulator that is a lot more efficient than the 7805 regulator. It reduces load on the QL PSU by about 40%, and is 96% efficient. We did our own design at first, but in the end I chose the TI reference design as it was much smaller, more efficient and ran cooler than my own design. It can be preset to 12, 9, 5, 3.3, 2.5 or 1.8v or to any custom voltage. Also, it's a bit cheaper. Comes set to 5V, and with a small mounting clip so it's not just flopping around inside your QL. They can be used anywhere a 7805 would have been, in any machine. 2A continuous (3A peak), 0.85v drop out, adjustable range 0.8 - 15V, 550 KHz switch frequency, output short circuit and over current protection, ripple <10mV @ 5v 700mA, max input voltage 24v.
They will go on sale for £5. I have 150+ in stock.
Item Two:
Minerva upgrades. Just your basic Minerva plug in card, all new design. You can request any image be burned onto the ROM, if you supply the image. If you don't specify, you'll get Minerva 1.98 and TKII. They use a standard EPROM and SMD logic.
They will go on sale for £7. I have 300 in stock. I know, I went a little crazy with that PCB order! 50 are assembled and ready to go.
Item Three:
I have four Miniplanes left, for £20 for 2 thru connectors or £25 for three thru connectors. I sent the rest of the PCBs to Paul in Germany some time ago. Call dibbs on one in comments below. There won't be any more once these are gone.
These are just a few small items, but after next week's announcement on January 17th, these will make a lot more sense.
No orders until February 14th. This is because I haven't set up a payment system yet, and I'd like people to order everything they'd like in a single order to save on shipping costs. Shipping for any of these items, no matter how big or small the order, is £10 flat fee.
Please ask questions here, or if you'd like to chat privately, please email me at dave@sinclairql.com. Please do not use the PM system here, because it only allows me to keep a limited number of messages. I have had to delete important information to make room, and inadvertently lost customer order details. So, please, email
Ok, that was underwhelming. It's all stuff I've talked about or sold before! Well, here's a slightly anonymized sneak peak at next week's announcement.
Have a great week! Happy 34th Birthday, Sinclair QL!
