Here is an update and the discord on the bottom.
Most of the factories re-started to work this week after CNY. Apparently, in mid-january when they asked if they could start the production, the actual production of cases didn't started because they had to do multiple tweaks, especially on PCB and bottom part of the case to make it more feasible to CNC (apparently was too prone to break CNC tips)
In the current state we have:
- Foams tweaked, ordered and in production.
- PCBs ordered after all the tweaks, not sure if in queue of production or in production, but order was sent. The final PCB will be black, they updated the connectors to motherboard and removed the unused extra connector.
The connector between main pcb and daughterboard will be this: https://i.imgur.com/X8kYaDK.png
- Case tweaked multiple times, especially bottom, still in the pre-production stage teorically. If the last minor tweak they did (should arrive exactly these days) goes well, after testing, the actual production of cases will start as well.
They said PCBs and everything will end a lot sooner than case parts and that the harder part will be again brass parts (probably brass coating, for that they changed factory).
For now i must stick with the same 5-6 months bare estimation that i said from the start (i'm not sure if it's from start of GB or from end of GB at this point), but I asked for a more detailed estimation for the end of the production and i should have one
this week, so i will definetely keep you updated on this.
Meanwhile i can show you 2 photos of an early sample (january) of the full PC case, which was tweaked now (keep in mind that the final one will be frosted)
More
Ignore the connector on the pcb
And this will be the coating of the brass parts (not a melody in the video)
More
I will show you other when i have other, CNY is over so Wei will keep me updated on this. They are definetely working on this and they have it in the priority list, now that all the festivals ended (almost) things will start to go faster.
Also i hear you, we need a discord. For now i didn't made any personal discord for the Melody65, but temporary you can use this
https://discord.gg/z2eZq6VT, i promise to post all the updates here on GH, discord and reddit.
It is the discord of the italian community but there is a project section and there is the Melody65.
Stay tuned, there will be other updates in the next days, especially on more accurate estimation for the production end, probably also some pics. If you have any other question, feel free to ask here or in pm, as you prefer
Cheers