Backers, hi! I have SO many updates!

Ok firstly (incredible to me that this already somehow seems So Last Week) the Circuit Classics cartoon postcards are printed (thank you, H&H Imaging!) These have been delivered to CrowdSupply and are ready to go to you. These cards show the particular assembled board on the front, to be used as a guide while assembling/soldering Circuit Classics and they have the cartoon explanation analogy of how the circuit works roughly on the reverse side (can you believe they are only photos and not real??) —

(Shoutout to Paulyn Albino and Alex Hornstein for making these go!)

Forrest’s signed books are on the way! He has signed these with a fine-tipped sharpie. I have been watching these most precious cargo wend their way through the UPS tracker from San Antonio, to Fort Worth, to Mesquite, Texas. In 2 days, this says, they will arrive at CrowdSupply’s warehouse in Portland.

Pretty sure this is my favorite package I have ever tracked:

Next up. Remember those components I was worried about last week? The potentiometers I wasn’t sure I could get enough of? Those are a solved problem now. It involved buying out stock at Mouser, then buying out stock of Mouser’s recommended replacement potentiometers, and then finally, buying a huge number of the remaining potentiometer types from Digi-key. The good news is, we are now theoretically in stock! (That is, as soon as they all arrive.)

However, what this means is that not everyone is getting the same kinds of potentiometers. Some of them will have longer shafts, and other people will get ones with shorter shafts. We are going to try not to mix & match, but to keep everyone getting matched sets if possible. Some of them will have round bodies, and some of them will be more square. The square ones look "pretty good" on the silkscreen, but they do deviate (by hiding) the traced footprint. This is the best I can do for right now but it does mean we stay on schedule. If it is an issue for you, let CrowdSupply customer service know right away and we will fix you up.

Speaking of schedule — Bay Area Circuits are mid-production RIGHT NOW. (How cool is that?) Adding to the excitement somewhat, I have been working with some folks including Bay Area Circuits on a possible blog post about the process of getting these made, and am excited that we’re going to have some professional photographs taken of this part, by the same Noel Von Joo, who acted as Director of Photography in my crowdfunding video. He’s a pro, and I’m looking forward to seeing his work.

Bay Area Circuits, who have been working like champions, are slated to complete production and ship these to CrowdSupply on September 30 — which is the same date as the nominal ship-out date for the campaign. So that means that orders will be getting actually sent out just slightly later than that date (perhaps by a week or two at most). Again, please email CrowdSupply customer support if that might be an issue at all. We don’t have a lot of magic, but we might have just enough to fix 1-2 shipping dates if those dates are critical for anyone.

This is a minor thing, but it’s now decided that you will also be receiving rubber feet in the kit that you can stick on to the Circuit Boards or on to the ash stands to give them more traction.

A thank you is due to Scott Torborg, who took these gorgeous photos of the assembled Golden Masters:

Boxes from ULINE arrived at CrowdSupply this week via a midmorning phone call I received: "Hi, is this Star? I’m in a semi, parked outside your warehouse in Portland with the boxes. How do you want me to deliver these?" .. turns out sometimes the provided shipping phone number actually matters. :-) (big thanks to the team at CrowdSupply who snapped to action and made this delivery work out)

CrowdSupply has started putting together kits, and I have been collaborating with them on how to put the kits together and what various sorts of packaging materials to use. Here are some of the practice versions experimenting with placement and with fitting components into bags to put in boxes for the kits (these bags are not the final type of bags):

A bouquet of alligator clips.