okaaaay sooo, whew :)

spent the entire day online looking up digikey part numbers... eyes are going funny (square _and_ crossed....) but i got there. 65 items from digikey, then another 5 or so that need to be sourced from china (only) - a special narrow 3.5mm jack which can re-route both outputs to speakers if the headphone jack's not plugged in, a CM108AH USB Audio IC, GL850G hub, SY6280 USB power control IC and a SY7201 step-up converter for the 3.5 watt LCD backlight. they're all easy to get... just not outside of china.

i also ordered qty2 of the PCB1 (main laptop interface board) and PCB2 (embedded controller, keyboard/mouse) as "bare prototype" boards, 0.5oz copper, from eurocircuits. the 4 boards came to a total of $EUR 100, which is pretty amazing for europe, and they were very tolerant about me making a mistake and having to cancel the order, make some changes, and re-submit even after i'd actually paid (they don't normally allow that!).

i did have to redesign all the PCBs to use a 24mil surround around the 10mil drill holes - and change all the track-to-track min clearance to 7mil and the min track width to 8mil. this was the *absolute* minimum that eurocircuits "prototype pool" would allow.

*sigh* i'm also going to have to go back and adjust the casework to cope with a 1.6mm PCB thickness.... i'd designed it for 1.2mm and yes, really, 0.4mm makes a huge difference, it will be about a day's work to adjust all the 3D parts.

the power board (PCB3).... yyyeah i am having fun, there. the example board layout i got from linear tech's online resources says that 2oz copper is needed. *nobody* does 2oz copper with anything below 12mil track and 12mil track-to-track.... yet the distance between the pads on an LTC4155 are 7.8mil (0.2mm)... what's up with that??

soo... hmmm, i'm looking up current handling calculators online to see if i can get away with 1oz copper.... and i believe i can. which would be good, if it was the case, as i can go to eurocircuits.... BUT, i would have to make a "standard" order not prototype because the proto boards are only available in 0.5oz copper...

oh! and the 1kW IR solder station arrived. it's.... much more basic than i was expecting :) there are two thermistors that you're supposed to like stick somewhere around the PCB when the 800W pre-heater and the 200W IR lamp are on....

.... i got them in the wrong place on the first board i tried (a 1in prototype board) and was fascinated to see it sizzle within about 15 seconds, this little black spot about 8mm in diameter appeared and i spent the rest of the day with the smell of cooked fibreglass up my nose... mmmm looovely :)

anyway it appears that it actually works, must get some solder paste, start doing some desoldering of components on random boards as an experiment, it'll be fuuuun....

l.