MAKEY: BIT BY BIT
Diego Fonstad of Lectrify/Imagination Supply
Co. makes kits for students K-12 that teach
electronics, engineering, and coding (and
delightfully, all of them are Lego-compatible!).
Lectrify partnered with Make: to create the
Makey:bit Adventure Board — a non-rectangular,
robot-inspired micro:bit expansion board who’s
fun to be with (find it at makershed.com).
As operations have expanded, Diego has
increased his in-house production capabilities
in San Francisco, including a Neoden pick-and-
place machine and reflow oven to facilitate
custom PCB fabrication — technology that
would have been prohibitively expensive not
long ago. This lets him build small batches just
in time versus sending out for thousands of
boards at once; it also eliminates the overhead
of communication over specs and BOMs, and
facilitates short-run experiments and tweaks.
Instead of sitting on finished inventory, Diego can
stockpile common components and manufacture
whatever’s selling. Smaller production runs also
open up opportunities like scrounging around
for partial reels which can be re-taped and fed to
save a few bucks.
In terms of sourcing, it’s not the more complex
parts that have been difficult; simple components
like SMD ceramic caps have sometimes had
3-month lead times, and a critical voltage divider
could only be found on eBay this side of 2025.
Even low-tech hardware like nylon screws, and
commodities like wood for laser-cut designs, or
specific box sizes, have presented challenges.
The flexibility afforded by in-house production,
however, means that multiple parallel footprints
can be developed to fit whichever component is
available, and parts don’t need to be committed to
boards until the last moment.
On top of all the sourcing issues, tariffs have
been another great hurdle, adding a surprise half
grand or more to the already high price of parts
and shipping. Diego doesn’t see a future where
we return to the extreme flexibility we once took
for granted; instead we’ll need to plan much
further in advance, and when possible, focus on
small-batch runs that facilitate flexibility.
KEEP IT SIMPLE, WHIZ KID
For burgeoning maker pro Joey Castillo, the focus
is on simplification. Joey’s hardware engineering
practice Oddly Specific Objects makes gadgets
that explain themselves and how they were made,
unlike so many seemingly magic black boxes
out there. Joey believes that since these are all
devices made by people, they can be understood,
and he does an amazing job of helping people to
understand, from his detailed process tweets as
@josecastillo to his boards’ own silkscreens which
contain extensive self-documentation.
Joey’s first two products are the Sensor Watch
— a hackable replacement PCB for the venerable
Casio F-91W — and the LCD FeatherWing,
which lets makers add a watch-inspired LCD
to their projects based on the Adafruit Feather
ecosystem. But these weren’t his first attempts at
N
NOW BOARDING: Supply Snafus
40 makezine.com
Keith Hammond, Ben Sklar, David Ray
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