Papilio One Arcade kit and wings boards review and recommandation


Guest Binette228

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Guest Binette228

Hi,

I just received my Papilio Arcade kit with a I/O buffer wing, and here is a quick review about the boards quality and packaging. Overall, I'm VERY satisfied with what I got for the price (and that's not saying a word about the nice documentation, tutorials and support from Jack).

Papilio One 500K:

The first thing I noticed about the Papilio One is it's nice finish. Smooth edges, nice soldermask and silkscreen. All parts are well assembled. With a more in-depth look, I think the board could be Class 2 IPC-A-600 (Acceptability of PCB, class 2: High-end commercial equipment). I haven't been able to find any manufacturing error or default. The only drawback about it is that the headers were not assembled, well, as stated on the website. If the Papilio board is sold enough, this should become a free option.

So I'm satisfied of the board quality. This is what I expect of a product this price.

Arcade Wings:

For a 25$ price as a kit, I received a VGA wing, Joystick wing and an Audio wing. It's simply connectors with a few resistors. It's nicely made, only few rough edges. The hardware is good quality, very simple thougth. The only bad thing is that the VGA wing is only 8 colors (could easily be upgraded on another board or a DAC could be implemented).

I/O buffer wing:

I paid 25$ for a 5$ chip on a board. I can't say I'm disapointed because it's very useful, but it's a bit high-priced. There is no solder mask between the chip's pins and I can see solder residue between them with a loupe. I don't regret buying it, but there should be solder mask between the chip's like on the Papilio main board.

Thanks a lot Jack, I'm testing it during the next days!

Olivier

P.S. A little foam in the shipping package would be nice to make sure everything is safe.

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Olivier,

Thank you for the great feedback, it really helps me to make the Papilio better.

Arcade Wings

After Maker Faire I intend to start working on a single unified Arcade Wing that will lower the price, use fewer pins, and add more colors. I also just submitted an expanded VGA Wing to batchpcb for verification. Once I get the board and verify it I'll make it available. The new VGA Wing will provide 64 colors in an 8-bit Wing format.

I/O Buffer Wing

I just did a full cost analysis on the I/O buffer Wing and I agree, I goofed and had it priced too high... My target profit margin is to match what the Arduino does which is around 70% markup from the 1K pricing. I just adjusted the price of the I/O Wing to $17.99 to be consistent with that standard markup level. Thank you for pointing that out, not sure what I was thinking when I set that price.  :)  I also have a plan to consolidate the I/O Wing and the Input Buffer Wing into one product based on a bus switch. By using a 5V bus switch instead of the more expensive 3.3V bus switches that I use now I should be able to get the price down for both products.

Jack.

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