The LDO Kit
^[BETA]

Hello Everyone! Nomad Here! We are so very happy to announce that first Positron Kits by LDO have been sent to our team for testing.

Jason has asked me to be very clear - THESE ARE BETA KITS - While they look like fully functional and ready to go kits, they are far from final production. Our testing team is working on abusing these kits as much as possible, so that along with LDO, we can ensure they meet expectations.

But - we want this process of testing to not be restricted to just a few folk in secrecy - We want to include our entire community in providing feedback. There are many issues we may face, and it is likely that many members of our community who have built their own kits have potentially already overcome these issues.

LDO wants to know any which way they can improve the kits, so with that, we are working closely with them to fix any issues with the original design, and improve upon things where possible.

So, you may be wondering things like projected pricing, right now, LDO is estimating that the kit will be in the ballpark of $700, but this is not set in stone, and Jason has asked that folks provide insight on what they feel would be adequate. For this, we have created a general form where you can provide insight on which price point you feel would be right for a Kit here. This form is manufacturer Agnostic, so we can provide insight to future kit manufacturers. Click here to go to the form.

As for timeline, LDO is aiming for Summer of 2023, but this will vary. The biggest issue right now is the availability of Raspberry Pi's. While alternative boards do exist, and can work, for large scale production, Raspberry Pi is still the preferred board due to it's reliability and long standing reputation. Rest assured, with these beta kits, our testing team will be testing alternative boards for potential use.

And lastly, the pelican case. LDO is hoping to include this in the final production, and we won't lie - it's bad ass.

But before this newsletter gets a little NSFW with some glory photos of the kit, there is one last thing we want to go over.

Announcements

Q&A / Livestreams

We will be doing a livestream sometime soon with @SteveBuilds - showing off the printer and answering any questions. I myself will also be posting content on my channel @NomadsGalaxy. Since our newsletter takes time to roll out (as we are self hosted, and throughput is limited) - we will be announcing these streams and videos in the Kralyn & Positron Wiki Discords.

Assembly Guide

Since we now have a team of engineers with these Beta kits - we can create an in depth assembly guide. These kits are nearly entirely faithful to the stock design, with some deviation. But we know that any official assembly guide will be helpful for diagnosing issues, and assembling your own. So we are working on getting that out to everyone.

Positron V3 Updates & Design Maintenance

Now that we have an expanded team of engineers working with kits similar to the stock design, we are more able to update the original design, and fix any design flaws, and implement new improvements to the Positron. I know it has seemed as though this has been placed on the back burner, but up until this point, the only two individuals on our team with heavy experience with Positron was Kralyn and Danning, now we have a powerful team of 8 that can help us maintain things. We will be looking to expand over time, but please understand that this will be a slow process as we want to make sure we properly vet every member of the team, and ensure they work well with each other, and have the Positron Project's goals in mind.

I'd also like to address some concerns that have been brought to my attention, primarily "The Project is Dead" - now, I don't blame anyone who believes that. This project had a lot of steam at the start, Kralyn, Danning, and myself were so very excited to get things started. Since releasing the Positron, both Kralyn and Danning have been swept up in their personal lives and professional careers. While still members of our team, they have had to prioritize their personal lives over the project, which is why I was originally brought on board to act as the Project's General Manager. Without having a Positron myself, I've been stuck in a sort of limbo, where I wanted to help advance the project, but could not do so without having a Positron myself. Additionally, with Kralyn and Danning being occupied, I was left as the only one juggling the responsibilities of managing an open source project.

Admittedly, this was new for all of us. While I have managed my own business for some time, we had started running Positron expecting all three of us to have high availability to work together - but life happens. So, I learned via Trial by Fire. Now, I will not be the judge of my performance here, I'm not going to pat myself on the back as there is still plenty of work to do. I hope I have done a good job, and I will continue to accept any and all feedback anyone is able to provide. You can email me here; [email protected] - Please feel free to contact me with any questions or feedback. With that being said, we have expanded the Positron Team, and we will continue to document, develop, update, and maintain this project. We firmly believe in keeping things open source and remaining as transparent as possible.

So - to everyone who has stuck around, thank you. This has been a wild ride, and I am genuinely honored to be part of it.

OK Engineers - hope you're viewing this in incognito mode, because this is about to get SPICEY.