September flew right past us here at LZX, with steady (if tedious) progress toward Chromagnon production on my end, and multiple longer term production projects wrapping up in the workshop. During spring cleaning earlier this year, we uncovered our remaining stock of Vidiot specific production parts, such as enclosures and side panels.  Rather than sending them to the junk, we've been making progress over the Sumer on building up a limited batch of 24 units using those parts.  You can order one now at https://lzxindustries.net/products/vidiot We've made some revisions to our Double Vision system bundle -- including a full 3U EuroRack enclosure using our new sync and power distribution board architecture.  This version also includes the TBC2 expander, in lieu a DC...

I hope everyone has enjoyed their Summers and is looking forward to the Fall.  For me, this time of year has always meant getting ready to learn, whether that was in my prior career in e-learning development, with my kids starting the next grade, or in my own educational goals. This year it will mean entering a period of content creation for LZX-- documentation, videos, tutorials, and any other resources that serve your own learning and creative pursuits in making video art.   Last week we reached a couple of big Chromagnon milestones: The RevG Core hardware has been fully reviewed; slow scan raster generation for ILDA laser and low-bandwidth displays has been implemented; and we have a complete synthesizer on the...

Over the past several weeks I have been writing Chromagnon’s firmware, and I’m happy to say that I now have a complete version ready for testing.  I wanted to reach this milestone before I wrote a new blog, as it represents my exit from the Code Cave and back into the workshop.  So let my eyeballs readjust – this blog will mostly be about the software. My trusty Chromagnon RevG development unit, back at the test bench From Memory Palace and TBC2 to Chromagnon, I have needed to double down on my embedded software skills. Approaching these instruments, I had many firmware and software projects behind me – but none at this level of structural complexity.  So I was surprised by...

Dear video friends, June has seen a lot of projects landing at the workshop and some significant pushes in firmware development. Over the Spring we have transitioned into outsourcing SMT assembly of our modules in smaller batches, in an effort to keep things stocked and flowing, and those efforts are running smoothly.  The Summer is traditionally a period of low sales for us, so we have decided to open a sale for some modules we have lots of stock of. You will find Contour, Matte, and Sum/Dist have been marked down 25%, for the time being, on our webstore. If you've been wanting to pick one of these up, now is a good time to do so. Here is a summary...

Hello on Tuesday.  I hope everyone in the States had a nice Memorial Day weekend.  Lots to cover in this update, so I will be terse. Black prototypes of the Chromagnon plastic pieces and enclosure arrived, and the test fits are looking great.   The pieces below aren't final for the enclosure, but should give you the plan on how it all fits together.  Now that all the dimensional constraints are confirmed, I can make any cosmetic tweaks (rounded corners, for example) and order an initial production quantity. Last week, we finally got the RevG core board built up. This week, I'm running through my checklist of revision items to make sure that everything that was corrected from RevF is now...

Wow! April flew past, here at LZX HQ. Our improvements to operations and inventory have allowed us to process a large number of tasks in the ongoing effort to keep modules and stock while taking steady steps towards Chromagnon's launch.  A well organized inventory and resource planning system allows our small team to manage a large number of products and more accurately estimate production dates. Since my last post, there have been two iterations of Chromagnon plastic parts, and I am waiting on a third batch in black to arrive. I am very happy with the fit and look of these components and feel like they add a lot to Chromagnon's personality.  Also arriving since my last post is Chromagnon's back panel...

Hello, video pals! We are pushing through April! The current primary focus is on preparing our resource planning system for Chromagnon and smoothly flowing the production of our other projects. Here are some photos of our inventory workspaces. We have accounted for hundreds of unique bin locations and over two million parts over the past few weeks. This primes our resource planning software to identify the quickest path solutions to keeping our manufacturing lean and effective with our small team. Last week I printed revisions of the Chromagnon molded parts for test fit on our Formlabs printer, which is usually a joy to work with, but required some maintenance this time around. I've been verifying test fits and getting quotes...

Hello, Chromagnonites and other video freaks.March has flown past here at headquarters. The last 3 weeks have been dedicated to a spring cleaning of the workspace and an inventory data update, in preparation for Chromagnon and continuing module production.  There were some shifts in team schedules which have required me to focus most of my time on this project, so I apologize for missing some blog posts.   When Chromagnon fulfillment begins, we'll be testing and packaging a large number of assemblies. Ensuring we're ready for that stage is exciting and it's all coming together nicely.  We have several different strategies for production: full assembly in house, contracted manufacturing, or both in different stages.  I have quotes out with multiple potential manufacturing partners, and we...

Hello everyone,I apologize that we missed last week's update.  I was dealing with family visiting from out of state, a dental emergency, and a busy week of high school musical performances (my child Kat was in a production of Grease.) We did meet several goals however -- Chromagnon Core RevG revisions were completed, and boards have been ordered.  While we still need to validate that the revisions are good to go (a first article test) before production, this means design of Chromagnon's electronics is finally complete, and I can move on to details related to the enclosure and control knob mold -- as well as polishing the firmware and making more docs and videos for you. Prototype pieces for our new...

A quick update for last week. Finished writing firmware drivers for Chromagnon's mux controls. A bit of attention to the rotation waveform generators and we'll be ready to dig into testing the more advanced scaling modes for ILDA.  Chromagnon Core RevG revisions are still a work in progress -- I want to hit a couple more firmware milestones this week before purchasing the board, just to be safe.    Double Vision System is a new packaged version of our modular system.  Last week I integrated serialization tracking into our manufacturing system, so that we can keep track of which module serial numbers are attached to each system serial number. Prototype boards for our new DC Distribution & Sync Busboard arrived,...