Quote:
Originally Posted by FrankJ
One element of the 2015 approval was that it had to be produced by a "Vendor". Presumably as a COTs device with stock available for purchase by other teams. So a board made by a team would not meet the approval criteria unless they had a vendor make in sufficient quantities so that it was available to any team that wanted it. Rephrase from Frank's blog: "myRIO Expansion Port - What's the Deal?" 9/23/14
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IMO if a team wanted to make their own active MXP board to use if they just posted the gerber files, BOM, and schematic online I believe that would be sufficient. Teams (even with no experience) can easily use services like the ones provided by Dangerous Prototoypes (dirty pcbs), Seeed studio, osh park, etc. It would be less convieniant for teams than AndyMark but still a solution.
Speaking from the standpoint of a FIRST supplier company, forecasting for the FRC community is one of the hardest things with such a short window for sales. If you build too few of an item and it goes out of stock there is almost no way to recover inside the season. On the flip side if you build too much, you will likely have to sit on that inventory for a year before sales start again. That inventory is just "money sitting on a shelf" that can't be used for other things like developing new products or investing in tooling.
Specifically when it comes to MXP boards, last year there was not any history of sales to make a guess at demand. I know that we have put a lot of though into how much we will stick this year and I would assume that they people who make the NAVX have as well.
P.S. yes,the more board will be back in stock soon for the upcoming season.