[sdiy] Why I GPLd the Monowave and stopped commercial production

[Paul Maddox]

All,

  I've been asked by a lot of people, why I've stopped doing commercial 
projects, there are lots of reasons, so I'll list them.

- WEE/RoHS has increased the cost of parts,
- WEE/RoHS has increased the amount of paperwork,
- I don't want to be producing products that will fail inside of two or 
three years because you can't use lead in solder (check out 'whisker' 
problems with leadfree solder).
- CE approval is *VERY* expensive and a lot of hassle,
- I like to build something, and then move on, as much as I enjoyed the 
monowave, by the time the last one was out the door, I was sick of it, the 
board has over 1500 solder joints and 100's of parts, that's a HELL of a lot 
of soldering, I've realised I don't like repatition.
- I've no money left to invest in future products, I made approximatly £75 
on each monowave, and I did *NOT* count my time in the cost to build!
- The cost of R&D for discrete hardware synths is rising all the time, the 
thing I was working on I've sunk over £2000 of my own money into it and I 
need to spend another £1000 to finish it. I got better things to do with 
that kind of money.
- I can't handle the stress and hassle of runing my own company, its 
something you *NEED* to do full time, it just takes too much time to do all 
the paperwork involved aswell as marketing/selling/building.
- I've also taken up playing bass guitar (a *real* instrument), and joined a 
rock band and this taking a lot of my time.
- I've realised there is more to life than solder fumes!

So, I'll still make things, but only as and when I feel like it, and I'll 
make what I fancy making...
What I do make will most likely go up as freebies for people to build, if 
they wish.

Paul