[sdiy] MOTM news

[Paul Schreiber]

On May 1st, all the MOTM production/shipping/support will be handled by
Scott Deyo at www.bridechamber.com

1) All MOTM orders placed with me will still be shipped by me.
2) I am behind about 3 weeks due to illness but am about recovered. 
3) You will see a "placeholder' website soon, with the full new site
sometime in late June. I have to change hosting companies but will not do
that until I have reduced the backlog to the point that I can trust moving
the MySQL database. These 'transparent' web host moves never are :(
4) I have resolved the MOTM-480 issues and those modules + kits will start
shipping this coming week. If you have a kit on order: the pc boards have
most of the parts stuffed and soldered. This is all I have time to do: you
still get to solder pots/wires/jacks/etc.

I'm sure I'll be repeating this 100 times in the next few months (such is
the nature of the Internet):

a) I'm not going out of business
b) I'm not abandoning the very format I invented
c) all the older MOTM designs/pc boards are at BrideChamber and will be for
as long as we can find parts

I'm simply letting BrideChamber do all the order fulfillment and in effect,
they become my MOTM distributor. So instead of shipping to 800 individual
people like in the past, I ship to one person. It's no secret that timely
shipping has been my #1 issue for 13 years. And so I fixed it.

What does the future hold? It depends *entirely* on people's support of
BrideChamber. Both of us are taking large financial risks. Even though MOTM
was up until Jan 2012 a hobby, it's been a rather large, elaborate hobby.
Buying and shipping 2 million parts is not easy. I have annoyed, irritated
and pissed off many people. And I don't blame them 1 bit. All I ask is that
you consider dealing with BrideChamber for all your 5U/MOTM/MU needs.

Scott and I will start slowly introducing new 5U designs (in both MU and
MOTM format) later this year. Some will be brand new, some will be
updates/mods/tweaks to current modules to design out hard-to-get parts (good
example, the MOTM-800 EG). I myself will no longer design for DIYers. All
new stuff will be SMT. I am going to concentrate of delivery of product for
people to use. I understand many MOTM users got into it specifically because
they like to build. And, ironically, this is the VERY REASON that I have to
stop: it takes too much bandwidth, and each year that passes, my available
bandwidth *decreases*. Stories of waiting +3years for my stuff is 100% true.
And how to fix that: SMT assembly & BrideChamber.

The Zen Shopping cart will be gone on Tuesday, as I will have nothing to
sell.  I still have a few kits left in the cart, you have 24 hours to grab
them.

Thanks to nearly 800 people worldwide that are MOTM customers: past, present
and future.

Paul S.
Synthesis Technology
www.synthtech.com