Greetings and happy 2024 to my fellow plasma enthusiasts. A quick update on the state of PMCv2 in 2024. As I have mentioned elsewhere, life is extremely busy with family and work. I am often pulling 65+ hrs/wk at work, and clearly choosing to spend every other waking moment with family. This has been good for my marriage and family, but bad for an updated run of PMCv2 devices. As many of you are aware, the third run of PMCv2 never got off the ground, despite over 400 respondents to the poll on the PMCv2 website showing a significant amount of interest.
For some good news (however small), I found five sealed and ready to ship PMCv2 devices sitting in a box in the garage over the weekend while looking for my oscilloscope! After *significant* internal debate, I have decided to post them one-at-a-time on eBay, auction-style, with an opening bid of the original asking price (USD$50). With only five available, there is no way to do it any more fairly with potential bots and/or scalpers. This method has its downsides also, but it’s easy, which I can do. The timing of the auctions will vary simply due to the aforementioned personal time constraints. So, setup your watch lists accordingly. (And if you have a used PMCv2 device to sell, it may be a good time to list yours also.) NOTE: for those wondering, no, I don’t have any additional secret stash. These were hold-backs in case anyone ever needed a replacement (damaged in shipping, etc). These are, to the best of my knowledge, the very last “new old stock” PMCv2 devices in my possession.
In some other good news, I spent (too long) Sunday night fixing the website’s problems and updating various software modules to return the website to an operational and trustworthy state. I disabled comments as they were largely only collecting spam. New subscriptions to email updates seems to also be broken at the moment. ah well. I may or may not have time to figure that one out. :/
In some /shrug news, I did update the primary PMCv2 product page poll asking for what a new PMCv2 device would be worth to users. I currently have no expectations of doing a new run in 2024, but this information will help me figure out if there is enough interest to adequately divert my aforementioned limited free time. After all, college savings accounts are a thing.
Lastly, if anyone reading has an interest, I tried once to divest myself of the entire technical design package (pcb design, cable design, bill of materials (BOM), software, etc) to enable someone else to pick up the torch and run with it. Though I never received any interest, I am still entirely open to that discussion.
cheers, and keep enjoying those plasmas!
..dane