It’s already past about six months since the first sale of SnapBeat and it was sold out. After that I got many comments and request from people and they were very helpful to improve the product.
I had to do two things before I restarted selling it. One is to improve the product itself such as adding MIDI IN capability based on user’s feedback. The other is to improve its production facility such as 3D printers. For the first lot production, I had and used only one 3D printer to producing cases. But, now I’m using three 3D printers. In addition, I totally modified cases 3D design for optimizing printing time. Finally, I could improve productivity so much and it became about 1.5h to produce one set of SnapBeat at my room.
I’ve also modified its firmware. Because this new version doesn’t include built-in sequencer instead of adding MIDI IN function, the system and menu become simpler. This time, I wrote a code almost from scratch and the menu and display became simpler and more useful than the first lot product.
Finally, the new version is ready to ship with new functions below.
- MIDI IN (3.5mm TRS MIDI cable)
- Back light for Pads (ON/OFF)
- Pad responses (DRUM/GATE/TRIGGER)
Please be noted that from this new version, it doesn’t have built-in sequencer function due to the rack of program memory of Arduino micro controller.
