Commissioned Design Work: Custom Retro Hardware, Built to Order

Have something built that doesn’t exist yet

Most of what I sell started out as somebody’s specific problem. A console that needs a power supply nobody makes any more. A board with a part that went out of production fifteen years ago. An adapter that ought to exist and doesn’t.

If you’ve got one of those, I’ll take a look at building it.

Start with a message, not a purchase

Tell me what you’re trying to do. I’ll tell you whether I can do it, roughly what it will cost, and roughly how long it will take. Every project is subject to my availability and my agreement, so nothing starts until we’ve both said yes.

Once we’ve settled on scope, I’ll send you a link to pay the deposit we agreed on, and I get going. There’s deliberately no buy button on this page: I don’t want you paying for something I haven’t yet said I can do.

What the deposit covers

Two things.

Design time. Schematic, board layout, prototype builds, and bench validation. Real measurement on real hardware, not a design I hand you and hope about.

Parts. PCB fabrication, components, connectors, and whatever else it takes to get a working unit sitting in front of me.

Deposits run from $100 to $500. We size it together based on what your project actually needs, and it’s a deposit rather than a price.

What counts as “used”

Parts that end up in your unit are yours.

So are the ones your project consumed getting there. Something I destroy on the bench proving a design holds up under load, a board revision that turned out wrong, a component that can’t go back on the shelf once it’s been through testing. Those get charged against the deposit, because your project is what used them up. If you want the casualties, say so and I’ll box them up with your unit.

What I don’t charge for is anything that survives and goes back into stock. If I ordered five of something and one went into your build and the other four are still good, you paid for one.

The rest comes back. If we agreed on $300 and the project consumed $180, you get $120 back. I’d rather start high and refund the difference than stop halfway through because we underestimated.

Nothing ships against the deposit itself. If the work produces hardware for you, that ships separately.

If the design ends up in the store

Some commissions turn into products other people want. If yours does, I may credit what you’ve already paid toward buying the finished version from the store, in exchange for you validating that it works in your hands on your hardware. That’s an offer I make at my discretion when it fits, not a term of the deposit, so don’t pay on the assumption you’ll get it.

If it doesn’t work

Sometimes it doesn’t. That’s what research and development is.

If I can’t make the design work, I stand behind the work: either I refund you, or we try a different approach. Your call, not mine.

Why me

I build and sell this hardware already, and I test it on a real bench with real instruments before it goes out. The same measurement discipline goes into commissioned work. If a design has a problem, I’d rather find it here with a scope on it than have you find it in your console.