I've been progressing slowly on recreating this for my own purposes, 2 copies.
1) Have the audio chip ordered and received (x3)
2) Hammond cases hammond 1457j1201 ordered and received (x2)
3) 2x SOM304RDVINE-1 modules ordered from ICOP California offices, including 8x mating connectors (4 for each SoM) refered to as FTS-138-01-L-DV and also more informally ICOP SOM304 SX/RD/MX+/DX2/DX3 Dev Board Mating Connector. There was a 4 week lead time to manufacture in Taiwan and arrive in Los Angeles. Currently waiting on their imminent reception and shipping to me (in Canada)
4) Finding as few stores as possible to order the parts themselves in North America. The best options are usually digikey.ca our mouser.ca for me (they also exist in USA as .com), ship ultra fast to us (often next day). So far, mouser looks the most promising. Currently going section by section to label everything and make it easier to assemble zone by zone on the board
5) output gerber files for PCBWay, had some back and forth to correct some layers they were not getting, even though I was following their own tutorial on exporting gerber files from circuitmaker. They complained about not knowing whether it was a 1 or 2 copper layer board (it's 2!), simply because I had not ticked that layer, since I zoned out and mimicked their tutorial images EXACTLY, and it's missing in the tutorial. They also complained about not finding an outline definition, so I had to create one using circuitmaker using the primitive shape of the board layout, output in its own new dedicated OUTLINE layer. I wasn't sure how it would interact with the mechanical layer, which is supposed to dictate where the board ends physically for real, and after hesitating, I just went with the default thickness of the outline shape the tool created for me. The last detail they requested right before fabrication is whether I wanted the main board to have a v-cut along the frontier between the tabs that are supposed to slide in the case and the rest of the board and whether I wanted this to be a keep-out zone (ie no components). I said no to v-cut and yes to being a K-O. The boards are all done after a few days and the shipment is incoming, May 27th.
6) One thing though, is that I've jumped the gun on the board ordering. I forked Rasteri's project right after his v0.2 (which didn't include a connector for a waveblaster S2) and right at the start of his 'first' v0.3 revision (waveblaster connector included). I don't really need waveblaster capabilities, but wth, I ordered one anyway to make one of my units get this capability (the other will just connect to my Roland hardware units). I noticed the project got at least one, if not more few minor updates (but which have not ticked up the revision number so far, I guess it's still ongoing) that essentially (as far as I've noticed, not 100% sure) regroup components to the same package sizes (eg all 1206 instead of 0603 for some and 1206 for some). I'm crossing my fingers that the state of the board I ordered will allow me to make this work.
7) Ordered a Pluggable USB microscope with decent refresh rate to help with what will be my first SMT soldering with small 1206 and 0603 packages, as well as the audio chip. The space feels cramped and I have definitely watched some excellent visual tutorials on the topic. I already have rosin flux paste, but looking to equip a liquid flux pen and/or syringe. I didn't order the stencil from PCBWay and go the solder paste type 5 route, I don't have a hot air gun anyway.
