Ian Locke's email of 5 October 2026 after Making Vinyl Europe:
- Budget of USD 250k for VSP, VSF and VSC confirmed; his time, spares,
shipping and travel extra; itemised quotation on request. The
total-investment block keeps its estimate until the re-base, the
difference (+190k low case / +80k high case) goes into the
not-yet-rolled-up table.
- Current specifications filed (VSF and VSC 2022, VSP 2023) plus the
VSF/VSP/VSC line-up drawing (4958 x 833 mm); the 2021 issues move to
sibert/specs-2021/. VSC is now 1000 kg with split OD hydraulic / ID
pneumatic forming; VSF 0-30 psi, 4-station head. Crane table, supplier
map, vendor landscape and the plant page details updated.
- Fully automatic VSPa exists; Sibert offers to move features to the VSP.
- Electroforming: OMS (Optical Media Services, Lou Wullms) named next to
Pheenix; added as a third galvanics candidate with open questions.
- Sequencing advice (presses, boilers, operators and live feedback loops
first) recorded in the exhibitor briefing, roadmap item 23, and as
digital-factory design decision 9 (operators see the data first).
docs/equipment/pheenix-alpha/: the four Pheenix Alpha electroforming flyers
(2024: PASU silvering, PPPU pre-plating, PDPU dual-cell plating, PMPB
passivation bench), renamed from their download hashes.
docs/equipment/sibert/: the VSP, VSF and VSC technical specifications
(2021), plus Sibert's 2008-09 optical-disc SPS literature and the 2008
Blu-ray stamper characteristics paper in sps-optical-disc-2009/. Two
byte-identical duplicates in the download were dropped.
New docs/equipment/galvanics.md, the metal-path counterpart to
pressing-line.md: datasheet tables for both ranges and what they change.
Pheenix is a second turnkey galvanics vendor next to Digital Matrix and
can quote lacquer-to-record as one vendor; neither range includes water
treatment. Utilities from the sheets (~27 kVA connected per line, DI water,
12-20 C cooling water, extraction sizes), ~5.6 m2 of footprint, and a cell
count estimate (one PDPU at the low end, two at the high end). The Sibert
machines are single-phase, 200/250/600 kg on castors, centre manually and
list no data interface; the VSC locates on the punched hole; the finisher's
water carries nickel. Weights, cycle times, prices and mould fit are listed
as quote questions.
Backlinks and small updates: README (bullet, layout tree, vendor list),
roadmap items 6 and 23, vendor landscape, supplier map, exhibitor briefing
(on-file notes, Sibert three-phase question answered), digital factory
(Pheenix PLC data, Sibert data question, RFQ clause 5), quality automation
(hardness on the centre slug, BD paper as the acceptance-spec model),
sustainability (finisher water), total investment block label (numbers
unchanged), scale (galvanics feeder note), crane weight table, process
flow, pressing-line stamper-fit question, plant page detail lines.
site/ builds the internal test site: public/ served as is (landing page,
robots.txt, static sites) plus demo pages copied out of docs/ (the plant
operation page at /demos/plant-operation/). build.sh fails on dead
internal links and stamps version.txt.
.gitea/workflows/deploy-site.yml rsyncs site/dist to the buildfor.life
web server with the blog's two-directory rename swap, checks version.txt
on the server, purges Cloudflare when a token is set, and checks the
public URL. Secret names match the blog's workflow.
site/Caddyfile is the virtual host to append on s1 (noindex everywhere,
Cloudflare-only like the blog apex, www redirect). site/README.md has the
one-time setup: DNS, Caddy, web root, secrets, runner.
New docs/artist-platform.md: upload master and artwork with automatic
audio, artwork and rights checks; an itemised price calculator for every
customer (per-title vs per-copy lines, price-per-copy curve, lead time
from the production-timeline quote table, versioned price list); and
fan-funded campaigns that press and dropship per fan once the goal is
reached, refund otherwise. Covers goal maths, payments (charge into a
ring-fenced account, CNX as seller of record, legal opinion first; the
Qrates failure as the design rule), repress pre-orders, architecture on
the cnx-factory stack with the public side on a fleet machine, PDPA,
phasing (calculator public early as a run-size probe, campaigns only
after first releases ship), cost and open decisions.
Backlinks from README, process flow, production timeline, revenue model,
digital factory and roadmap items 1 and 20; total investment added-scope
table gains the platform line.
Sillitoe Audio Technology (Australia) sells a complete cutting system:
lathe, MMFB feedback cutterhead, cutting amplifier, Space / Time Control
automation with a virtual groove, vacuum and microscope, at a published
USD 125,000 ex tax and shipping. Vendor landscape gets the narrative and
an Agnew-or-Sillitoe comparison; supplier map, total investment basis,
roadmap item 13 and the digital factory's no-telemetry section (STC cue
sheet, Open Groove export, stylus hours) follow.
Rewrite docs/digital-factory.md against the fleet that already exists at
git.b4l.co.th/B4L/cnx-network-clan instead of a plant-only clan:
- The plant is one more site: gw-lpn-1 from the cnx.router module, plant
machines in the same inventory, reached over the existing ZeroTier mesh
(no VPS, no moon, no port forwards).
- Fleet pieces reused as-is: control for host metrics, journals and host
alerts; ns1/ns2 for the gateway wildcard cert; web01 as the public
proxy for the customer portal; clan borgbackup with a plant server.
- Process time series move from TimescaleDB to a plant-local
VictoriaMetrics (same modules and rules as control); PostgreSQL keeps
everything with identity. Object storage dropped for ZFS datasets.
- VLAN table on the fleet addressing convention (siteId 3 assumed, ids
above 40); OT segments as dual-homed islands behind the collectors;
stations reach the app only through the gateway Caddy proxy.
- New section listing every file that changes in the clan repo, the
modules/vinyl/* to write, and three router-module extensions (NTP
serving, static VLANs, second WAN).
- Gaps the plant closes for the fleet: Alertmanager delivery, off-site
backup destination, TSDB backup.
- Repository layout decided: infra in cnx-network-clan, app in
cnx-factory as a flake input, this repo stays documents.
README bullet updated to match.
New docs/digital-factory.md: every system needed for environmental,
machine, QC and genealogy data to land in one database keyed to one
record identity. Standing decision: all services run on NixOS machines
declared and deployed as a single clan.lol inventory (mesh, backups,
host monitoring, secrets from clan services).
Covers machine list and roles, VLAN zoning, Telegraf/MQTT acquisition
source by source with the RFQ clause for each, environment sensor zones,
QC instrument integration paths, the factory application modules and
entities, alerting tiers, backup and retention, security, procurement
clauses, build order aligned with the roadmap phases, rough cost and
open questions.
README index and layout tree updated; roadmap item 17 and the
traceability spec link to the new document.
grabowski