cnx_vinyl/README.md

CNX Vinyl / Poy Records

A vinyl record factory in planning for the Chiang Mai area of northern Thailand (site candidates include Lamphun and Lampang provinces and, since October 2026, Payap University land in Chiang Mai). This repository is the source of truth for the project: planning documents and cost data today. As the factory takes shape it will also hold the data and software used to run it.

Team

• Simona Meesaiyati, Project Lead: management and the audio side
• Alexander Grabowski, Technical Consultant: the technical side

buildfor.life supports the project in a consulting capacity.

Vision: Full-Service Production

The goal is the complete vinyl production chain under one roof, from audio file to delivered record:

1. Mastering: audio mastering for vinyl
2. Lathe cutting: cutting the master disc
3. Silvering: metallizing the cut master
4. Stamper production: electroforming nickel stampers in-house
5. Pressing: extrusion and pressing of the records, with the labels pressed in
6. Finishing: trimming, sleeving, shrink wrapping
7. Packaging: folded paper cartons (jackets and sleeves), produced in collaboration with local packaging manufacturers
8. Fulfillment: dropshipping directly to end customers on behalf of labels and artists, alongside conventional bulk delivery

In-house galvanics (steps 3 and 4) removes the dependency on overseas stamper suppliers, a common bottleneck for pressing plants, and shortens turnaround for clients. Partnering with local carton manufacturers keeps packaging sourcing close to the plant, in line with the local-sourcing preference for materials. The pressing line is documented in detail, galvanics and stamper prep from vendor datasheets; equipment, partners, and budgets for the other steps are open planning items.

Project Status

Planning stage (as of October 2026).

• Industry outreach has been ongoing for several years: equipment vendors, material suppliers, and independent consultants.
• Alexander and Simona attended Making Vinyl Europe 2026 in Haarlem (30 September to 2 October). Most people they talked to were strongly interested in the full-traceability approach, and for Sibert it was a reason to engage at all (notes in the exhibitor briefing).
• Payap University (Chiang Mai) has offered land on lease and wants to build joint student programmes with the plant. The point it gave for the land is zoned very high density residential in the Chiang Mai city plan, where record pressing is not permitted (checked October 2026); other Payap land would need checking (site candidates, Payap partnership).
• A collaboration with ResurRec is under discussion.
• Back from Haarlem, the team is preparing a meeting with the project's investor (October 2026). Post-show follow-ups with Pheenix, Sibert, OMS and SST are in the exhibitor briefing.
• The plant now launches with everything in one capital round (October 2026): one Newbilt Duplex system and one Classic, a Pheenix galvanics line, the Sibert stamper-prep line, a Sillitoe cutting room and the modular boiler and chiller plant: ~168M to 296M THB with contingency (midpoint ~232M; biomass steam, PV on the factory roof), the Pheenix line priced at OMS's reference plus 20 % (total investment). For the investor the business plan comes in two versions, priced without contingency and with the ramp-up reserve (two plans): Plan A, ~182M THB (~2M above 180M since steam went biomass), the launch plant with six cost levers, and Plan B, ~217M THB, the same launch plant with everything in. The main investor wants to go with Plan B (19 October 2026); the investor deck leads with it. Chinese boilers, compressor and hydraulics save about 2M THB of that (Chinese suppliers). The business plan is re-based on it (draft 0.2).

Planning Documents

The detail lives in dedicated documents:

• Roadmap: next steps in dependency order, from the three current gates (market validation, BOI, land title check) through quotes, commitment, build, launch, and expansion
• Pressing line equipment plan: the current all-Newbilt fleet (two Duplex systems, each with an EX 50 main and an EX 35 colour extruder, plus one Classic automatic press), the 2024 Newbilt quote (~USD 232k, expired), the 2026 product flyers, and site requirements
• Galvanics and stamper prep equipment plan: the metal path from lacquer to press-ready stamper, from vendor datasheets: Pheenix Alpha's electroforming range as a second turnkey vendor next to Digital Matrix, OMS as a third named by Sibert (reference prices for a 4-cell wet room, EUR 224k to 311k), Sibert's VSP/VSF/VSC stamper prep line (USD 250k budget for the three confirmed), the utilities they need, a first cell-count estimate, and Sibert's optical-disc reference material
• Vendor landscape: researched candidates for mastering and cutting (Agnew Analog, and the Sillitoe SDMS with integrated cutting automation at a published USD 125k), galvanics equipment (Plating Power / Digital Matrix, Pheenix Alpha, Optical Media Services), used lathes and cutting-room contacts (via OMS), stamper preparation (Sibert), bridge stamper service (Stamper Discs), and automated presses (Pheenix Alpha, the comparison for the Classic)
• Equipment needs and supplier map: the full needs list per production step with supplier tables and contacts
• Chinese suppliers: boilers, compressed air and hydraulics from China (makers, published prices, Thai offices, Thai boiler rules for imports); saves about 2M THB, ~1 % of the budget
• Sustainability: the solar installation (Deye inverters, 271 kWh Gobel Power battery stack), the PEA grid tariff and what it decides (biomass steam at a quarter to a tenth of the cost of electric, PV rather than solar thermal), the zero contaminated water commitment, and the materials strategy
• Worker safety: safety training, galvanics clean rooms and decontamination, PPE
• Biomass fuel strategy: the 60 rai own-grown coppice idea (with the forestry-classification check that comes first), northern agricultural waste as the main supply, reported northern fuel prices (October 2026) and who sets them, and the staged electric-to-biomass path
• BOI investment promotion: the promotion strategy (Group B base activity plus solar, automation, and R&D measures for the tax value), requirements, Northern-region angle, and why BOI approval precedes machinery orders
• Facility security and site systems: access control, CCTV, whole-factory HVAC (temperature, humidity, PM), archive and audio protection, fire and life safety, plant monitoring, Thai compliance anchors
• Overhead crane, workshop and visitor corridor: a 5 t crane over the whole production floor to move machines in and out, a crane-served maintenance workshop and machine bay at the ramp end, and a glazed ground-level corridor for guided tours without noise, dust or plating chemistry; what each changes in the building and what it costs
• Production hall layout sketch: a rough BIM sketch in FreeCAD (docs/production-hall-layout-sketch.FCStd) of the 60 x 25 m phase 1 hall at Mueang Chi, with the fleet before October 2026: zones in process order along the visitor corridor, the crane zone, room-in-room boxes and the main equipment; every position is an estimate
• Payap scenario model: a parametric BIM model in FreeCAD 26.3 (docs/cnx_vinyl_parametric_payap.FCStd, isometric) of the whole plant on a square placeholder plot of Payap land: a 128 x 25 m production-only factory with the five-press fleet, room for ten more Classics (drawn before the October 2026 decision to lay the hall out for Duplex systems: five Duplex bays and four Classic positions), one shared hydraulic and air plant, a colour store with outdoor silos and a two-storey finishing and print block (plans), a separate two-storey office building (floor plans: canteen, changing rooms and showers, mastering and listening below; ~150 m² of offices, training room and IT above), a separate water treatment building next to galvanics, the utility yard and site access, all driven by one parameter sheet
• Process logging and traceability: end-to-end per-order traceability for customers, batch genealogy from audio file to shipment, and the requirements this sets for the factory software
• Digital factory systems plan: every system that has to exist for environment, machine, QC and genealogy data to land in one place keyed to one record identity, with ERPNext as the plant's only system of record (every tool we build reads and writes it; only machine data stays outside), everything open source with our own code published and, later, the stack and automation services offered to other pressing plants: the plant as one more site in B4L's existing NixOS fleet (the cnx-network clan: mesh, DNS, fleet monitoring, site gateway module, public proxy), what changes in that repo, VLAN zoning, Telegraf/MQTT acquisition source by source, QC instrument integration, the factory application, alerting, backup, security, the data clauses for every RFQ, build order and rough cost
• Inline optical QC: devices for the 100% record inspection station (line-scan cameras with dark-field and transmitted light, label camera, laser warp sensors, centring turntable), CD-scanner and PRP precedents, smart-camera versus open NixOS software, specials, prices and a two-station cost estimate, and a FreeCAD concept model of the station (aluminium profile frame, rim-belt conveyor, chuck, sensors) with a sourced bill of materials
• QC station control plan: EtherCAT with two 100 W servo kits, Beckhoff I/O and an N100 mini PC running QiTech's open-source EtherCAT library on NixOS; bus layout, I/O list, geizhals.de and QiTech shop prices, safety circuit, bench test and build order
• Quality automation: stamper metrology (Keyence-class confocal, profiler, XRF), layered pressed-record QC (100% optical inspection, per-cycle press telemetry, sampled automated audio comparison), and how it feeds traceability
• Process flow: the whole chain from audio file to delivered record as a chart and stage table, with every check and the three artist approval gates (printable diagram alongside)
• Artist platform: upload a master and artwork, get a transparent itemised offer from the price calculator (for artists, labels and any other customer), and optionally launch a fan-funded campaign that the plant presses and ships to each fan once enough have pre-ordered, with refunds if not
• Order a record: the order tool as a step-by-step configurator after the Mobineko pattern (step rail, choices, a large live record picture, running price and ship date, review with what is missing); same price list as the artist demos
• Artist ordering demo: the artist platform as a clickable single page: configure a record (jacket with a 3 or 5 mm spine), type the track list or drop the master files and artwork (checked in the browser, never uploaded: format, sample rate, bit depth, clipping, side length against the format; artwork as PDF, AI or image against the downloadable jacket and label templates: size and spine, bleed, resolution, colour, fonts), approve gate 1, get the itemised offer with its price curve and lead time, then order directly or run a fan-funded campaign to a funded or missed end (refund, or go ahead at the minimum) and follow the production through the three artist gates
• Make a record: the investor demo of the same platform as a customer sees it, in one polished flow: design the record against a to-scale mock-up, check the music and artwork, see the price, let fans fund it, follow the production and open the record passport (the traceability record of one copy); investor notes on every step, a one-minute guided tour (#tour), prices in THB, USD or EUR and the whole page in English or Thai (draft translation, #cur=EUR&lang=th)
• Factory console and order status: the factory application of the digital factory plan as a demo on a simulated plant day: the press floor with live counters, work orders per station (kiosk steps: badge in, scan, confirm), the inspection stream, audio samples, the material lab gate, stamper metrology, the hash-chained event log, and the customer portal for the same orders (steps, copies pressed so far, lab and inspection results, approving a test pressing)
• Steam and cooling: the utility plant for the launch plant (one Duplex system and one Classic; rooms built for four modules, the five-press growth case one click away) as a clickable process diagram: water treatment, feed tank and heat recovery, a bank of two 500 kg/h boilers, the steam header and condensate return, and process cooling with two 250 kW chillers (a third with the second Duplex), a plate heat exchanger, warm and cold tanks and a branch to every press, extruder and the hydraulic oil cooler; operating cases from the launch plant and its commissioning to one module down, the design basis, an equipment schedule and the open questions for the boiler and chiller RFQs
• Plant operation page: a single static page animating the launch plant as a simulated SCADA overview at real cycle times: the Newbilt Duplex system and the Classic, the Pheenix Alpha electroforming line and Sibert stamper prep, from PVC intake and the material lab through pressing, inspection, packaging and fulfillment, with the three artist gates, the mother archive, utilities and energy; 1× is real time, up to 3600× (a day in 24 s); every station is clickable and names the source of its figures; on phones and tablets held sideways it pinch-zooms and opens station details in a side sheet
• Plant and business plan calculator: a single static page for the business plan: choose the plant configuration (presses, galvanics in-house or bought stampers, cutting in-house or outsourced, metrology tier, cassette and CD-R, solar bought, PPA or none, steam fuel, Thai or Chinese utilities, crane, visitor corridor) and it builds the investment from the cost blocks of the total investment, checks it against the investor's 180M and 216M THB, and runs the money a year and a ten-year cash view (payback, NPV, IRR, pre-tax sketch), with presets from the launch plant to a full hall. Set the records a year and the share of splatter and specials, and it sizes the mix of Duplex systems (3 records a minute each) and Classics (2 a minute) from the launch plant of one Duplex and one Classic up to a full press hall, with the people, power, central hydraulics, steam, cooling, air, floor, compound and stampers that fleet needs, drawn as a live schematic of the machine park with the stamper line (lathe, Pheenix galvanics, Sibert prep) feeding it, each station counted from the galvanics cycle times; plus the money a year: revenue (standard, specials, title services), PVC, labels, sleeves, jackets, cartons, lacquers, plating chemistry, electricity and steam, labour from base salaries with social security, on-costs and health care for all staff, overheads, EBITDA, depreciation and payback, with the revenue model's adverse, central and favourable cases, BOI promotion on or off (machinery import duty and import VAT, PVC duty relief) and USD, THB or EUR; every assumption is editable, with its source, and a scenario can be shared by link
• Test site: site/ builds https://cnxvinyl.lol/, the internal test site with demo pages from docs/ (the plant operation page first) and any static site we want to share by link; Gitea Actions deploys it to the buildfor.life web server on every push that touches it
• Production timeline: how long an order takes stage by stage, launch vs mature configuration, the repress fast path, and what lead time can honestly be quoted to a customer
• Project timeline: the calendar from today to first paying release, the BOI-to-machinery critical path, and where the float actually sits
• Site candidates: the land options side by side (the Mueang Chi lease, the Northern Region Industrial Estate, and Payap University's offer of land next to a pharmaceutical facility under construction) and what has to be checked before any of them is chosen
• Payap University partnership: joint student programmes in audio engineering (mastering, lathe cutting), IT and business built around the plant, what they change in the plan (cutting room earlier, pre-release security, student access) and what to agree
• Project scale: rough numbers for everything on one page: output capacity, building area, land, electrical demand, solar and storage, steam and fuel, headcount, and money cross-references
• Total investment: the launch plant decided in October 2026 (~168M to 296M THB, ~5.1M to 9.0M USD, midpoint ~232M THB) with the basis of every block, the two plans for the investor (Plan A ~180M, Plan B ~215M THB, without contingency), and the earlier answer to the 180M / 216M question; the earlier full vision and phased entry are kept as superseded
• Phase 1 construction RFQ: the spec sheet for asking a contractor to price the phase 1 buildings and site works, with quantities taken from the parametric BIM model
• Revenue model: pricing, direct cost and margin per record, the launch plant's operating picture at the planned 60 % specials (central revenue ~3.65M USD a year on ~0.74M records, EBITDA ~1.7M; the adverse case loses money), the operating pictures of Plan A (payback ~3.2 years on ~182M THB) and Plan B (the same output, payback ~3.8 years on ~217M THB: its extra pays back through what the table leaves out), the five-press table, and the levers and caveats behind the numbers
• Investor deck (October 2026): the plant in 16 web slides for BOI, bank and institutional readers, proposing Plan B (~215M THB) with Plan A as the comparison, with a presenter view (press P) and a PDF; every figure carries its source in the business plan or the owning doc
• Business plan, draft 0.3 (October 2026), in two versions: Plan A, ~180M THB (docx) and Plan B, ~215M THB (docx): the investor-facing roll-up of everything above, each a complete plan with one table comparing it with the other, both priced without contingency and with the ramp-up reserve. Each carries renders of the plant and business plan calculator with its own preset (the isometric plant view on the cover and in section 6, the budget check, ten years of cash; in docs/renders/calculator/) and a software section (5.5) with screenshots of the plant overview, the factory console with its ERPNext link, the artist ordering demo, fan funding and the record passport (docs/renders/demos/). Built from docs/business-plan/build/ (python build_plan.py makes both versions; the PDFs are exported with LibreOffice so the table of contents is filled in). Draft 0.2, a single launch-plant plan with contingency, is in the git history

Repository Layout

docs/
├── brand/                 Poy Records logo (1536 px PNG)
├── business-plan/
│   ├── CNX-Vinyl-Business-Plan-A.docx / .pdf   Investor business plan, Plan A (generated)
│   ├── CNX-Vinyl-Business-Plan-B.docx / .pdf   Investor business plan, Plan B (generated)
│   └── build/                 Python source of the plan; regenerate with
│                              build_plan.py
├── pitch/                 Investor deck: web slides (index.html, presenter
│                          view), images in img/, PDF export
├── consulting/            Consultancy proposals and overviews
├── equipment/
│   ├── newbilt/           Offers, site requirements, process schematic,
│   │                      service rates, 2026 product flyers (vendor PDFs)
│   ├── oms/               OMS introduction letter: wet-room units, reference
│   │                      prices, capacities, lathe contacts (vendor docx)
│   ├── pheenix-alpha/     Electroforming range flyers (vendor PDFs)
│   ├── sibert/            Stamper prep specifications and line-up drawing
│   │                      (2021 issues in specs-2021/), 2008-09
│   │                      optical-disc literature (vendor PDFs)
│   ├── duplex-cell-layout-sketch.png  Duplex cell arrangement (sketch, not to scale)
│   ├── galvanics.md       Electroforming and stamper prep equipment plan
│   ├── inline-optical-qc.md  Devices for the record inspection station
│   ├── inline-qc-control-plan.md  EtherCAT control plan for the station
│   ├── inline-qc-station/    Concept model of the station (FreeCAD script,
│   │                         .FCStd, renders, labelled investor view,
│   │                         bill of materials)
│   └── pressing-line.md   Press fleet strategy and equipment plan
├── finance/               Project cost overviews, revenue model,
│                          construction RFQ, PEA electricity tariff
│                          schedule (pea/), biomass fuel market
│                          reports (biomass/)
├── suppliers/             Supplier contacts, vendor landscape, supplier map,
│                          Chinese utility suppliers (china-utilities.md)
├── order.html             Step-by-step order configurator demo page
├── artist-order.html      Artist ordering and fan-funding demo page
├── artist-platform.md     Upload, price calculator, fan-funded pressing
├── biomass.md             Biomass fuel strategy and the 60 rai coppice idea
├── boi.md                 BOI promotion strategy and requirements
├── cnx_vinyl_parametric_payap.FCStd   Payap scenario parametric BIM model
├── cnx_vinyl_parametric_payap.png     Top view of the Payap model
├── cnx_vinyl_parametric_payap-iso.png Isometric view of the Payap model
├── cnx_vinyl_parametric_payap-office.png Office building floor plans
├── cnx_vinyl_parametric_payap-block.png Finishing and print block plans
├── cnx_vinyl_parametric_payap_parts.FCStd  Payap model in Part/Draft: roof, PV, parking canopies
├── cnx_vinyl_parametric_payap_parts.png     Isometric view of the parts model
├── cnx_vinyl_parametric_payap_parts-top.png Top view of the parts model
├── CNX_apply_Params.FCMacro Pushes Params edits to the model (FreeCAD 26.3 RC1)
├── crane-workshop-tours.md Overhead crane, workshop, visitor corridor
├── digital-factory.md     Data platform, NixOS/Clan fleet, acquisition, app
├── facility-security.md   Security, HVAC, fire and life safety, compliance
├── factory-console.html   Factory application and customer portal demo
├── fleet-calculator.html  Press fleet calculator: output, mix, requirements
├── land-listings/         Land offers and zoning records (Mueang Chi, Payap)
├── make-a-record.html     Artist platform investor demo (end-user flow)
├── payap-partnership.md   Joint student programmes with Payap University
├── plant-operation.html   Animated plant overview (simulated SCADA)
├── process-flow.md        Audio file to delivered record, with all checks
├── production-hall-layout-sketch.FCStd  Rough BIM sketch, Mueang Chi hall (earlier fleet)
├── production-hall-layout-sketch.png    Top view of the sketch
├── production-timeline.md Order turnaround, stage by stage
├── project-timeline.md    Calendar to first paying release, critical path
├── quality-automation.md  Stamper metrology and layered record QC
├── roadmap.md             Next steps in dependency order
├── scale.md               Rough project sizing on one page
├── site-candidates.md     Land options and the checks before choosing
├── steam-cooling.html     Steam and cooling plant diagram, launch plant
├── sustainability.md      Energy, water, materials commitments
├── traceability.md        Process logging and per-order traceability
└── worker-safety.md       Training, clean rooms, PPE
site/                      Internal test site https://cnxvinyl.lol/
├── public/                Served as is: landing page, static sites
├── build.sh               Builds site/dist: public/ plus demo pages from docs/
├── Caddyfile              Virtual host for the web server (applied by hand)
└── README.md              Build, deploy and one-time setup
.gitea/workflows/
└── deploy-site.yml        Builds site/ and deploys it on push to master

Vendor PDFs and spreadsheets are primary sources and reflect the state of negotiations at their file dates. Treat prices and lead times as snapshots, not commitments.

What This Repo Will Grow to Hold

• Accumulate planning and vendor documents as decisions firm up, including the mastering, cutting, and galvanics chain
• Add structured data (inventory, orders, production batches) once operations begin
• Host the software/tooling built to run the factory (tracking, ERP-style workflows)