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
• Alexander Grabowski, Technical Consultant

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 (site candidates, Payap partnership).
• A collaboration with ResurRec is under discussion.

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 50/50 automated/semi-automatic fleet strategy, the Newbilt system under evaluation (~USD 232k quoted scope), 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, Sibert's VSP/VSF/VSC stamper prep line, 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), stamper preparation (Sibert), bridge stamper service (Stamper Discs), and automated presses (Pheenix Alpha)
• Equipment needs and supplier map: the full needs list per production step with supplier tables and contacts
• Sustainability: the solar installation (Deye inverters, 271 kWh Gobel Power battery stack), 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, 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
• 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 database keyed to one record identity: 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
• 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
• Plant operation page: a single static page animating the mature plant as a simulated SCADA overview at real cycle times: the Newbilt Duplex and two Classic presses, 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
• 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 full-vision roll-up (~4.7M to 8.9M USD) and the ~1.7M to 2.9M USD phased entry, with the basis of every block
• 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: rough full-capacity revenue (~3.7M to 6.8M USD/yr), direct cost and margin per record, and the levers and caveats behind the numbers
• Business plan: the investor-facing roll-up of everything above, built from docs/business-plan/build/ (run python build_plan.py to regenerate after the numbers move). Draft 0.1 carries the land-lease decision, the cassette and CD scope, and Ploy Printing as packaging partner and intended co-investor

Repository Layout

docs/
├── business-plan/
│   ├── CNX-Vinyl-Business-Plan.docx   Investor business plan (generated)
│   └── build/                 Python source of the plan; regenerate with
│                              build_plan.py
├── consulting/            Consultancy proposals and overviews
├── equipment/
│   ├── newbilt/           Offers, site requirements, process schematic,
│   │                      service rates, 2026 product flyers (vendor PDFs)
│   ├── pheenix-alpha/     Electroforming range flyers (vendor PDFs)
│   ├── sibert/            Stamper prep specifications, 2008-09 optical-disc
│   │                      literature (vendor PDFs)
│   ├── galvanics.md       Electroforming and stamper prep equipment plan
│   └── pressing-line.md   Press fleet strategy and equipment plan
├── finance/               Project cost overviews, revenue model,
│                          construction RFQ
├── suppliers/             Supplier contacts, vendor landscape, supplier map
├── 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
├── 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
├── 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-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
├── 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)