Yes, it's true. We're likely closing down the DIGWDF Store after this year. Most of our products are for traditional lighting (AC, strings, etc.) and the market for those products is seriously waning. Big box stores are producing more and more cookie-cutter display pieces and everybody seems to believe that pixels are the answer -- apparently there's an overwhelming desire for folks to outline their roofs and leave it at that. Since there are plenty of pixel-type controllers available, and Shelby's ESPixelStick is just an outstanding controller for individual, on-the-prop display use, we have no desire to replicate those products by develping "me too" controllers. Consequently, as sales have all but dried-up for conventional DIGWDF gear, the cost of maintaining the store vs. revenue will likely be at a point where closing the store makes the best economic sense.
Within the next couple weeks our boards will arrive for the PiNard-8, a complete standalone controller based on the Raspberry Pi Zero (or Zero-W) and the excellent Falcon player. PiNard is another "strange product from DIGWDF labs" and it provides a solid solution for those folks that want a completely standalone controller system that can provide full dimming control of AC or DC lights (using external SSRs), host sequences, audio and/or video files and play them completely autonomously -- or be connected to a larger show, if you prefer that instead. It's a pretty simple concept, really -- it's just that nobody's every put it all together on one PCB before -- at least as far as we've seen. Here's a photo of the prototype -- which encountered a little accident when an arm accidentally flicked a wire and it landed in just the wrong place...
PiNard-8 is the last invention the DIGWDF Engineers have planned. A very limited number of kits and PCBs will be available in the store sometime in September and there are no plans to reorder parts or boards for any DIGWDF products. So what's in the store by mid-September is all that's going to be there, and of course, everything is on a first-come, first-served basis until stocks are depleted or the store officially closes.
What's to happen to the DIGWDF staff? That's a bit unknown but Grelllbbb, Hngnnorrgg and Fffllleeennnkkk are already excited about being released onto the general public (we can't keep them chained to their lab benches forever, although we know the local police would prefer that...), Monica (our receptionist) says she's found love again (but some of us think it's just a bad case of gas), Mike Mooble, our stealth field tester is looking at joining the CIA now that government acceptance standards are at an all-time low, and Dwart Farquahar, our trusty maintenance chief couldn't be more delighted as he'll no longer have to clean up the mess of drool and other crud in the DIGWDF Lab after the engineers have had another crazy-glue squirt-gun fight, and he says he'll just take his mop with him when he retires.
Dirk is hopeful that the staff will be completely gone by the time he turns 70 next year and he can just take his boat out unencumbered by the day-to-day disasters that have happened at the Lab over the past 7 years....
But the store has had a terrific ride and it's gratifying that there's some gear out there in the blinky-flashy world that has the DIGWDF moniker. Dirk will still be around -- it's just the store that's closing...
