RickP
commented
2 years ago 6 months later and still no stock :( - I'd used something else if I would have known this before. Hope it resolves when the chip crisis is over someday - I guess they're using all fabs and material to make higher end chips.
I think this project would be really cool to use/build. I went to JLCPCB's LCSC inventory for the PFS173 and found it's zero. (In fact, all Padauk's chips are zero.) I've reached out to Padauk and they just responded to me. They basically said those chips are still in production. The literal response from them was: "Because the wafers supply is not good enough and I think it is the reason why LCSC has no stocks." (Not 100% sure what that means. Maybe just a shortage of materials?) Interestingly, I see that the PFS173 is available from: Taobao, Alibaba, and Aliexpress. If worst came to worst, I'd just go to one of these places. (Or maybe from one of Padauk's authorized resellers.) But - this would be 100% easier if it was on JLCPCB's pick and place inventory so I have to do less solder work. I've contacted LCSC and asked them why the PFS173 inventory is at zero. (Going through Aliexpress would mean it's at around $0.41/chip instead of a few pennies. Probably not a problem, I've probably already put more time and effort into researching down this chip, and there is this code repo that already is specialized towards the PFS173.) Hoping to be able to build this one day. I found this project from the media.ccc.de interview.