Autumn is here and so are the colds!

Well once again it's long time no blog. Family life means that business is now pretty much restricted to business hours, apart from ebay enquiries that are still answered at all hours and over the weekends! Time as always is a precious and scarce thing, much more so now I'm actually a family man. One of the things currently eating at my time is illness, not the really bad kind, but man flu, sniffles and sore throats. You can work though them but they put a dampener on the day and mean you only do the bare minimum. I have to admit to dodging the phone when I'm feeling poorly which is never a good thing. A few words can turn an annoyed customer into an understanding customer and sort everything out. Note to self. Answer phone.

Now I'm struggling to find a point to this blog post, apart from the naval gazing introspection above.
I should probably tell you about the new products we have in. We've just listed a slew of new items on ebay. Mostly they are prewired LEDs a category now bursting with over 300 listings and there are more to come! Mainly in the likes of mix packs which are proving very popular.

In the next few weeks we're expecting more new stock, including a LED tester at long last!

This is just an artists impression but we can't wait to see the finished article for sale! (Quite sad I know but this is what makes us tick!)

Few and Far Between!

The blogs posted on here have become fewer and further between. What there has been of them has been fairly short and mainly talks about the actual blog rather than what we have been doing. Much like this one!

Well we have been working very hard, both for the business and in personal lives. A bathroom has been fitted and a kitchen is WIP. Scarlett is growing by the day, as I believe is customary for babies.

Previously the focus of the business has been to grow by expanding our product range and recently we've taken on Big Clive's excellent PCBs (Floodlight and Spotlight) There are a few other new bits and bobs on the site which are hopefully of interest, such as transistors, diodes and RGB colour changing LEDs.

On the whole I feel the site needs a good facelift, and it's on the to do list. Ebay listings need an overhaul too and VAT needs adding to all products.

We've decided though that rather than bringing in more and more products we'd like to sell the ones we already stock, but better and we're working on some tutorials and guides of what you can do with the LEDs, which should hopefully provide a little inspiration. We've made a place to put these all too, our forums. Please come along and say hi.

As a starter one of our customers has provided a guide for building a lit shelf for your PC using our SMD LED TAPE

Reproduced with Permission

So here's a basic guide to making one.

Step 1

12mm right angle cross section.

You can get lengths of the stuff from most DIY stores in aluminium or plastic. As this was not for strength, put simply to raise the floor, plastic was sufficient ( and far cheaper as i had to buy 2.8m of the stuff )

Simply cut to size with a Stanley knife, and in my case, spray the outside edge with black paint.

Step 2

Fix some of my favourite SMD led tape, available from [url=http://www.phenoptix.com/shop/smd-led-tape-c-25_40.html]here[/url], to the inside face.

Dead easy as it is self adhesive.

If you position the top of the tape 3mm from the top of the plastic cross section, then the 3mm acrylic floor will sit on it flush.

Step 3

After experimenting with different options, i found that a simple piece of white printer paper acts as a great diffuser for the light to even the spread out under the acrylic floor.

Step 4

Secure your cross section to the case, and the acrylic will rest on the SMD tape.

Step 5

Sit back and admire your work

Short Update

Massive changes have occurred in the last six months since the last blog. We're now a larger business, VAT registered and a registered employer. A great deal of extra admin that pulled us away from marketing, and thus blogs.
Personally, I became a father to Scarlett Emily just before 2009 was up. A very proud moment but oh how do I miss sleep!
More updates to follow

Royal Mail Postal Strike

After much wrangling the workers of Royal Mail have decided to strike. As a business it's going to hurt us, there's no doubt about that. We're a mail order business and Royal Mail is our lifeblood.

We do however understand that strikes are a last resort. It seems that the media, the management and the government are against the workers on this one. We are not.

Although the strikes aren't good for us, we understand that they are necessary. They are due to start on the 22nd of October.

This is an edit: just been onto the bbc and I'm shocked at the lack of empathy for Royal Mail workers. Comments like "we never have the same postman anymore", "they closed our local post office" and "they leave the while you were out card when I was in". The decisions behind these changes are not from the workers on the ground, who are striking but the management they are against. The Royal Mail service has been run down over the last decade with an eye on privatisation. That is without a doubt what modernisation means. It will mean a service where Royal Mail is only the "last mile" courier. Anything that makes a profit will be sold off and the public will be saddled with the pensions deficit.

Rollercoaster Year

Well it's nearly a year since phenoptix stopped being a hobby and turned into a full time job.
Lots has changed, including our product range and website. We're about to move offices too, which is long overdue. We're custom building which sounds rather grand.

Where phenoptix starts and Ben ends.

Having been phenoptix, the name of my LED business, on all manner of forums for about 6 years now it feels like my business identity is also my own. phenoptix (always lower case) has a number of online outlets for my opinions but as phenoptix, the legal business entity, grows I (Ben) feel that I should actually use some of these same outlets for my own personal feelings rather than channel them through phenoptix.
Firstly phenoptix doesn't have an opinion on Lily Allen's recent outbursts on filesharing, I on the other hand think that she cunningly advertised in her early days that her work was available on limewire, and nowadays she's against the whole thing along with Darth Mandleson. A bit two faced methinks.
Anyway phenoptix needs to write a blog now.

The Silent Strikes

It seems all of Royal Mail are taking it in turns to have the day off. It's what they call rolling "wildcat" strikes and the effect is crippling the postal service. However it seems they are not getting national coverage.
The net result is that lots of people are not getting their items, and we're getting it in the neck.
Have a look here http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1213283/Postal-strike-chaos-Post-Office-managers-forced-sort-mail-pavement.html