International Customers for Q-tune kit

Rpschultz13

Rpschultz13

Well-known member
For any international customers, I've been thinking about a No Screen / No Enclosure option.
  • Purchase the screen here: Waveshare with touch.
  • Purchase the enclosure from Tayda.
    • Drill/UV templates provided.
  • We'd subtract our cost of the screen and enclosure. Sell for $112 + shipping.
Without these two items, it should allow us to ship UPS International for a reasonable rate, it will likely vary by country. Shipping would probably have to be on a case by case basis.

If this option is of interest, let us know.

Thanks!
 
Thanks for looking into this.

If anyone is wondering, the screen can be found for 25€ in the EU and (reliably?) 20 something on Aliexpress. And with the lower shipping and kit price, that would put the total under 150€+screen+enclosure so a fair bit cheaper than a full kit direct - especially because 150€ is a classical threshold to start paying import duties on top of VAT.
 
€150 also being a threshold of "just buy a commercial tuner" — unless you steadfastly wish to build your own tuner.


With shipping, duty/customs fees and tax, mine is definitely going to be quite a bit more expensive than my Turbo Tuner.

However, my Turbo has side-jacks (I was about to rehouse it with top-jacks when the Q-Tune was announced!), and my Turbo doesn't have fun & games/screensavers, my Turbo doesn't have a screen that can be oriented the way I want regardless of the pedal's orientation, my Turbo doesn't have a touch-screen that easily lets me adjust its parameters... the list goes on.

Lastly — My Turbo wasn't built by me.


Glad to see the Q-Tune guys pushing for ways to make this DIY-Tuner available globally.
 
We have plenty of screens now, and a couple 1590b’s left in the first batch. We think we can ship most places internationally for $35 UPS.

I'm wondering if there is any advantage of doing No Screen or No Enclosure. What would be the preferred option?
a) Full kit - $149 + $35 shipping
b) No enclosure - $137 + $35 shipping
c) No screen - $124 + $35 shipping
d) No screen, No enclosure - $112 + $35 shipping

The screen is by far the most expensive part of the kit, roughly 1/2 the total cost. So by having international customers buy it themselves, wouldn't that mean lower duty/customs? Without the screen, we could list the customs value at like $50 or something low like that.

I don't know much about this. Please advise. We are happy to provide the best option that is the most economical.
 
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Here in the UK, a competitor price of a Peterson is £120 (mini), £130ish (larger HD). Given we pay tax on shipping costs, that means 20% VAT covers both shipping and component price, it's going to put quite a pressure on the total DIY kit cost.

$149+$39 = $188.00 which is £139, then add 20% comes to basically £167 to the end customer. US goods under £136 (that's not including transport IIRC) means 0% import charges.. Over that and it could be up to 12% extra on that. Typically the US sender will not see that cost, but the receiving party will get a nice bill before they can pick up the parcel.

One way to perhaps differentiate (and be more attractive) is to add a luthier mode that provides some additional features with 0.01 Hz (with 96Ksps that should be accurate with 10x oversampling) to 2.4KHz.

A really cool feature would be:

Be able to set up a scale length, with a temperament, number of strings and frets, the nut and string spacings, It's easy then to create a fret frequency (including the slight differences between the strings due to string offset from the centre line).
Calibrating then setting a dB reference Vpp.

Rather than expend processing time attempting to detect the fret being played, or attempt to analyse the fretboard in it's whole, you could simply do the following:

[Hz detected] [note][octave] [dB]
[string 1 fret position] [cent] [dB] [heat map of readings vs centre frequency]
[string 2 fret position] [cent] [dB] [heatmap .. ]
..
[string 7 ...] [ cent] [heatmap ..]

If there's not a match simply make that string's space blank.

This would allow the guitar builder to see the accuracy of the frets.


I was building a python tool to take a sound clip of barred frets (from open to 24) to then build up this picture, ..I've got part way but time I don't have to really continue with that, so I looked at hacking the open daisy GitHub code and doing something similar.

The phase correlation approach is one I'm familiar with - I've done this with 2D and 3D image alignment using FFTs of the axis pixels strips. Also phase correlation works well against noise. I assume you're then displaying the phase peak vs reference peak to give the movement.
 
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NickKUK said:
A really cool feature would be:

Be able to set up a scale length, with a temperament, number of strings and frets, the nut and string spacings, It's easy then to create a fret frequency (including the slight differences between the strings due to string offset from the centre line).
Calibrating then setting a dB reference Vpp.

Rather than expend processing time attempting to detect the fret being played, or attempt to analyse the fretboard in it's whole, you could simply do the following:

[Hz detected] [note][octave] [dB]
[string 1 fret position] [cent] [dB] [heat map of readings vs centre frequency]
[string 2 fret position] [cent] [dB] [heatmap .. ]
..
[string 7 ...] [ cent] [heatmap ..]

If there's not a match simply make that string's space blank.

This would allow the guitar builder to see the accuracy of the frets.


I was building a python tool to take a sound clip of barred frets (from open to 24) to then build up this picture, ..I've got part way but time I don't have to really continue with that, so I looked at hacking the open daisy GitHub code and doing something similar.

The phase correlation approach is one I'm familiar with - I've done this with 2D and 3D image alignment using FFTs of the axis pixels strips. Also phase correlation works well against noise. I assume you're then displaying the phase peak vs reference peak to give the movement.
Click to expand...
That’d be an interesting project to tackle and one that is probably better suited for a full on desktop computer app would be my guess. Let’s say a tool like this maps out your fretboard … is it just informational or would you then take that info and modify the frets by re-crowning them/etc?
 
I LOVE the idea of buying one of these tuners. But I'm in Australia, and the kit at US$149 + US$35 shipping is about Aust$280 at the moment - and it will be more with credit card fees, paypal fees whatever. My Peterson mini is now Aust$189 (US$124) at my nearest store, but I usually get a decent discount and I think the last one cost me more like Aust$160 (US$105). So for now it's off my list unfortunately. I'm not too keen on getting parts from various places because it inevitably leads to more $$ than you think and there is potential for screw-ups.

I love the look, the top jacks, the specs, etc. Let's hope things change (and not just for us wanting to buy tuners!). Things are pretty screwed up right now. Surely it can only get better?? I'm sure that soon it will become ore affordable to us in far away places!
 
Honestly the Peterson Mini is an amazing tuner, and for it's price, not only the best commercially available tuner but also the best value. It's what I'd use if I didn't have a Q-Tune. I was a loyal Turbo Tuner user for ~15 years, but the Peterson Mini is better.

The No Screen / No Enclosure option is still probably the most economical for international customers because we could list a very low value on customs forms so there are less taxes/tariffs to pay.
 
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