The stock shortages have wreaked havoc! While I expect that large companies are impacted more, it has cost me as well.

I just cannot put a PCB together because various components are unavailable. I can go to one PCB fabricator; they suggest that all is fine and well; it comes to ordering, and I find that they don’t have stock of some key components. Often, the prices have gone up as well.

I then look for another fabricator, hoping that _they’d_ happen to have stock for my components. But they too are short in something else.

Finding and choosing different components is a real hassle as well, because, well, whatever new component you choose might well have the same problems.

PCB fabrication was a simple thing, pre-Covid. Now, it has become a very time-consuming, and expensive, hassle.

For key components such as the CPU, re-design is not trivial. It’s the heart of the system; a hell of a lot of work will ensue, even if you happen to find a closely matching part.