A promising development from the US of A.
Michael had a looong conference call with the board production company today to discuss about how to proceed and speed up production.
Here is a short summary of the results of the discussion with them and the current plans of both us and the company:
EvilDragon is pumping out the new material today, with two new videos and a roundup of the nub situation. The gist of the blog post is that we may be about to see the last of the nub holdups, and a more consistent flow of completed boards out of Texas. Amen to that.
Well, quite a few things have happened, so here is another update for you.
1. All about the nubs
In case you didn’t know yet: Quite a few nubs had problems right from the beginning (a failure rate of 20 – 25% is just inacceptable!) and even some of the working ones have failed a while later (though not too many, thankfully).
The last mention of production status was back on the 14th, when EvilDragon told us there were 200 more boards on the way to the UK. Those boards are now making their way into cases, and out to customers. This will bring the total number of Pandoras in the wild to approximately 900. As for the next lot of boards:
Also we’re told to expect 500(!) boards in the next batch, so, wow, that will be a lot of work. Not sure we can manage 500 in a week but we shall see.
(craigix)
ps. We’re trying something different on the old unofficial roadmap. No more tables or infographics, no more predictions, just a log of notable events. It’s not even a roadmap any more, but we’ll still call it that. Here.
It was hoped that 200 more boards would arrive in the UK this week, but there is nought to report. The problem seems to be between the nub factory tightening up their quality control, and the board factory getting in step with them. Throw in some dud UPS promises and pinch of misc, and you’ve got yourself a regular old Friday in Pandoria. EvilDragon elaborates somewhat in the forum posts linked below.
A classy new vid from EvilDragon, demonstrating the current state of Pandora software (thanks in no small part to the Pandora community, who are pumping out the releases). Sadly it’s just going to make you want your Pandora more, but never the less it’s worth heading straight to the source to watch it in 720p. Also, a word from Craig on the next lot of boards, which are set to turn up on Monday again.
203 boards arriving on Monday with the nubs tested (if UPS don’t mess up).
There are 203 cases ready for those boards to go straight in to so they will ship next week too.
Then we hope it’s all go go go for Aug/Sept.
Every few hundred we make we improve the build process, this is very important to get right since we plan to use this case and system for a couple of years.
(craigix)
Well, there’s not much for me to say. This is an excellent and long update from EvilDragon that many of us have been waiting for. It answers a lot of questions about the hardware status, current build state, and everything in-between.
Enjoy:
EvilDragon on the official blog:
Preparing the big run
It’s been kinda quiet in here lately, hasn’t it?
Well, I hope this will change in the near future and I’ll find more time keeping you up-to-date with what’s happening.
During the last days, it has been so incredibly hot in here… 30°C in my room at night… it was really hard to concentrate on what you’re doing.Good news: The Cases
4000 new cases have been produced and are being painted at the moment. Over 1000 of them will ship using UPS, the rest will probably go by sea (takes a bit longer, but is way cheaper… and we will be busy with the first 1000 cases until they arrive).
And yes, you read correct: It will be 4000 cases. We will need some for replacements ourselves – and I guess quite a few of you will want to be able to buy replacement cases for modding, etc. yourselves.
Thank god, case production seems to work fine now.
Team Pandora have run out of boards. Don’t panic, it’s a good thing. This means the first lot of 700 boards, all of which required the manual wifi mod by MWeston, have now found their way into 700 Pandoras! [edit- maybe?] Not bad for the first week of work. (We previously thought they had 1500 boards on hand, but well, we were wrong). The next board shipment from Texas is due to land this Thursday or Friday. It should contain 700 to 800 boards.
It’s been a steep learning curve for the team so far, with assembly and testing procedures evolving as each day passes. Several tasks have been identified as needless time eaters, which could be done more efficiently as the cases come off the line in China. Craig explains:
There’s nothing outrageously new to report at this moment, but there are a lot of questions rolling around about the actual status of things, so let’s see if we can’t get everyone onto the same page.
First, numbers. There are a lot of numbers floating around. 1,000 this, 700 that, 8,000 this. There are 4,000 Pandoras in the first batch, so why not just get 4,000 cases, 4,000 boards, 4,000 LCDs and staple them all together? Testing and quality control is the answer. The board factory in Texas is populating and testing boards in manageable lots of 500-700. The case factory in China is sending 1,000 cases first, and will produce the rest in one run when Craig & co say go. (In this instance “the rest” means 9,000 more cases; the minimum order was 10,000, so this will cover the second batch as well).
Yesterday we were under the impression that only the Pandora boards and battery compartment stickers had turned up in the UK. EvilDragon now tells us that the LCDs and other bits & pieces have arrived as well, hopefullly rounding out the total ton from Texas.
Yesterday, we were in for quite a surprise!
On Thursday, air traffic was back to a regular state – but delivery services (like UPS) have quite a backlog and need some time to catch up.
They told us, our shipment won’t arrive before early next week.
Boards and stickers, that’s what. UPS has dumped some boxes earlier than expected, with all the grace and accuracy of a Scud. With no mention of LCDs and other parts yet, it looks like Craig will be camped on the roof to see which neighbour gets the next delivery. Hit the first source link for all the fun.
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