All the nubs are there! (2011 - 01 - 11)

[Sugar_Kane]

No that's good, I don't want to sow seeds of doubt. I've just got these damn metaphorical ants in my trousers

 

[Link]

But when did OP change the contract to remove assembly? As I remember reading through the posts/forums and such, OP had been patiently waiting on a estimate for the assembly portion of the Pandoras after the boards were completed. Who would sign an open ended contract saying they will pay whatever number cost CC they come up with? It was when CircuitCo finally gave a price for assembling the Pandoras that OP declined to have them do that.

Just from what I initially remember was somewhere along the line, assembly was moved from Texas to Craig's Village Hall in the UK (Pandora Land). I never said the contract was open ended. I think the cost to do assembly in October of 2008 versus April/May 2010 is what changed. I am also glad they get paid along the way too, not when they are done 4000 boards.


Regardless, what Craig said stands, CC is making boards, what we all have paid them to do. Let's be happy about it and not dwell in past problems. I'm pretty stoked and I am still waiting on Pandoras as well.

 

[levi]

Although things are progressing slowly but surely (sadly it's looking like I was right to have doubts about receiving mine in January, but I'm holding on to a shred of hope!), I still have this horrid feeling that everything is going to grind to a halt again. Does anybody else feel like this?

Heh, of course! How can anyone who's followed this project since ordering opened not expect just one more thing to go wrong, after all the things that have happened so far? But for everyone on the project's sake (not to mention those with an order in the first batch) I hope that's not the case. I just prefer to be surprised when things go right rather than disappointed when they go wrong.

 

[benji_stein]

@foxblock - Thanks. I appreciate your support. I'll admit there's sometimes hostility in my tone, but it's because I'm tired of being dismissed, especially by OPT when they refuse to acknowlege things. I can't think of how many times someone said "What about XXX? Might be a problem soon", OPT said "nah, won't be an issue", and then it was. (I can think of many, including the Board production being a major holdup.) I'm also tired of waiting two years for the product, and it comes out sometimes.


@Link,

The contract was to make 4000 boards in the first batch. ED told us a good bit of this time that he didn't trust what CC was saying and doing and was basically giving us the worst case scenario. I truthfully think that CC does not owe this community or OPT an explanation for doing what they did. They did produce 900 boards and didn't get paid. Now they are making and completing batch 1. They have had to pay the people assembling these boards and the electric bills for the machines in the months since they started producing boards. I have no idea what the components for the boards may take up spacewise, but they stored things as a courtesy and a liability (fire, natural disaster, things we know can happen). Where was that in the contract? That OPT should be paying CC rent for storage for a 2 Month™ project that is now taking 9.

It would be a very poor contract if they only paid at the end. I was under the impression that CC would be paid as they shipped the boards - and this has now been confirmed by ED. Storage for a few spools of resistors/capacitors/etc isn't much. They're common, and probably on hand, anyway. The only parts worth talking about are the cables, LCDs, chips (maybe), etc. But Texas is big, their warehouse is undoubtedly big, and so space is cheap. And they pay people and bills by producing items for other customers - which they no doubt have. No time on the machines for OPT means we're not taking up electricity or manpower.

Who was jerking who around? You keep looking at all of this from only the Pandora consumer perspective. Saying things like that's easy regarding opening a second production facility? Also, initially CC was going to assemble the Pandoras, but then OPT changed the contract because of saving costs and the fact that the cost of doing business in the world has gone through significant increases for goods and materials since October 2008. This is something to keep in mind, because by changing the contract, OPT was taking money out of CCs pocket by doing the assembly themselves. I have no idea as to what was agreed upon initially, but hypothetically speaking, OPT could have already breeched one or two contracts, first by changing assembly and second by stopping production for nubs.

Definitely two sides to every story. And if it was OPT that was spining tales to us, then I retract my statements, and blame them instead. But for some reason I believe ED when he tells us he told us the truth as he knew it. But I don't know, which is why I keep asking for CC's side of the story. But no one will tell us, and that just makes me more suspicious of everyone involved.


As Drenyx points out (I'm a little late), OPT shouldn't have signed an agreement without a price. Because they would never have paid $100 per Pandora assembled. So my guess is it was a tentative agreement, which makes it not a breach. Or prices changed, so the previous contract was voided, and OPT decided to not make a new one with assembly. It's certainly not "taking money from CC", if they'd never had it or that price was changed.

The Pandora is the little guy, and considering that the project has limited capital to pressure the company with litigation as was suggested by you previously for breeching contract. If they're not making boards right now, then that would be breeching that contract if they refused. They've never refused, just told us they were done a few thousand boards which we couldn't supply them with the nubs to fit them with anyway. Maybe somewhere along the lines of communication there was a miscommunication about 2000 Panda Boards being done, or 2000 Beagle Boards being done. Maybe it was an outright lie thinking nobody was hopping a flight to Texas to check them out. If these boards were finished, they would have been sitting in storage until last week thanks to nubs. I don't think a contract was breeched, a lie might have been told.

Contract: they'll have all the boards done by October 18. Result? Two months later, they haven't completed *any*. (Ok, fine, maybe 200 - that's less than 10%). Sounds like a breach to me.


You're right. Pandora is a little guy, and that's why they have to stand up for themselves. Breach conditions should be in the contract, and it's a fine line to walk. Threatening breach can make people shape up, and get what you want, or they could call your bluff, and delay the production. At this point, I think the extra delay is worse, now that they seem to be producing again. But that doesn't mean OPT doesn't deserve reparations, afterwards.


Were their actions understandable? Sure. I completely understand not wanting to spend the time/money on the boards, if OPT didn't have to pay yet. So ask them to pay x% on boards without nubs, with 1-x% paid when the nubs go on, and delivery. Or tell OPT they're going to wait for the nubs. Both are fine. Lying is not. And don't give me junk about Panda Boards instead of Pandora Boards. CC knew precisely which ones OPT was interestred in.

I am not a yes man either. I think it is CCs turn to give the Pandora some priority now that this job can be finished and they can get paid. Rather than them telling us why they lied or if they lied, I'd rather just have another 4000 boards nubbed and ready to roll 5 minutes sooner than it would take for them to give us that explanation.

I disagree. I would prefer the explanation to the 10 more Pandoras in those 5 minutes. The explanation is vital to my future interaction with them. This isn't a game, it's business, where we have a repeated interaction with people, or at least they interact with others who might be future customers. Then again, maybe it's just me. I'm the kind of guy who thinks that Airline companies should give explanations for why their flight was delayed; more than just "mechanical difficulties", especially when they make you get off and then back on.

To me it was common sense what they did. If someone owes you money for goods they received on consignment, the best way to get the money out of them is to let them think you have more goods. If that requires a lie or some mistruths, then its all part of the game. You then get paid for goods consigned and can say, oh, it will be Two Months™ until we have more.

Again, no. There was no owing of money involved; OPT had paid for the first thousand boards. Saying "we won't make more until you pay us" is reasonable, as is "we won't make more until we're sure you'll be able to pay us for all of them" (put some money in escrow?). Or just, "we won't make more until we have all the parts." Saying "We're just about done with all of the parts you asked for," to find out that none are yet made (guess what, not gonna get paid now!) is atrocious.

To continue on that note, if you know you can't trust someone's word, then you know you can't. What will the explanation do? Make you trust CC? What will make me trust them is how quickly and efficiently they can produce the rest of the boards they've been contracted to do. The sooner they finish boards, LCD cables, and video out cables, the sooner they get paid. My bet is this takes < Two Months™.


As Craig said, it took a lot of communication and physical intimidation (Trey is Hulk) to get CC to start making boards. I think all it would have taken was nubs that worked from the beginning. Or just nubs that didn't to go through multiple revisions after the final revision.

I try and give people the benefit of the doubt. I think I can't trust them, but maybe, just maybe, they have a good reason. Obviously OPT has some reason to think that they can trust them, because they're sticking around. I want to know why. Because they were all ready to jump ship before. It's not just "oh, well they seem to be good, now." That's like saying "I thought my girlfriend loved me, but I found out she cheated with my best friend. Now she's acting faithful again, so I can trust her." There has to be more than just that to rebuild the lost trust. I do sure hope it's less than Two Months, but I'm definitely not going to hold my breath just yet.


I personally think it was less about the communication and intimidation. They delayed Trey coming (twice) because they weren't ready. They could have made that a fair bit longer. They could also have shown nothing, or very little, and then still done very little until Trey went back again (has he even visited a second time?). I think it was the nubs. Which is fine, and understandable, as has been repeatedly said. The lying was not.

And Benji, your posts don't offend me. I understand your concern. It's that your wording and choice of questions, you ask some good ones don't get me wrong, but you also tend to ask questions that aren't really our business sometimes. What bothers me is that when people ask one good question, they don't get an answer, you ask 2 good questions, 8 bad ones, and get 10 answers regularly. I saw you asking about the Ebay auctions and that was why I asked if you preordered. I don't want to know your order #. I have some of my own that I'm concerned about and that is why I wish to not burn the bridge with CC (which I think threatening litigation would do). I would rather my board be made in the US than Taiwan as well. Jobs in America producing something are on the endangered species list. That is a story for another day.

I'd say it's more like 10 questions, 3 of which I don't expect to get answered (but I try), two of which are rhetorical, and then only 2 of which get answers (if I'm lucky). I had to push very hard to get an answer about the TV cables, and it was only this thread that got a "we decided to wait a little longer" which is fine, but not what ED originally said they'd do.


I asked about the ebay Pandoras because, like everyone else, I'm pretty tired of waiting. Given all of the past history and delays, as much as I want to believe it's all over, I'm still suspicious, and would be happier with a guaranteed Pandora now than maybe getting one in Two Months . I also saw the comment about VAT in the stalker, and wanted to clarify.

Thanks for reading.


+1


I still fear Chinese New Year and Moon Cake

Glad to read. And I agree with you 150% about Chinese New Year - I asked about it a while ago, and got dismissed by ED (same thread).

Other than this fact, yes I agree that things always need to be looked at from both sides, and while I don't agree with CC lying to their customers, I can also understand why they did it from a business point of view. Whatever happened in the very beginning with CC can be explained by needing us to wait in line for our turn. Since then, they lied to us, but it's impossible to produce something unless you have all the pieces to do so.

Depends what it is. If one part goes on much later, you can do everything up until then, to streamline the later steps. Craig's done it for assembly by pre-assembling some of the LCD halves of the cases.

It's costly to touch the same thing (board in this case) more than you have to. It adds another phase at least to the board production. If they were to populate all the boards minus the nubs, that sounds great to us on paper. But I'm sure CC sees it as not only adding to what they have to store, but they have to unstack and rehandle every board also. They would be spending more time to produce what does have a price tag set on it and losing their profit margin.


All this being picked apart, they are shipping boards now in reasonable amounts for reasonable times, and lets see how things go from here.

From my understanding, putting on the nubs was another phase, already. It just adds a delay between the two phases. Stack/store/unstack does add some more time, but I can't say how much. Plus, it gets OPT out of their hair that much faster, and OPT's been a troubled child for quite some time.


I'm not yet convinced. But a few weeks should hopefully tell more.


PS. Fun fact: In the writing of this post, I hit the maximum "allowed number of quoted blocks of text"! (10, apparently)

 

[MarioPandio]

There are still some of those 550 units to be shipped. Some need more testing and tweaking, that's why it takes a while longer.


I sent the next 400 LCD cables to Craig, so he can prepare the next lids for the 500 boards going out from CC next week (hopefully).


I also have over 1000 more to solder at my place... that will eat some of my nights


When those 500 boards have been shipped, we'll have 2000 Pandoras out! Over halfway through!


I also got the first samples of the new LCD cables today.


They are way more flexible and have wider traces. They look higher quality and should be WAY more sturdy than the old ones.


This should be the end of the purple haze which still occurs with some of the old cables (luckily only with some )

Yay! Great news. I had wondered if prior repairs and the newer units already had these new cables but now I know thats not the case and that the future is bright but not orange or purple

@foxblock - Thanks. I appreciate your support.


PS. Fun fact: In the writing of this post, I hit the maximum "allowed number of quoted blocks of text"! (10, apparently)

Been a fun and thoughtful discussion and plenty to read anyway

 

[EvilDragon]

Definitely two sides to every story. And if it was OPT that was spining tales to us, then I retract my statements, and blame them instead. But for some reason I believe ED when he tells us he told us the truth as he knew it. But I don't know, which is why I keep asking for CC's side of the story. But no one will tell us, and that just makes me more suspicious of everyone involved.

Well, you can try and ask CC... we never got a reply.

As Drenyx points out (I'm a little late), OPT shouldn't have signed an agreement without a price. Because they would never have paid $100 per Pandora assembled. So my guess is it was a tentative agreement, which makes it not a breach. Or prices changed, so the previous contract was voided, and OPT decided to not make a new one with assembly. It's certainly not "taking money from CC", if they'd never had it or that price was changed.

There never was a price incl. assembly. There was a price set for PCB production and that never changed.


We asked them what assembly would cost and as that was too high, we decided to not do it. No price or contract change.

Contract: they'll have all the boards done by October 18. Result? Two months later, they haven't completed *any*. (Ok, fine, maybe 200 - that's less than 10%). Sounds like a breach to me.

Yes and no.


Yes: Basically, if they SAY something like is, it's normally valid by law. But try to prove it.


No: There was no written contract that said they will be done October 18th.

I try and give people the benefit of the doubt. I think I can't trust them, but maybe, just maybe, they have a good reason. Obviously OPT has some reason to think that they can trust them, because they're sticking around. I want to know why. Because they were all ready to jump ship before. It's not just "oh, well they seem to be good, now." That's like saying "I thought my girlfriend loved me, but I found out she cheated with my best friend. Now she's acting faithful again, so I can trust her." There has to be more than just that to rebuild the lost trust. I do sure hope it's less than Two Months, but I'm definitely not going to hold my breath just yet.

Easy: Costs and reliability.


As you said, you could also understand why they didn't continue producing boards.


While telling us they did is what's annoying, the boards they built are working and reliable, and the Pandora is not an easy board to build.


If they now continue to spit out boards at that rate now that they have all the parts, why change?


It costs money (as you need to setup stuff at the new company) and you cannot be sure it works right away. With OMAP PoP and and 8-layer board, there could be a lot of complications until everything runs properly.


Switching over to them within Batch 1 would have costed about 20.000 USD just to move the parts over (if that would've been enough!).


The boards work, not a single one has failed yet and they seem to produce them reliable so far since they got the nubs.


We'll see within the next few weeks if they continue to work reliable, and then we can still decide to switch or not.

Glad to read. And I agree with you 150% about Chinese New Year - I asked about it a while ago, and got dismissed by ED (same thread).

We are aware of the the Chinese new year. As I repeatedly said: If we have to move Batch 1 to Taiwan (and Taiwan is not China by the way), we also wanted the cases there since they also offer assembly and that might've sped things up.


So no need to ship them until now.


Now we know we will finish to build them in UK, so Fatih arranges the pickup and transport to UK.


Where's the big deal?


If you want, you can send us about 200.000 USD and we'll start setup and building units at the new company, ship parts around like hell and produce the cases in UK.


That's what this would all cost approximately.

From my understanding, putting on the nubs was another phase, already. It just adds a delay between the two phases. Stack/store/unstack does add some more time, but I can't say how much. Plus, it gets OPT out of their hair that much faster, and OPT's been a troubled child for quite some time.

Stack / Store / Unstack is actually a lot of work, since each board has to be packed into an anti-static bag, packed away and then later unpacked again, nubs soldered, pack again.


Packing 1000 boards takes them about 1 day (that's what they scheduled), so this whould be about 6 - 9 additional unpaid days just for packing and unpacking.


And as we pay after delivery and couldn't have managed to deliver the nubs to them, they would've had 3000 boards build which would've been unpaid. The work probably worth about 80.000 USD; that's probably something you don't want to do if you don't know that you'll ever get the money.

 

[Dude]

This is all good news...


IT only gets better from here on in folks!


I followed this a couple years ago, and knowing a thing or two with manufacturing, engineering, and assembly, testing, prototyping, this is no small undertaking...


Notice: this is NOT a homemade box out of wood and duct tape....


This process started a long time ago... I don't know how long ago really... The issue with the numbs was fairly small, but it did slow production.


There may be slow-downs here and there from now on in, but that's only to be expected. Shipping issues, and parts not arriving on time... etc...


All the tricks of the trade that have been learned by the team building the units, will only get BETTER!


With 500+ units that fast...it does sound as though they have streamlined and optimized the assembly process.


If anything, I hope they remember not to overwork themselves.

 

[WizardStan]

Yes and no.


Yes: Basically, if they SAY something like is, it's normally valid by law. But try to prove it.


No: There was no written contract that said they will be done October 18th.

Email counts as a valid form of contract. You may also want to invest in a device which records phone calls. Those are valid contracts as well.

 

[DaMummy]

on a sidenote, how can we sue opt for making a written contract that pandoras would be delivered 2 years ago?


im being sarcastic in case somebody doesnt know me by now.....

 

[benji_stein]

Firstly, ED. Thank you for the reply. I (and others) greatly appreciate it when you spend the time to do so.

Well, you can try and ask CC... we never got a reply.

You should push them harder. It sounded like you were trying, and were going to talk to the CEO. In particular, he was claiming you were spreading untruths about his company, and you needed to talk about it. What did he say? A lack of even an apology is damning, IMHO.


Either way, I appreciate the update on it. It's kind of like the joke status updates people used to ask for "Day 83: no new progress to report". Hearing that they won't even admit something makes me feel a little better knowing that you don't know something in this area I don't. Then again, it makes me trust them even less, and wonder why you're still sticking with them, and know something I don't ...

Yes and no.


Yes: Basically, if they SAY something like is, it's normally valid by law. But try to prove it.


No: There was no written contract that said they will be done October 18th.

You've told us repeatedly that you had emails with promises of this date. And we've told you (I remember telling a post about it shortly after the 18th) saying that email counts as a written contract. WizardStan concurrs, and I second him on the phone recording device, if it comes to it. CC seems to have done a lot of this to you, lately, and you should have something (even more) official/guaranteed for this next schedule. Because they really should have little excuse at this point not to make it.

Easy: Costs and reliability.


As you said, you could also understand why they didn't continue producing boards.


While telling us they did is what's annoying, the boards they built are working and reliable, and the Pandora is not an easy board to build.


If they now continue to spit out boards at that rate now that they have all the parts, why change?


It costs money (as you need to setup stuff at the new company) and you cannot be sure it works right away. With OMAP PoP and and 8-layer board, there could be a lot of complications until everything runs properly.


Switching over to them within Batch 1 would have costed about 20.000 USD just to move the parts over (if that would've been enough!).


The boards work, not a single one has failed yet and they seem to produce them reliable so far since they got the nubs.


We'll see within the next few weeks if they continue to work reliable, and then we can still decide to switch or not.

That's wonderful. It really is, and I'm overjoyed to hear it. But they've also made some nasty mistakes in the past. (Wireless trace, anyone?) And 'annoying' is quite an understatement, by the way, but I'll hope that's due to translation differences. (I would have said atrocious.) While I'm willing to excuse some of it, having a good bedside manner is important, at least in my book. I guess my problem is that you don't want to consider switching now, because it's too expensive, and there will be a long wait. But that'll still be an issue in a few weeks, so you'll never end up switching. It's kind of like the sunk cost dilemma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost_dilemma), though not quite.

We are aware of the the Chinese new year. As I repeatedly said: If we have to move Batch 1 to Taiwan (and Taiwan is not China by the way), we also wanted the cases there since they also offer assembly and that might've sped things up.


So no need to ship them until now.


Now we know we will finish to build them in UK, so Fatih arranges the pickup and transport to UK.

Taiwan is not China, but my understanding is that they celebrate their new year at the same time, or at the very least because they have a fairly large Chinese population around.


That aside, you need to make up your mind. Either (1) It's prohibitively expensive to try and start production in a second location, or (2) it's worth the expense to get it done with. If the latter, then you should start production somewhere else, and if it's the former, then I'm still not sure why you waited before. It would have been just as expensive then, though you may not have known it, I suppose.

Where's the big deal?


If you want, you can send us about 200.000 USD and we'll start setup and building units at the new company, ship parts around like hell and produce the cases in UK.


That's what this would all cost approximately.

If you're going to ship the cases now, no big deal. My concern is that you decide to wait longer, maybe until you're ready to order the TV cables, or perhaps until they have a few hundred (thousand) they can ship with the cases. Wait that long, and it's liable to be close to CNY, and so we'll run into additional delays, which it would be better to avoid. I'm honestly just trying to help, but I'll hopefully have my Pandora by then, if my EON (Estimated Order Number) is correct.

Stack / Store / Unstack is actually a lot of work, since each board has to be packed into an anti-static bag, packed away and then later unpacked again, nubs soldered, pack again.


Packing 1000 boards takes them about 1 day (that's what they scheduled), so this whould be about 6 - 9 additional unpaid days just for packing and unpacking.


And as we pay after delivery and couldn't have managed to deliver the nubs to them, they would've had 3000 boards build which would've been unpaid. The work probably worth about 80.000 USD; that's probably something you don't want to do if you don't know that you'll ever get the money.

I'm a little surprised if there's no way to store them in bunches (vacuum pack an entire tray?), but I'll believe you if you say there isn't. And so I understand if they didn't want to do it for that reason. But then they need to say so, and/or offer some alternative, like, you pay us 70% to make/store the boards, with the last 30% due on delivery with the nubs attached. Or just say they won't do it, and here's why. But not saying anything is bad, and telling you that they've made them (a flat out lie) is even worse. It's like a ponzi scheme - "Yeah, yeah. Your money's growing, I promise!" And you tell us they never even gave you the courtesy of a reason. Wow.

on a sidenote, how can we sue opt for making a written contract that pandoras would be delivered 2 years ago?


im being sarcastic in case somebody doesnt know me by now.....

I realize you're joking, but it actually wouldn't work. In breach of contract, you try to argue that the breach lost you more money than you paid. So, for example, the delay (of two years, say, though not all of it was CC's fault) cost OPT X dollars - if they'd gotten to market a lot earlier the technology would have been newer (it's still good, just not as great), there would have been fewer devices in a related niche (smart phones, MIDs, netbooks, tablets, whatever), and OPT could argue they would have sold a lot more. These are the reparations that you get paid (or some percentage thereof). Your setback from the breach? The $330 USD you paid for your Pandora. Here's your refund, sir. Have a nice day. Sorry, but that's all you'd be able to get.

 

[Sugar_Kane]

Wall of text too big. Brain shutting down.

 

[DaMummy]

Wall of text too big. Brain shutting down.

its better to just go to suspend, i think you achieve this by closing your lid...eye lids that is, i hear a lot of complaints from people that it takes too long to come back from a shut down

 

[Timstertoo]

I'd say that if CC is producing the boards at an acceptable speed and with the quality OPT wants to see there's no point in looking back.


Do we want a board company that does those two things? Are they doing that right now? If the answer is yes to both questions we've got the board company we want regardless of the past.


I think holding a grudge and acting on that grudge will be a costly thing in both time and money and is not smart business even though it might feel really really good to switch on them. With them getting some money and mutual trust being restored they very well may turn out to be a great partner in future endeavors.


With Craig doing a great job assembling the Pandora's as soon as the boards arrive and ED making sure there are enough cables and the nubs being in Texas the way I see it the last worry is where the cases are. (although I might have missed a post about them arriving amongst all the activity) As soon as they are in Newcastle it should be a steady flow of units until OPT runs out of customers. 500 a week, every week would mean the rest of batch one and the 4k of batch two shipped within 3 months

 

[chosen]

Wall of text too big. Brain shutting down.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/KUYhqUgg-ig?feature=oembed&start=70 (sorry!)

Hopefully Circuitco will keep on pumping out the boards! OPT don't need any extra costs at this stage, and no-one wants any further delays.

 

[craigix]

My brain now rejects this thread.

 

[MasterP]

Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?

 

[Tokiopop]

All 4000 out by the end of February?

 

[Farox]

All 4000 out by the end of February?

Maybe...

 

[double7]

All 4000 out by the end of February?

That will be month number two. There they are, you can't escape the !

 

[FaeMinx]

Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?

Exqueeze me? What the fuzz are you on about...


*Drugs are bad m'kay?*

All 4000 out by the end of February?

That would be fantastic! But isn't it more like 500 every 2 weeks? (That get shipped out to us after assembly)