An appointment and boards shipping (2011-07-22)

[EvilDragon]

I doubt I will get a price at that time already, doing a quotation for such a complicated board takes 3 - 4 weeks, so it will be another 1 - 2 weeks before I get anything like that.


It's a first meeting to get to know each other, discuss everything, check for any issues that could occur, make a production plan, etc.

 

[Miner49er]

I doubt I will get a price at that time already, doing a quotation for such a complicated board takes 3 - 4 weeks, so it will be another 1 - 2 weeks before I get anything like that.


It's a first meeting to get to know each other, discuss everything, check for any issues that could occur, make a production plan, etc.

So, any change of getting my unit before I go on my 3rd family holiday since I ordered (in 2 weeks)?


(approx. position ~1500, so I've been told)

 

[EvilDragon]

I doubt I will get a price at that time already, doing a quotation for such a complicated board takes 3 - 4 weeks, so it will be another 1 - 2 weeks before I get anything like that.


It's a first meeting to get to know each other, discuss everything, check for any issues that could occur, make a production plan, etc.

So, any change of getting my unit before I go on my 3rd family holiday since I ordered (in 2 weeks)?


(approx. position ~1500, so I've been told)

God knows.

 

[Miner49er]

I doubt I will get a price at that time already, doing a quotation for such a complicated board takes 3 - 4 weeks, so it will be another 1 - 2 weeks before I get anything like that.


It's a first meeting to get to know each other, discuss everything, check for any issues that could occur, make a production plan, etc.

So, any change of getting my unit before I go on my 3rd family holiday since I ordered (in 2 weeks)?


(approx. position ~1500, so I've been told)

God knows.

<big smile>


Oh well, ne'er mind it just would've been nice that's all

 

[elwing]

I doubt I will get a price at that time already, doing a quotation for such a complicated board takes 3 - 4 weeks, so it will be another 1 - 2 weeks before I get anything like that.


It's a first meeting to get to know each other, discuss everything, check for any issues that could occur, make a production plan, etc.

So, any change of getting my unit before I go on my 3rd family holiday since I ordered (in 2 weeks)?


(approx. position ~1500, so I've been told)

God knows.

god sez noes

 

[EvilDragon]

<big smile>


Oh well, ne'er mind it just would've been nice that's all

Believe me, we'd love to know this as well

 

[Blue Protoman]

Tell me, do any of the higher-ups at the companies you've worked with have the name "Murphy"? Or maybe someone in your life who doesn't like you?

 

[cosurgi]

I doubt I will get a price at that time already, doing a quotation for such a complicated board takes 3 - 4 weeks, so it will be another 1 - 2 weeks before I get anything like that.


It's a first meeting to get to know each other, discuss everything, check for any issues that could occur, make a production plan, etc.

do you bring a pandora PCB with you to show them?

 

[FRZ]

so, no dates yet? Well, good luck and hope they really finish batch1 this time.

 

[EvilDragon]

I doubt I will get a price at that time already, doing a quotation for such a complicated board takes 3 - 4 weeks, so it will be another 1 - 2 weeks before I get anything like that.


It's a first meeting to get to know each other, discuss everything, check for any issues that could occur, make a production plan, etc.

do you bring a pandora PCB with you to show them?

Sure, as well as a final working unit to show-off (and make them help us )

 

[noobermin]

I hope it goes well and you find people who actually deliver this time. CC shouldn't get anymore business

 

[EvilDragon]

Yep, it went pretty well


I think we found ourselves a new company. More info with a longer post and pictures tonight


Need to do some more RMA repairs for you guys

 

[FRZ]

Yep, it went pretty well


I think we found ourselves a new company. More info with a longer post and pictures tonight


Need to do some more RMA repairs for you guys

fantastic

 

[FRZ]

I hope it goes well and you find people who actually deliver this time. CC shouldn't get anymore business

I had a little thought on this today and concluded that it might not be all CC's fault but rather all the complications had something to do with it. Its unfortunate but, this experience was necessary.

 

[NoeleyC]

Yep, it went pretty well


I think we found ourselves a new company. More info with a longer post and pictures tonight


Need to do some more RMA repairs for you guys

fantastic

+1

 

[EvilDragon]

I hope it goes well and you find people who actually deliver this time. CC shouldn't get anymore business

I had a little thought on this today and concluded that it might not be all CC's fault but rather all the complications had something to do with it. Its unfortunate but, this experience was necessary.

Yes and no.


Of course, it wasn't CCs fault that we put a stop into production because WiFi had issues and we needed to fix that first.


It also wasn't CCs fault that we put another stop into production in September because the nubs failed.


However, CC confirmed us that the issues we ARE experiencing right now are mostly because the boards oxidated. That happens if they lie around unpopulated for about a year.


Last year in September, when the nub issue occured, Michael had a phone conference with them. They all agreed that they will populate ALL PCBs until October (and later December) WITHOUT the nubs, so that only the nubs need to be soldered onto all these boards when the new ones arrive.


The new nubs arrived in December / January. Soldering two nubs onto a Pandora board takes about 3 minutes. So one single person could've finished 160 Pandora boards within on shift.


If the boards would've been ready as promised, they wouldn't have oxidated and could've been finished until January / February.


Then Batch 2 could've been started in February / March and would also be finished by now.


In reality, end of December they had about 200 PCBs (out of 3000 remaining ones) populated.


And even worse for me is that when I asked the CEO early October how many have been finished he told me that it should be multiple thousands by now...


So yeah, I agree that CC is not to blame for all the starts and stops we had in the project because of nubs, WiFi, etc.


We are responsible for those.


But the GO for the PCBs has been given last year September, with an agreement to finish all PCBs immediately without the nubs.


The oxidation occured in March / April and started to cause A LOT of issues.


And that's what shouldn't have happened, as all boards were promised to be populated end of 2010.

 

[MasterJulian]

Great that you found a company. BTW is there a new shipment from CC and if so how many boards did they ship?

 

[benji_stein]

Yes and no.


Of course, it wasn't CCs fault that we put a stop into production because WiFi had issues and we needed to fix that first.

Sorry, I have to disagree with you here. The WiFi *was* their fault, remember? It was an issue with a trace resistance changing, throwing off the clock. See old blog.


Sure, we can argue about whether CC was free to change it, or if it was OPT's fault for not specifying that it had to be a specific value. But the fix was at least on their end (a new resistor) even if the original theory had been that it was software related. Better to delay and be certain.


With the stop for the nubs, it was clear it wasn't their fault, and the nubs needed to be revisited. No chance of issues on their end while fixing that.


The rest of your post I agree with, but they're definitely at least *partially* to blame for the starts and stops, not to mention the whole promising-and-not-delivering thing. Hopefully they're taking a big chunk of the blame for the oxidation issues.

 

[Linopoly]

Yes and no.


Of course, it wasn't CCs fault that we put a stop into production because WiFi had issues and we needed to fix that first.

Sorry, I have to disagree with you here. The WiFi *was* their fault, remember? It was an issue with a trace resistance changing, throwing off the clock. See old blog.

He's talking about this year's WiFi issue

 

[benji_stein]

Yes and no.


Of course, it wasn't CCs fault that we put a stop into production because WiFi had issues and we needed to fix that first.

Sorry, I have to disagree with you here. The WiFi *was* their fault, remember? It was an issue with a trace resistance changing, throwing off the clock. See old blog.

He's talking about this year's WiFi issue

That's possible - though it was unclear from the the ordering in ED's post. Though, while this year's issue was happening, some of OPT made it sound like production was still going on.


But even if it was the recent failure, the post he made about it said "It just seems to not have a proper connection to the antenna – maybe the module is misplaced a bit." I'm don't recall ever seeing more complete details about the problem, but feel free to correct me.


Even if it was unintentional, and hard to detect because of the minimal tests, it would again point towards CC as the culprit - production would still have slowed down if they'd been detected on-site, it just would have meant fewer boards being shipped back and forth across the pond.