And so they double... (2010-09-30)

[EvilDragon]

More news already!


How many Pandora Boards are out there?


While most of you guys would say "just below 1000", this is not entirely true anymore.


Yeah, there are about 800 - 900 boards in the hands of the users already - but according to a notice we got from Texas today, there are already 1000 more almost finished.


(Almost finished means: They have been populated by the machine and are just missing the manually placed parts like volume wheel, etc.)


So you could say: The boards doubled. It looks like October 18th is a realistic date for them to finish after all!


Cases finished, boards on a good way - what's left is the nubs.


To squeeze the most out of them, they are also trying a way more sturdy, high-grade automotive silicone material.


However, that material needed to be ordered - and won't be there until sometime next week (we don't know for sure when yet, but we're gonna ask).


So on the downside, it still takes a bit longer - but on the other side, it means that the quality of the nubs should be top-notch!


You guys waited so long, you don't deserve nubs that fail after a few weeks!


And be honest: Do you rather want to wait a bit longer and get proper nubs or get your unit NOW the flakey ones? (be careful what you reply, as we could ship one with the old ones to you - but on your own risk)


Of course, we'll make sure to have everything prepared when the nubs are finished to get the Pandoras as fast as possible out to you.


If everything is prepared, we can assemble 200 units per day.


October 17th is my birthday - and my wish is: All boards finished and non-failing, great-working nubs at least ready for mass production.

 

[Tickles]

I'll wait a bit longer for proper nubs please Thanks for the update ED, sounds like everything might just be going to plan this time.

 

[WizardStan]

Not criticizing, just curious, didn't they say "500 per week" 4 months ago? Is there a reason they took so long to produce the next 1000? Nubs or no nubs, couldn't they have produced and cold stored them? Or did they intentionally halt production because they didn't want to cold store them?

 

[gruso]

^ IIRC, they indeed did not want to cold store too many boards. It seems they're being a little more flexible on that now.


In my opinion, they (Texas) overstated their abilities from early on. 500 per week has been the number quoted since 2008. Yet they recently said they added a new machine to allow them to meet this figure.


Anyway, great news ED.

 

[benji_stein]

I wrote a response over here:


http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/56835-two-years-today/page__view__findpost__p__919780


before I saw this double-post (pun intended).

 

[trapef]

Great News once again, this is becomming a habit


I'd rather wait the extra two weeks for better nubs. However, saying that - will you need to do another set of nub testing with the new material?


Great work ED et al, and fingers crossed for a productive October.

 

[Dead1nside]

Thanks for the update. We'll just have to wait for the nubs and be glad the massive blunder on their part, didn't go unnoticed until all 4000 were in the wild: that would have been a disaster for everyone.


I'm still hopeful for by Christmas but that'll be slap bang in the middle of my dissertation.


Keep up the great work ED.

 

[notyu1459]

If everything is prepared, we can assemble 200 units per day.

From what point in time? I'm in 2200-2300 and I am waiting anxiously to get mine. When am I getting mine at this rate?

October 17th is my birthday - and my wish is: All boards finished and non-failing, great-working nubs at least ready for mass production.

Hope you get your birthday wishes. Funny how your birthday aligns itself with the board production deadline :lol:

 

[EvilDragon]

From what point in time? I'm in 2200-2300 and I am waiting anxiously to get mine. When am I getting mine at this rate?

From when we get the finished boards. Depending on the nubs this could start sometime mid until end October.

 

[dapoangel]

From when we get the finished boards. Depending on the nubs this could start sometime mid until end October.

i really hope that it will start this october.


i also wish that the batch 2 orders can be shipped before christmas... ^_^


best of luck to you guys and more power!

 

[NoeleyC]

More news already!


How many Pandora Boards are out there?


While most of you guys would say "just below 1000", this is not entirely true anymore.


Yeah, there are about 800 - 900 boards in the hands of the users already - but according to a notice we got from Texas today, there are already 1000 more almost finished.


(Almost finished means: They have been populated by the machine and are just missing the manually placed parts like volume wheel, etc.)


So you could say: The boards doubled. It looks like October 18th is a realistic date for them to finish after all!


Cases finished, boards on a good way - what's left is the nubs.


To squeeze the most out of them, they are also trying a way more sturdy, high-grade automotive silicone material.


However, that material needed to be ordered - and won't be there until sometime next week (we don't know for sure when yet, but we're gonna ask).


So on the downside, it still takes a bit longer - but on the other side, it means that the quality of the nubs should be top-notch!


You guys waited so long, you don't deserve nubs that fail after a few weeks!


And be honest: Do you rather want to wait a bit longer and get proper nubs or get your unit NOW the flakey ones? (be careful what you reply, as we could ship one with the old ones to you - but on your own risk)


Of course, we'll make sure to have everything prepared when the nubs are finished to get the Pandoras as fast as possible out to you.


If everything is prepared, we can assemble 200 units per day.


October 17th is my birthday - and my wish is: All boards finished and non-failing, great-working nubs at least ready for mass production.

Sorry to sound a bit pessimistic, but one can read this and get from it that all of the Pandora's produced so far have flakey nubs, not quite what I want to hear when my replacement one is due to be shipped any day now....

 

[cappuchok]

From when we get the finished boards. Depending on the nubs this could start sometime mid until end October.

I really hope this estimation holds. I do want the nubs to be as durable as possible, but it's really getting quite tiresome knowing that I'm just on the edge of the "unprocessed" queue, and still have to wait. October will be a busy month for me so not getting my Pandora in the middle of it all might actually be a good thing, though. But according to sales I should have had it in early September, so it's still a really annoying wait.


Oh well. Good things come to those who wait. *sigh*

 

[matzesu]

I would prever the new nubs whit the better material.., as long i get mine bevore mid november (im around 500 in ED Store, which means: in the next 1000)

 

[EvilDragon]

i really hope that it will start this october.


i also wish that the batch 2 orders can be shipped before christmas... ^_^


best of luck to you guys and more power!

Me too... it's really really tiresome for us, too - and it really needs A LOT of power.

Sorry to sound a bit pessimistic, but one can read this and get from it that all of the Pandora's produced so far have flakey nubs, not quite what I want to hear when my replacement one is due to be shipped any day now....

Well, we tried to sort out as many of the flakey nubs as possible, but there still are some that fail.


Mine are still working fine and I used them for over 9 months now.


It's not that all delivered nubs will break for sure, but the risk is WAY higher - and that could lead to crazy RMA costs and kill everything.


So we needed to find a solution for that - and that's what happening right now.


And any older nubs that fail will be replaced with new ones (within warranty time for free, after that you can either buy them yourself and change them or we'll probably offer a repair service for a small charge).


If they survive the warranty time without breaking, they're most probably fine. Most flakey ones died after 1 week - 1 month.

I really hope this estimation holds. I do want the nubs to be as durable as possible, but it's really getting quite tiresome knowing that I'm just on the edge of the "unprocessed" queue, and still have to wait. October will be a busy month for me so not getting my Pandora in the middle of it all might actually be a good thing, though. But according to sales I should have had it in early September, so it's still a really annoying wait.


Oh well. Good things come to those who wait. *sigh*

I guess that estimation had been done after we thought testing the nubs before shipping them would be enough... our plan was to test and use them until the new ones are there. But as the tested ones still aren't completely reliable, we couldn't continue with that.


We're also pretty pissed that the nubs haven't been stress tested before... but even if you're pissed, you have to find a solution for it, and that's what we're currently doing


We didn't have a single RMA where a board stopped working. LCD Cables sometimes still fail, but it's a very low number and we're still working on diminishing that problem completely.


The only big issue we had now were the nubs - so they need to be fixed.


Don't think we leave you alone with any problems there are. We want to fix them all, we don't want you to have half-working stuff

 

[NoeleyC]

Thanks for the clarification, makes things a bit clearer! I had to return my Pandora to Craig's shop after 2 weeks, issues with batteries and power, not sure what happened to it, but as far as I know I'm getting a new one instead! And the nubs were indeed great (as a PSP owner of old I can definitely appreciate a decent nub!!)

 

[JeFF]

My birthday is also october 17th, and I hope you will get your boards with nubs all ready for mass prodction.


I'm in batch 2, so i have to wait a bit longer

 

[fuji99]

Good stuff.

 

[levi]

Good news!


Just to clarify, does this mean the stress testing of the prototype nubs showed that a notable number were failing under extended use?

 

[EvilDragon]

Good news!


Just to clarify, does this mean the stress testing of the prototype nubs showed that a notable number were failing under extended use?

Yes. When you do a stresstest, a certain amount of nubs has to survive AT LEAST a certain number of cycles.


That means most will survive longer - it's a minimum thing.

 

[Yannick]

... (be careful what you reply, as we could ship one with the old ones to you - but on your own risk) ...

Just in case, if you do have units you do not want to ship with a warranty, i'll be voiding my warranty within 48h anyway.


EDIT: I would keep it as is, maybe PAY you somewhere in 2011 for new nubs, it's an offer i'd like to make.