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.
What's up with the nub?
Our challenges seem to continue - Murphy must really hate us, and I have no idea why. I'm not THAT evil, am I?
Well, as you might have seen on the boards, some nubs fail. While it was no catastrophic number (so far, 20 out of 600 units had to be replaced), combined with the ones that failed while testing, the failed number is too high.
We don't want to deliver units with broken nubs we have to replace after a while. This would not only lead to more delays (as working boards would go into replacement units instead to new customers), it would also mean A LOT of additional costs for us. Also, testing all the boards and sending them back to get the nubs desoldered and exchanged eats a lot of time and cost.
Thank god the nub manufacturing company is really helpful. They even followed the threads on the gp32x.de boards to see what problems occured and are now testing all the nubs. They admitted that something went wrong in the manufacturing process - and they know it's really urgent. Therefore, the first 400 fully working tested nubs should be ready to be soldered onto the waiting Panda-Boards in next week! The rest will follow soon after.
As we have 13.000 nubs (8000 for the Pandora and 5000 for the iControlpad - however, the Pandora has priority), there should be enough working nubs for the first batch. The failed ones will either be repaired or reproduced.
So the good thing is: This (last) issue is also being solved right now - the rest of the production works flawlessly now, so this is the last challenge for us it seems.
Still, we really want to apologize for the inconveniences some of you experienced there. That definately was NOT our plan. We will try to resolve this as soon as possible.
But what does that mean for further production? More delays?
Well, it will take a while until the next Pandoras will be shipped. Even the ones that should've been build this week (those 400 Craig mentioned) will have to be delayed since the nubs won't arrive before next week. We don't want to ship any more units where the nubs will break after a few days!
However, even with this break, it will speed things up. Why?
Well, because we don't just sit around: We prepare all the lids and base parts, so basically all units will be ready and simply need a board.
Building a single Pandora (with all the testing, etc. we do) takes about 16 - 17 minutes per unit at the moment. Also, we needed addtional 5 - 6 minutes to extensively test the nubs!
These are the steps needed to build a Pandora:
1. Solder the speakers to the LCD cables.
2. Put the LCDs into the lid. Connect the cables.
3. Place a few layers on top of the LCD cable to shield it (needed for CE).
4. Put the Antenna into the lid.
5. Roll the LCD cable and place it in the hinge. Put the antenna through the rolled cable.
6. Close the lid carefully to not kill the LCD cable.
7. Put the hinge in the base part.
8. Carefully pull the LCD cable through the base part, putting together the lid and the base and engage the hinge.
9. Put each button in (ABXY) as well as the left and right light pipes and the microphone holder into the base part.
10. Place the keymat into the base part.
11. Put the stylus holder into the bottom part.
12. Screw the lid together and put the screw covers on top of it.
13. Put the board into the the unit, connect LCD cable and antenna.
14. Put in the power switch, L and R buttons and screw the unit together.
15. Do a quick test (WiFi, controls, keyboard) and flash the firmware.
So, even if the boards arrive later - as long as we have the cases (which should arrive soon) and the LCD cables (where 3000 are on the way to me to be soldered), we can do most of the steps needed for assembly. Once everything is prepared and the boards arrive, the time needed per Pandora shouldn't be more than 5 minutes (instead of the 16 - 17 or even 22 - 24 when he had to test the nubs).
While those five minutes nub testing we needed didn't sound like much, it adds up: Testing the remaining 3600 would've taken 300 hours! Even if all four people were working on it, it would still take over a week for simply testing the nubs... and if 10% fail and have to go back, be desoldered, resoldered, etc. This would eat more and more time...
The company can test a nub in 30 seconds - so it won't take long until we have enough to build Pandoras. We are ready to assemble 200 a day - let's hope is that the board productions speeds up!
I know there will probably be a some ranting going on after I publish that blog post... but what should we do? The prototypes of the nubs were working, now too many fail.
The only option we have is to get this solved before shipping the Pandoras.
We will manage this last issue - we solved so many before
You guys have proven to be the best customers out there so far. Thanks a lot! It really helps me ease my mind a bit...
I'll keep you informed - and one thing you can be sure about: We'll continue with all our effort to finish the remaining units as soon as possible!
The feedback from the customers who already got a unit was better than I ever imagined - a lot of them are using the unit each day and love it!
And I do hope that ALL of you will have the same meaning about it, too!
Thanks for your ongoing support - now onto the last steps. And Murphy: We should DEFINATELY have a talk about your stupid law once we meet...
Oh, before I forget: As some asked about the TV Out cables and spare batteries: We are already delivering the spare batteries, however, the TV Out Cables will probably have to wait until October. We're currently concentrating on getting all the Pandoras out - there's not much time left to do anything else. Don't worry, they're not cancelled, just delayed - but the main units definately are our main priority right now.
