Questions, Curiosities Re: the Business-end of Open-Pandora
- Thread starter modzombie
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Esn
(:";
This would make a lot of people unhappy... it may seem that we're after material goods from you, but life is more important to most of us.
Ed, please take a good, long vacation sometime, away from the internet, maybe some mountain hiking (a popular German past-time, no?
), and it will allow you to focus on different aspects of life & remember worthy things that you had forgotten because you've been wrapped up in one thing for so long.We all need a good bath every so often. Good luck! (also, exercise in fresh air is great for getting sleeping habits back to normal, speaking from experience)
Well, it might be true for a lot of you guys, and I'm really happy to have supporters like you all are... but the users in these boards are just a few compared to all the preorders.
A lot probably don't even know me and therefore wouldn't really care.
Ed, please take a good, long vacation sometime, away from the internet, maybe some mountain hiking (a popular German past-time, no?
That's my plan, when everything is going fine.
It's soooo hard - you have a working product, it's almost perfect for most of you (except for some flaws that we're already addressing), and the companies you pay to do the job don't do it properly.
Well, we got cases, we got nubs... but I'm not sure yet we have finished boards. Yeah, last time I spoke to them "several thousand boards" were ready and we were not informed of any problems. But I have the feeling they just didn't do it and were lying.
We're working more closely with the new company together now. They can setup the production within 3 weeks, which is pretty fast.
This was planned for later batches, but if the current company doesn't speed up, we'll try to get 1000 parts and unfinished boards to them for a test run - and if it works fine, reliable and fast, we're gonna continue the rest of batch 1 there as well.
We need to hope though that you guys keep supporting us. It's over two years now, we get some cancellations here and then. Now the nubs are finally working and it seems we need to switch to a new company.
All I can hope is that all of you still support us long enough to sit this through.
The old company has not been paid yet, so except for shipping costs (parts to the new company), we wouldn't have a problem moving to the new company - as long as he have a strong community sitting in our back.
Well, who knows... it might even be possible we don't HAVE to switch.
We don't even know yet how many boards have been finished, that is sometime we (hopefully) get to know today. Maybe they finished all or at least most of them... who knows?
But I'm just a bit worn out at the moment and scared... I dedicated my life to the whole thing during the last years... it costs a lot of energy fighting against all these problems.
But I won't give up - as long as you, the community, won't give up!
CapcomSuicide
Member
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2010
- Messages
- 250
Fingers crossed, but at least we know that unless they improve we are looking at 30 weeks to complete Batch 1.
So currently Batch 1 should certainly be complete by "Mid May."
It will be up the efforts of the OP team to push the supplier hard. If we can manage to get them to increase to 200 boards a week, we are looking at the start of February for board completion.
Whilst it being a bit later than I hoped, everything is now in place, and I feel I have a realistic end date. Improvements to the board manufacturing process may even improve this timeframe, but I feel 99% confident I will have my Batch 1 order by May.
It is a relief to have all the information available, and I can spend less time guessing! I really appreciate your posts Evil Dragon, thanks!
Esn
(:";
True enough.
Well, all I can say is, if you ever decide to visit Toronto & need to stay somewhere, my door will be open. We've never met in person, but we've been in the same community for 7 years... I feel like I know you better than many of the people I see regularly.
God, the internet is a weird thing.
tsh
Active Member
Well, I think this extrapolation is nonsense. The board assembly company won't want this project sitting round in their factory for another 6 months. Each time the line is set up for a different product is a fairly big cost (like a day's downtime), so either they will eventually run off the next ~2500 boards and test them (which I guess is where the time comes in), or they really have a problem with the P&P assembly and are hoping to loose the contract. Neither option ends in May'11.
My experience of PCB assembly houses is to use personal recommendation only. It's a very hit and miss business trying to find someone who has the right skills and management to fit a specific task.
From the assembly point of view, without the nubs they probably don't see much point pushing on to hard. Getting stuck mid-way through a production run and having parts run-out on them is probably not a new experience.
levi
Still fresh, damnit!
Edit: Re: relliker
Heh, same here. However, this sort of idle musing might help:
But while EvilDragon is evil, he can't do nasty:
Heh, same here. However, this sort of idle musing might help:
But while EvilDragon is evil, he can't do nasty:
Not something we'd love to do, we'd love to work with them to get it all going
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Well, I'm hoping that the board company does not have their own user browsing this forum
They might feel offended and sulk and add to the delays for revenge
Well, depending on how many boards they REALLY produced, they can't add much of a delay there.
If they produced enough boards, everything is fine. If not, then it's good we already worked for a while on sourcing other companies.
I really don't want to switch right in the middle of a batch, but if need be, we have no choice.
Really hoping for good news tonight.
sehs33
Active Member
I for myself will never give up, heck am looking forward for my Pandora to be obsolete so we can take another ride full of bumps (Pandora 2). I never for a second thought of cancelling my order regardless of all the bad things that happened.
GO OPT GO
I for myself will never give up, heck am looking forward for my Pandora to be obsolete so we can take another ride full of bumps (Pandora 2). I never for a second thought of cancelling my order regardless of all the bad things that happened.
GO OPT GO
Well, if everyone who preordered is on our side, we will manage to do it, that's something I'm sure about.
The iCP should also provide us more money to work with more reliable companies and work on remaining issues.
It's just the time that works against us - not our dedication.
Bosbeetle
Terminally lost
:blink: lets just hope nobody is going to offer to shoot ED
If you could give me 50 Pandora's in the mail tomorrow, ED, I could sell 60 of them ..
Just make the damn things. Make the damn things. Get the damn things made.
We know
When I'm presenting them in the public on exhibitions, etc., I could easily sell hundreds of them right away.
Well, the new company really really looks promising.
The machine they have is basically brand new (released November 2009), so it can properly populate the boards.
They are already Pandora fans, crawled through the gp32x.de, these boards here, watched videos, asked what the gp2x is...
They want to do it. They really do. And they'll try to be as quick as possible to set everything up.
Their own devices also run Linux, btw.
Nobody did so far.
Any volunteers?
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WizardStan
Mega GP Mania
- Joined
- May 24, 2008
- Messages
- 16,731
I've got the driver data for the USB missile launcher you can buy from ThinkGeek. I bet I could write a Pandora driver for it. Someone could "shoot" you over the internet with your Pandora. Delicious irony?Nobody did so far.
Any volunteers?
Dead1nside
Well-Known Member
We're all with you ED and OP. I just past my one year wait, which seems extraordinary when I think about it (a lot less than some however), but still I want to support you guys and I've never considered withdrawing from the first batch. I would love for things to go right for both you and us, as customers, for once.
The one thing I would love to see is more software development, so that I can look forward to using it. I know you're all doing a hundred different things now but maybe seeing the Pandora Dev Fund in action would help soothe the days a bit more.
I really have my fingers crossed for the boards, because _I know_ that if you can build 100-200 a day, you will -- it's everyone else who's let you down.
The one thing I would love to see is more software development, so that I can look forward to using it. I know you're all doing a hundred different things now but maybe seeing the Pandora Dev Fund in action would help soothe the days a bit more.
I really have my fingers crossed for the boards, because _I know_ that if you can build 100-200 a day, you will -- it's everyone else who's let you down.
Link
ithic.com
EvilDragon,
Have no fear! Stay focused on the good and more should fall in place. When kayaking boats have a tendency to go where one looks and I find a lot of things in life to be the same. You found a new company for boards if Texas has dropped the ball., you have working nubs that should be in production kicking ass shortly, there's improved cases ready for hardware. Stay strong bro!
Peace & Pandora,
Link
Have no fear! Stay focused on the good and more should fall in place. When kayaking boats have a tendency to go where one looks and I find a lot of things in life to be the same. You found a new company for boards if Texas has dropped the ball., you have working nubs that should be in production kicking ass shortly, there's improved cases ready for hardware. Stay strong bro!
Peace & Pandora,
Link
Polossatik
I reject your reality and substitute my own
it's nice to see you are taking steps for IF the texas company does not deliver.
On the other hand, if they deliver you're not switching?
Just wondering if the "new" company knows this and how much it will cost to NOT switch. I doubt they do stuff for free, they need to pay bills.
I'm also wondering how about the parts? Does the Boards Company (old and new) source the needed parts ?
Lead times can be high and I do not think you can have the BOM of a pandora together in 2 or 3 weeks.
So why this may be an option for Batch 2 or 3 (to accommodate on the time needed to get the needed parts and a decent yield) , I really doubt switching board assembly company now will actually progress stuff.
On the other hand, if they deliver you're not switching?
Just wondering if the "new" company knows this and how much it will cost to NOT switch. I doubt they do stuff for free, they need to pay bills.
I'm also wondering how about the parts? Does the Boards Company (old and new) source the needed parts ?
Lead times can be high and I do not think you can have the BOM of a pandora together in 2 or 3 weeks.
So why this may be an option for Batch 2 or 3 (to accommodate on the time needed to get the needed parts and a decent yield) , I really doubt switching board assembly company now will actually progress stuff.
Well, before a switch happens, testruns need to be done first.
If the new company is working properly, we'll most probably switch, yes.
While the current one produces boards, they usually don't reply to any eMails or phonecalls, it's hard to get ANYTHING from them and they made a lot of promises (500 boards next week, which turned out to be 100) which never really happened.
In the future, we want to RELIABLE tell you when you will get your unit. Not possible with that company I'm afraid.
The new company seems way better so far.
They've been answering all question super fast, are very interested in the project itself and already started to setup the machine for a testrun.
About parts: Parts with long leadtimes (like the OMAP CPU, etc.) are bought by us directly from a distributor, so there's no problem.
The company usually only sources parts which are fast to get (like resistors, etc.).
Aditionally, the new company also offers printing of manuals, package design and production, assembly, etc.
So, yeah, I'd rather use a company which loves the project and WANTS to do it than some company that doesn't even seem to care about us.
If the new company is working properly, we'll most probably switch, yes.
While the current one produces boards, they usually don't reply to any eMails or phonecalls, it's hard to get ANYTHING from them and they made a lot of promises (500 boards next week, which turned out to be 100) which never really happened.
In the future, we want to RELIABLE tell you when you will get your unit. Not possible with that company I'm afraid.
The new company seems way better so far.
They've been answering all question super fast, are very interested in the project itself and already started to setup the machine for a testrun.
About parts: Parts with long leadtimes (like the OMAP CPU, etc.) are bought by us directly from a distributor, so there's no problem.
The company usually only sources parts which are fast to get (like resistors, etc.).
Aditionally, the new company also offers printing of manuals, package design and production, assembly, etc.
So, yeah, I'd rather use a company which loves the project and WANTS to do it than some company that doesn't even seem to care about us.
