Quotes Thread For The Blog

[Mithrildor]

Hmm, I just checked a few cases here and it's definately only on few units.
That picture is one of the worst cases I've seen, to be honest.

Might be that some of the copper tape we need for CE compliance is doing that - but we can certainly prevent that in assembly by simply making sure the tape is not crushed but properly in there.

I just checked on the few units we have here, it was only visible on one unit and pressing it together a bit fixed it.

But we'll make sure we check for that thing before we ship it. Definately no problem in the case design, though
And it won't render your Pandora unusable.

Not to shun OP, but you'd think if they'd have checked the units thoroughly before shipping such units wouldn't be appearing on YouTube, etc.

Well, that's what we're doing since a few days - it just adds a lot of time and at the beginning, everyone here was thinking it would be okay and tried to ship as fast as possible.

We changed that after the first 20 units or so. We now have a proper testing. It adds 4 minutes per Pandora, but that's definately worth it.

 

[Tom`]

Via Twitter:

3:30am. Have to sleep. Piles and piles of completed units. Now ran out of boards, next delivery thur/fri.

I can only assume that means they have ~700 units complete!

 

[mali]

We're having some extra things done at the mould factory before they ship the parts, such as attaching the bumpers, stickers and adhesive strips. This will save us some serious time here.

We also want them to attach the action buttons and dpad to the keymat at the factory, but that might require some samples to be sent to us.

It's going to improve build speed substantially, and also mean every keymat won't need to be checked.

(shoulder button problem solved)

Yeah, we tried using unpainted ones in painted cases (Mike got some samples with him) yesterday and they work.
So yeah, telling them to NOT paint them saves the drilling.

No mould change needed, yes.

 

[juniorm33]

The parts for batch2 are ordered.

The earliest they could ship to us would be September, so you would be looking at late September.

We will post more news on batch2 ordering pretty soon, just want to get more batch1 units out there first.

 

[mali]

Let's assume after a while I decide I would rather have non painted ones. Can I order non painted ones from you? Will it void the warranty to install these myself? For a charge, would you change them over for me?

We will have ALL parts of the cases available later on, yes.
As for warranty: I cannot speak for Craig, but as long as you don't break it with that, I'm fine. So if I send you shoulder buttons and a few days later you want a warranty replacement... that could become a problem.
If your unit breaks months later, I know it wasn't the shoulder replacement.

I will also offer to replace them for free, as long as you pay shipping costs.

Okay, some info to create more confusion

When I left, nearly 400 were ready to ship but Michael and Craig were still testing more for any failures so there should still be some going out today and tomorrow.
The 800 more boards that had been populated in Texas had been populated and not tested when we mentioned them. That's what's happening right now, a few hundred more of them will be shipped today so should arrive beginning of next week. Some need fixing, as a first big batch usually has quite a few failures which need to be repaired (but that's what the mass production company is taking care of).

That means Craig gets a few days off (and he deserves it!) - though not too many as he can prepare more of the top lids already (place LCD in there, roll the cable, etc.).

Building should continue next week, which means that by middle to end of next week another few hundred units should be ready to ship.

Then we need to wait for the cases and the next boards. Yes, it seems endless for you guys waiting, but I bet you rather have a working unit a few days later than a crappy one which you need to send back
Three people can build 200 units in three days, even with all the modification on the shoulder buttons needed - and that takes quite some time. So the next 3000 units can be built faster, as the buttons will not be painted anymore.

Okay, now I need to do some work. The first Pandoras in Germany arrived - and I bet people are waiting

 

[matzesu]

EvilDragon via Twitter

Finally back home in the office - and the Pandoras arrived! Time to get some out to German customers!

German Translation:

Letztentlich bin ich wieder zurück in meinem Büro - Und die Pandora sind angekommen!, Es wird zeit welche zu Deutschen Kunden zu schicken!

 

[mali]

Well, there WILL be some information soon about how everything progresses.
I just came back two days ago, had to ship Pandoras, catch-up with my normal life job (I stalled that for two weeks after all) and I'm now in a university teaching some students... also have to work through a pile of written exams I need to correct...), at the same time working on Hotfix 2 which fixes a lot of bugs found so far.

Please give me a bit more time, I will do a blog update, but it's hard finding an hour to write that all down for me at the moment.

 

[RotsiserMho]

...

3. BIG QUESTION. Judging by how things are going now, WHEN AM I GETTING MY PANDORA?????

...

Well, the biggest factor are the rest of the 3000 cases.
Already ordered AFAIK, and as soon as they appear we get them we can start building and make time estimates.

 

[Qwertyuiop]

Batches 2 and 3:

I'm hoping to announce batch2 ordering this month (at the end of this month at the earliest).

Batch2 ordering will be done in a slow steady way up to September, rather than the crazy free for all of batch1.

If you want a Pandora for Christmas you should order from batch2, while batch 3 parts will arrive in November it's unlikely any will ship from that batch before Christmas.

 

[Alpha2]

Craigix Full time Pandora building resumes today.

And the Crowd goes wild!

 

[mali]

[...]
This is how we handle the building of the units:

1. We have 1000 cases and (so far) 800 boards. That's something we know, since we always know the amount of how many boards they ship us.
2. These units will be assembled - and while being assembled, we do the first tests of the boards. One is not working correctly? We put it aside.
3. After they are assembled and properly screwed together, they are tested once more (audio test, control tests, wifi tests) and then flashed. A unit fails? We put it aside.
4. The finished and working units are being put in a box. Each fourth one in a different box (that's the units I get).
5. Craig takes the boxes each day to his office where Jacquelyne ships them. If my box if full enough, she will also ship them.
6. Jacquelyne keeps some units for RMA. If there are some RMAs, she'll ship them out and keep a newly built unit for RMA. The bad unit will be put aside.
7. Whenever there is nothing else to do (i.e. prepare the LCDs for the next batch of boards arriving, etc.), we check the broken units or boards to see if we can fix them or if we need to ship them to Texas to have them fixed. If we can fix them ourselves, we do that (whenever we find some time).
8. When the first 1000 units have been shipped and we need to wait for the next cases, we can try to fix the remaining boards or send the not-by-us-fixable boards to Texas. Before we ship them, we count the boards - and thus know how many we shipped (as Boards we got - broken boards = Units shipped)

Our first priority is building the Pandoras as soon as possible. So as soon as new boards arrive, we stop doing anything we were currently doing and continue to build.
We don't count while building, as with all that testing, sorting out broken stuff, different people working there, etc., this wouldn't work out properly.

And it's not important anyways (it won't change anything with the building, it will probably only slow down). We know how many units we built and shipped after we shipped the broken ones back to Texas.

And the Pandora is only going to get better and better.

Can't stand still, full steam ahead. 100 units to ship tonight!

It's 5% which is pretty good going. Have you had many boards that simply don't work Craig?

Boards which don't work are not a big issue as they just go back and are fixed. In the first ~400 there was high board issues, but the factory is much better at spotting issues before they ship now.

It will only get better and better. Michael has build a nub tester for the factory too, so no more faulty nubs.

We won't be getting all 3000 at once, rather in batches of 1000 as we tweak things to perfection. It's never a good idea to get things like boards/cases in massive shipments - what if all of them have a defect?

No, we're playing this with great caution, like we have from the start.

 

[Prometheus]

Hope nobody minds me bumping this, but I just saw this on Craig's Twitter page;

Gearing up for the 3000 run. Much happening behind the scenes for this, it's a lot of work.

Source.