It's possible, but there are some major hurdles.
There are still ~3k of the first batch to ship. They can assemble ~200 per edit: day, assuming the team has all the parts - don't know where I heard this quote. They don't have all the parts yet. ED, Craig, if you believe more can be assembled and shipped a week, definitely correct me. That puts us at about 15 weeks from the point of "We have all the parts, manufacturing GO!" 15 weeks for batch 1. If it's 500 a week, then things look much better...once they have all the parts!
The nubs are still being tested last I heard. Assuming they pass testing, then they need to be produced and shipped to the board manufacturers. It sounds like when the nub company is ready they can produce tons, like 10k+ quickly - maybe even within day, but I don't know what they'll have to do, if anything, to get ready once the new nubs are tested good, and how long it'll take to package them up and ship them. I don't know where the nubs are being produced, so I've no idea how long it will take to get to the boards company.
The board manufacturer has to solder the nubs to the boards, I'm assuming they still need to continue producing boards, then ship the nub soldered boards to the team. I don't know how many boards a day they can solder and ship, and if they're shipping every day or in batches once a week, or what. The shipping is from the U.S. to the U.K. Also, once they have all the nubs, they'll probably need to produce more boards than they have while they're soldering the already produced boards, and this is for batch 1. Even if they have all of batch 1 produced, I'm pretty confident they still have to work on batch 2.
As the board manufacturer ships the boards the team needs to assemble them, then box and ship them to the customers... last estimate I saw was ~200 a week. 3k of batch 1 still needs to go out first. That's also assuming that there are no further snafus. It sounds like the cases are pretty much done, at least for batch one. They'll need to get the cases for batch 2 yet, I think. I have no idea how many boards are produced. I believe they ordered 10k cases, they just need to get the manufacturer to produce the rest of them.
The biggest potential delays, at this point and for batch one, are the nubs - how long it takes to test, produce, and ship them - and the boards. I think once the nubs are done, it's the boards, shipping, and assembly that are the big hurdles. I think ED can keep up with a pace of 200 LCD cables a week - or quite a bit more for that matter. (The team may get to the point where they can produce and ship more, but that was the last estimate I heard.) I think they need everything, yet, for batch 2. Boards, cables, cases, etc.
The boards are coming from the U.S. ED's in Germany producing and shipping LCD cables, and Craig and the assembly crew are in the U.K. Don't know where the Nubs are being produced. The cases are being produced in China, and I don't think that will change until at least batch 3, if it ever does.
So that's the status as I understand it. If things go smooth, and all the companies actually produce the parts quickly, and my 200 a week is low, then there's a good chance that batch 1 and some of batch 2 gets out before Christmas, but I'm smelling a lot of IF coming off of these statements.
That's the best summary of where we're at that I can come up with based on what I've seen on the boards. Craig, Ed, feel free to correct anything I may have wrong, especially about the assembly times.
Cheers!
Edit: When I say batch 1 I'm referring to the first 4k group of pre-orders that started ~2 years ago. Batch 2 is the second batch of pre-orders. NOT to be confused with the first batch of ~1k Pre-order 1 orders. :-b
Edit 2: One thing that should help the assembly rate for this batch is I believe they're doing as much case assembly as they can prior to receiving the boards. Don't know how much they can do or how much it'll help, but any little bit, right? They may be able to get the top half fully assembled, top and bottom halves "hinged", with the LCD cable hanging loose waiting for a board to attach to.
Edit 3: Tickles pointed out an error of mine. 200 per day makes things MUCH better. Call it a month instead of 15 weeks for assembly. Or even EDs 300-500 per week if the team ends up being starved for boards.
