Shipping On The 4Th?

[Vanil]

SUPER........sigh.........

 

[gruso]

Cheers for the update Craig, kind of saw that coming at this stage. Goddamn China.

 

[benji_stein]

I hate to say it, but no surprise there.
Craig, if all of the samples have been superb, can we get cracking on the rest of the order for the cases? I understand that you want to wait to make sure the quality is consistent, and that they didn't just send the best, but I really don't want to have another several-week (-month?) delay while we wait for the rest of them. As you say, they lie through their teeth, and consistently give completely wrong estimates.

 

[optional106]

Hope they manage to ship out the cases before the factory has any holidays.

Many China factories are having a few days to a week off for the labour holidays.
May 1 - May 3 = Labour day , some factories take only the 3 days, some more.

Not trying to scare you all, but wanted to advise.
Oh, and China shipping from factories they need to prepare Customs and China export documents, and make arrangments with the Freight Forwarders / transportation companies so this all takes time.
I find that its the Shipping Dept. that is the most important for China Companies - if you get a good one, they can make your life SO much easier.

 

[Jumpman]

Any news on these damned cases, yet?

I'm guessing they are in transit. But I have made those assupmtions in the past, only to have Craig chime in with bad news.

It's all good Craig! Thanks for the post, I'm sure you wanted to wait for better news, but better we know now than later. It's all par for the course I guess. Like you say, at least the quality finally got to where it needs to be, and hopefully monday they will ship, and we can still see them by the 10th of may or so.

I've still got 3 months before I cancel, so I'm still feeling good about my personal situation, but hopefully others won't get in an uproar, as I do believe the team is doing everything they can with the current situation! Good Luck!


Chris

 

[Alpha2]

It might simply be that they know OP is a small company and that they dont have a specific release date they're aiming for, or at the very least they're small enough that they dont have much choice but to deal with them at this point, which gives them the freedom to miss deadlines. I hope you can find a better factory but I fear even western companies might follow the same tactic if they know you're small and dont have the ability to just up and take your business elsewhere.

 

[Pleng]

I hate to say it, but no surprise there.
Craig, if all of the samples have been superb, can we get cracking on the rest of the order for the cases?

Can we at least wait until the first lot of cases have definitely shipped before telling the manufacturer to proceed with the rest of them. I'd hate for the instruction to be misinterpreted as '"now they don't want us to ship until all the cases are complete!"

 

[Omaha2002]

It's totally posible to produce cases or whatever in Asia, we do it for more than 7 years now. I don't think it's fair to blame the chinese in general by saying that it seems to be the "way" with chinese companies. General rule is, low quantities go to Taiwan, large quantities go to China. 10.000 cases are definitely low quantities by chinese standards. Besides, find a good local western company who can be of tremendous help during the process.

We produce a lot of cases in small quantities in Taiwan and although we had our challenges we never faced delays like the pandora cases.

Nonetheless I hope everything sorts out the coming days and we can all enjoy our pandora's, respect for all who are involved..

 

[grahamr]

I think hand-crafting each case individually out of wood would have been less trouble.
Something like this
I've still got until hell freezes over before i cancel, so its still looking good for me too.

 

[Username]

Any news on these damned cases, yet?

I'm guessing they are in transit. But I have made those assupmtions in the past, only to have Craig chime in with bad news.

It's all good Craig! Thanks for the post, I'm sure you wanted to wait for better news, but better we know now than later. It's all par for the course I guess. Like you say, at least the quality finally got to where it needs to be, and hopefully monday they will ship, and we can still see them by the 10th of may or so.

I've still got 3 months before I cancel, so I'm still feeling good about my personal situation, but hopefully others won't get in an uproar, as I do believe the team is doing everything they can with the current situation! Good Luck!


Chris

Can I ask why you quoted yourself?

 

[kingoddball]

@ Craig: F*ck! Thanks for the great update.

 

[Reyhn]

Bad news, well we're used to it...

And they obviously didn't thougt about producing the other cases by the mean time ? (or maybe you didn't asked them for it)
Anyway, looks to me like they are seriously making fun of OPT.

 

[Zotty]

Thanks for the update Craig!

@WombleGoneBad
Ooooh, very nice wooden case * drool *

 

[Monk]

The PCBs are being made in China (otherwise why would I even have brought up the holiday again?). The company in Texas makes nothing. They just put stuff together.

For clarity, all prototype PCBs were made by a company in California and they did a good job but they couldn't come close to the pricing we got for production in China and the assembler said the quality from this China company was about the best they have ever seen so we weren't going to argue with any of that!

http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/49961-surely-the-case-moulds-should-be-done-by-now/page__view__findpost__p__764615

Oh. The rumours we forum dwellers keep basing our rumours on ... are thing sOpenPandora members have said. Before another OpenPandora "Team Member" tells us that the other "Team Memmber" has been spouting rumour as fact.

Guys - get your acts togehter and get a straight story.

Personally, if the American PCB compamy that made the samples also had the production run made for you, the PCBs resulting should have matched the samples. They really should have. No question, no WiFi resistor "fix". IMHO.

 

[carlgeorge]

Most Chinese companies that I have dealt with over the years for my jobs have been a pain in the arse too. I now stick to three who I've been using for years. These guys are as good, if not better, than most western companies that I deal with. So it is very unfair to tarnish all Chinese companies with the same brush, there are some great ones among the generally poor ones. And there isn't some Chinese conspiracy to bring down the west, most are just shite and wouldn't survive in the west.

In my last project, my boss (who's American) has forced me to use American firms for some of the components (gaskets & optics) and said that we won't be using China anymore. The funny thing is that these American companies have caused all our delays and the bits we have finally got from them haven't been very good at all. So it doesn't matter where the company is based, some are bad and some are good, it's a case of trial and error finding the good ones. I'm now back to using my preferred Chinese companies again for my latest project.

If you want the name of a great company in China who'll do your plastic moulding and bend over backwards to make sure you're happy, give me a yell, i'll put you in touch. He even speaks perfect English so you don't have all the communication problems you've been having.

Edit: damn iPad predictive text bollocks.

 

[tsh]

Persdonally, if the American PCB compamy that made the samples also had the production run made for you, the PCBs resulting should have matched the samples. They really should have. No question, no WiFi resistor "fix". IMHO.

Not true. Unless a pcb is specified with a controlled impedance layer, it's just a hope that each run of boards is the same. I've had RF prototype boards from the same manufacturer come back with different layer materials (and wildly different behaviour of my circuit.)

 

[Zotty]

I've chased and chased those cases but the courier said the factory were unable to give weights or number of boxes last week.

Chasing that up with the factory just resulted in the usual apologies and more promises to sort it out.

Ok now that I'm awake after 3 cups of coffee (it's Sunday morning after all ) the question of what would have happened if you didn't chase them creeps up in the dark corners of my mind..... probably nothing for a long time. Granted it's all based on hearsay, but imho it's pretty fair to ask; wtf is wrong with these companies? I mean if you need the weight for shipping, then weigh it. It's so simple. And it's not like we are their first customers needing something shipped.

Spoiler

My god, how do these retards even stay in business?

 

[gp32rich]

Thanks for the info Craig, even if it isn't the best. It's a pity you don't a friends in high places (not on your roof!) that could help sort this out.

If more companies are going to China and finding this level of dis-service, maybe an embassy or two should set up intermediaries to help.
Maybe there's some money to be made becoming a consultant yourself

 

[Pleng]

Thanks for the info Craig....

...If more companies are going to China and finding this level of dis-service, maybe an embassy or two should set up intermediaries to help.
Maybe there's some money to be made becoming a consultant yourself

Yea, because he's shown such success in the field so far.

 

[Zotty]

Might be useful to speak Chinese first