Wow, you guys actually did it.
Thanks to the donations and many Cross-Upgrades, I am currently out of stock - but fear not, new stock is going to arrive soon.
1. More Pandoraaaaas
Within this week, I will receive more Rebirth-Units. Most of them will go to old preorders right away though, thanks to donations and 1GHz-Sales.
Next week, the regular production of the 1GHz units will restart. Global Components had to buy a steam soldering machine to reliable produce the 1GHz boards. For the ones that have been produced so far they used the machine of a different company. That was only meant as a temporary solution though, until they get their own machine (which has now happened).
All the parts for the next 1000 units are now here, so that out of stock will soon be over
2. Credit Card payment now possible in DragonBox Shop
Finally, credit card payment is enabled in my shop, so any cross-upgrades and other orders in my shop can now be paid using credit cards as well.
Time to get more Pandoras back in stock
3. Pandora classic preorder donations
Preorder donations so far have worked out well. 17 preoders have been financed using those donations - and I've not yet sent an eMail to the Pandora newsletter subscribers (over 20,000 users).
This will happen within the next few days - so let's hope to get a lot of the remaining preorders cleared.
Just a quick information: If we didn't have these preorders left (thanks again to that awesome company in Texas...), we could offer the 1GHz Pandora for less than 450 EUR... which would rock.
So the more donations we get, the more I will be able to lower the price - and that would be great, as I'd love to make the Pandora affordable to everyone who would like one.
I don't think it's realistic we can get ALL remaining preorders donated (that would be 250,000 EUR), but the more we get, the better the price could be sometime in the future.
Every 1 GHz unit sold at the current price will also decrease the preorder queue, as the profit made from those goes into the donation pot as well
Additionally, I will add more items into the shop soon, like signed bare or half-populated PCBs from the first test-run, framed.
The money made from those will also go into the donation queue. So when you order something from my shop, you could grab such a goodie for a good cause.
So yeah, let's shrink this queue That's my main goal, now that the production is running well.
4. LCD Cables
The company that produced the awesome, unbreakable LCD-Cables for us didn't do that good last time... the last batch of cables seem to have some that are failing again, despite being twice as expensive as the ones before.
Luckily, it wasn't that many and I'm not sure all of them are affected.
A german company is currently exactly analyzing them (they analyzed the previous cables as well and told me exactly why they didn't fail), so we'll know for sure what went wrong there and - of course - I'll do anything to get fixed LCD Cables for free from them.
The good news is: The next batch of LCD cables is on the way already, this time done by another company who uses a new material from Japan which has been especially created for such purposes, so they should be even more reliable than the ones that didn't break so far
So no need to have a huge delay here, the solution is already here.
5. eMail Backlog and the ticketing system
The ticket system is setup and working, some community members are already helping out replying to customers here as well.
It will surely take some time to work ourselves into the various requests, but from then on, we'll catch up.
I'm currently sorting all my eMails and moving some of them into the ticket system.
While I am able to keep up with new requests, I don't think I can ever catch up replying all eMails I still got in my queue - and a lot of these are probably obsolete anyways, as some customers with RMAs sent multiple eMails and PMs and the repair has already been done a long time ago...
I will work myself through the mails during the next few days and will send a reply to all older eMails that they should send a new mail (into the ticket system) if their request hasn't been taken care of yet - it's the only way to get the queue down to a manageable level.
So if you're still waiting: Expect that mail soon and use the ticket system for your request.
That's it from me for now - let me know if you have any further questions.
I'll try to reply as soon as possible.
Thanks to the donations and many Cross-Upgrades, I am currently out of stock - but fear not, new stock is going to arrive soon.
1. More Pandoraaaaas
Within this week, I will receive more Rebirth-Units. Most of them will go to old preorders right away though, thanks to donations and 1GHz-Sales.
Next week, the regular production of the 1GHz units will restart. Global Components had to buy a steam soldering machine to reliable produce the 1GHz boards. For the ones that have been produced so far they used the machine of a different company. That was only meant as a temporary solution though, until they get their own machine (which has now happened).
All the parts for the next 1000 units are now here, so that out of stock will soon be over
2. Credit Card payment now possible in DragonBox Shop
Finally, credit card payment is enabled in my shop, so any cross-upgrades and other orders in my shop can now be paid using credit cards as well.
Time to get more Pandoras back in stock
3. Pandora classic preorder donations
Preorder donations so far have worked out well. 17 preoders have been financed using those donations - and I've not yet sent an eMail to the Pandora newsletter subscribers (over 20,000 users).
This will happen within the next few days - so let's hope to get a lot of the remaining preorders cleared.
Just a quick information: If we didn't have these preorders left (thanks again to that awesome company in Texas...), we could offer the 1GHz Pandora for less than 450 EUR... which would rock.
So the more donations we get, the more I will be able to lower the price - and that would be great, as I'd love to make the Pandora affordable to everyone who would like one.
I don't think it's realistic we can get ALL remaining preorders donated (that would be 250,000 EUR), but the more we get, the better the price could be sometime in the future.
Every 1 GHz unit sold at the current price will also decrease the preorder queue, as the profit made from those goes into the donation pot as well
Additionally, I will add more items into the shop soon, like signed bare or half-populated PCBs from the first test-run, framed.
The money made from those will also go into the donation queue. So when you order something from my shop, you could grab such a goodie for a good cause.
So yeah, let's shrink this queue
That's my main goal, now that the production is running well.4. LCD Cables
The company that produced the awesome, unbreakable LCD-Cables for us didn't do that good last time... the last batch of cables seem to have some that are failing again, despite being twice as expensive as the ones before.
Luckily, it wasn't that many and I'm not sure all of them are affected.
A german company is currently exactly analyzing them (they analyzed the previous cables as well and told me exactly why they didn't fail), so we'll know for sure what went wrong there and - of course - I'll do anything to get fixed LCD Cables for free from them.
The good news is: The next batch of LCD cables is on the way already, this time done by another company who uses a new material from Japan which has been especially created for such purposes, so they should be even more reliable than the ones that didn't break so far
So no need to have a huge delay here, the solution is already here.
5. eMail Backlog and the ticketing system
The ticket system is setup and working, some community members are already helping out replying to customers here as well.
It will surely take some time to work ourselves into the various requests, but from then on, we'll catch up.
I'm currently sorting all my eMails and moving some of them into the ticket system.
While I am able to keep up with new requests, I don't think I can ever catch up replying all eMails I still got in my queue - and a lot of these are probably obsolete anyways, as some customers with RMAs sent multiple eMails and PMs and the repair has already been done a long time ago...
I will work myself through the mails during the next few days and will send a reply to all older eMails that they should send a new mail (into the ticket system) if their request hasn't been taken care of yet - it's the only way to get the queue down to a manageable level.
So if you're still waiting: Expect that mail soon and use the ticket system for your request.
That's it from me for now - let me know if you have any further questions.
I'll try to reply as soon as possible.
