Well, hopefully. I can't tell how much of it is true, but if it is FULLY true, then the curse of the Pandora is still valid.
But let's start with the story right away...
It was about 1,5 weeks ago, just after the easter holidays.
My plan was simple: Receive the cases, assemble a Pyra directly in front of a camera, boot it up and post the video.
The Pyra PCBs were ready, the camera was ready... the cases... well.
That was the reason there wasn't a newspost for a while... I was waiting for more information.
According to FormAction, they've been given to a courier before easter and they should arrive shortly after.
So I waited... and waited... and nothing. No note, no cases, nothing.
Geez... we know at least a few samples of the fixed cases existed, as we posted some pictures - so what about the rest?
50 of them had been made and shipped to me.
Well, last week I had daily phonecalls with my contact in Greece. It's good we have him!
He paid FormAction daily visits, trying to find out what's wrong and where the cases are.
So they got in contact with the courier... and, well. They accidentally crushed the cases.
They put some VERY heavy boxes on top and this crushed all of them.
Result: Redo the cases - as fast as possible.
They planned that on Friday. My contact was still daily visiting, to make sure they are REALLY doing the cases.
They were half-through with the production on Friday - but had some issues with some parts.
My contact wanted to pick the cases up Saturday noon, make some pictures (so I can show you they really exist) and personally bring them to the airport so I can pick them up shortly after.
Weeeeelll.... Saturday morning, they found the reason why some parts had issues during production on Friday:
The injector nozzle of the machine was broken. That's why injection mostly failed - even though the same parameters had been used as before.
Urgh... a repair company has been hired to fix the machine today - and after that, they will finish the production and bring everything to the airport...
And I'll personally pick them up in Munich, without any courier or anything involved.
So - how much of that is true?
I honestly can not tell. I'm not sure what to believe myself.
A lot sounds like excuses to delay shipping the cases to me...
Let's take a closer look at everything:
So the first 50 cases might've never existed. We don't know. I don't want to claim anything here. We just don't know and everyone can think about it as he likes.
What we do know is that Form Action has been VERY slow with all the changes in the molds, which is a bit annoying, but can't be changed now.
At least they MADE the molds and the cases I received have been of great quality. A lot more robust than the Pandora cases.
It's always a bit of hit or miss when working with new companies.
We know Global Components was a big hit when we moved the Pandora production to them.
The company creating the keymats also has been a hit. Yes, it took a few tries to fix all issues, but they did it and all changes resulted in new samples shortly after.
And no one could've known that the special coating which has been used to prevent air bubbles when glueing on the caps would have such an effect on the paint that the keymat becomes stiff.
After all, have you ever seen a keymat with multiple layers of color, transparency and plastic key caps on top? But they successfully solved the issue.
Form Action... well, it's not really a miss. They've been pretty slow, sadly, and they apparently didn't have much experience with small devices, hence the case is probably more thick and robust than it needs to be and the shoulder buttons needed a lot of tweaking as well.
And they've been a lot less pricey than other companies (about 40% less - and with 60,000 EUR costs, that IS quite a difference!). You get what you can pay for, I guess.
And doing such a project on low-budget is not really easy, let me tell you
So, you might ask - what happens if Form Action is unable to mass produce them properly?
While that's VERY unlikely, that wouldn't be an issue. There are a LOT of companies doing mold injection in the same city, and I just recently moved molds for NES and MegaDrive cartridge shells to another company as well due to quality reasons.
That just takes a day, and the molds as well as the full design are owned by us, so that would work as well in worst case.
What are the next steps?
I know that's not the news you've been waiting for - and it's certainly also what I've been waiting for!
That's real life, I guess - and whether you believe the reasons for the delays or not... just try to imagine being in my shoes and having to DEAL with all that as well.
These things are no fun and most annoying in such a project. I'd rather play with the prototype
Well, let's wait a few days and be prepared for a new newspost. Hopefully with good news!
Thanks for your continued support. You can be sure I'll do everything I can here
But let's start with the story right away...
It was about 1,5 weeks ago, just after the easter holidays.
My plan was simple: Receive the cases, assemble a Pyra directly in front of a camera, boot it up and post the video.
The Pyra PCBs were ready, the camera was ready... the cases... well.
That was the reason there wasn't a newspost for a while... I was waiting for more information.
According to FormAction, they've been given to a courier before easter and they should arrive shortly after.
So I waited... and waited... and nothing. No note, no cases, nothing.
Geez... we know at least a few samples of the fixed cases existed, as we posted some pictures - so what about the rest?
50 of them had been made and shipped to me.
Well, last week I had daily phonecalls with my contact in Greece. It's good we have him!
He paid FormAction daily visits, trying to find out what's wrong and where the cases are.
So they got in contact with the courier... and, well. They accidentally crushed the cases.
They put some VERY heavy boxes on top and this crushed all of them.
Result: Redo the cases - as fast as possible.
They planned that on Friday. My contact was still daily visiting, to make sure they are REALLY doing the cases.
They were half-through with the production on Friday - but had some issues with some parts.
My contact wanted to pick the cases up Saturday noon, make some pictures (so I can show you they really exist) and personally bring them to the airport so I can pick them up shortly after.
Weeeeelll.... Saturday morning, they found the reason why some parts had issues during production on Friday:
The injector nozzle of the machine was broken. That's why injection mostly failed - even though the same parameters had been used as before.
Urgh... a repair company has been hired to fix the machine today - and after that, they will finish the production and bring everything to the airport...
And I'll personally pick them up in Munich, without any courier or anything involved.
So - how much of that is true?
I honestly can not tell. I'm not sure what to believe myself.
A lot sounds like excuses to delay shipping the cases to me...
Let's take a closer look at everything:
- New black case samples: Have been made. We've seen pictures of them.
- 50 cases shipped via courier and crushed: Claimed to have happened by FormAction, but neither me nor my contact has seen the cases - so we don't know.
- 50 more cases in production since Friday: True. My contact personally has been there and checked that.
- Machine nozzle broken: Also true. My contact is experienced with plastic injection (he studied that) and he's been there on Saturday.
So the first 50 cases might've never existed. We don't know. I don't want to claim anything here. We just don't know and everyone can think about it as he likes.
What we do know is that Form Action has been VERY slow with all the changes in the molds, which is a bit annoying, but can't be changed now.
At least they MADE the molds and the cases I received have been of great quality. A lot more robust than the Pandora cases.
It's always a bit of hit or miss when working with new companies.
We know Global Components was a big hit when we moved the Pandora production to them.
The company creating the keymats also has been a hit. Yes, it took a few tries to fix all issues, but they did it and all changes resulted in new samples shortly after.
And no one could've known that the special coating which has been used to prevent air bubbles when glueing on the caps would have such an effect on the paint that the keymat becomes stiff.
After all, have you ever seen a keymat with multiple layers of color, transparency and plastic key caps on top? But they successfully solved the issue.
Form Action... well, it's not really a miss. They've been pretty slow, sadly, and they apparently didn't have much experience with small devices, hence the case is probably more thick and robust than it needs to be and the shoulder buttons needed a lot of tweaking as well.
And they've been a lot less pricey than other companies (about 40% less - and with 60,000 EUR costs, that IS quite a difference!). You get what you can pay for, I guess.
And doing such a project on low-budget is not really easy, let me tell you
So, you might ask - what happens if Form Action is unable to mass produce them properly?
While that's VERY unlikely, that wouldn't be an issue. There are a LOT of companies doing mold injection in the same city, and I just recently moved molds for NES and MegaDrive cartridge shells to another company as well due to quality reasons.
That just takes a day, and the molds as well as the full design are owned by us, so that would work as well in worst case.
What are the next steps?
- Wait for the cases to arrive this week
- If they do arrive: Test them and assemble some Pyras (with video, of course!)
- If they still don't arrive: I'll pay a visit to Greece once again to discuss everything and in worst case plan to move the cases to the other company (the one that successfully produces my cartridge shells already).
I know that's not the news you've been waiting for - and it's certainly also what I've been waiting for!
That's real life, I guess - and whether you believe the reasons for the delays or not... just try to imagine being in my shoes and having to DEAL with all that as well.
These things are no fun and most annoying in such a project. I'd rather play with the prototype
Well, let's wait a few days and be prepared for a new newspost. Hopefully with good news!
Thanks for your continued support. You can be sure I'll do everything I can here
