1. Why didn't you order the CPU-Boards one Month ago? You wrote "that new layout - which should definitely be the final one!" and than decided to not have another prototype run. So, why???
A finished layout doesn't mean you can immediately order it.
You need to recheck the changes, make sure nothing else broke in the process and you also need to export everything to Gerber data, update the BoM and check once again that all data you submit to the manufacturer are fine.
Otherwise, it could easily happen you end up with 600 non-working but non-fixable PCBs (it's a 12 layer board!) which would delay things at least another 7 - 8 weeks and cause a damage of 10k EUR.
That's definitely not worth the risk.
Besides, mostly all companies in China had closed due to the chinese new year, so you couldn't even submit them the details before.
2. Where are the cases? 18 days ago you wrote: "I should receive more cases soon" Where are they? Or didn't you even ask?
See point 5 in the newspost. They're not yet here.
And no, I didn't ask while I was having the flu, I didn't do much at all during that time except for the most necessary things and trying to recover.
I'm slowly catching up with everything now and will chase that issue down as well now.
However, as mentioned, it wasn't the top priority. The top priority were definitely the CPU Boards, as these take longest to produce.
You can easily produce over 1000 cases in one week once the moulds are finished.
3. One month ago you wrote: "So, CPU Board should be fixed now. Motherboard and Display board are done as well." And now you are working on the Wifi? Isn't the Wifi part of the Motherboard?
Yes, but Wifi reception can be improved using the proper resistors and coils.
It wasn't a planned change of the PCB itself, just finding out the proper resistor values by measuring multiple things.
As it turned out, Juliano can simulate that as well, so our initial plan of just using different resistors was expanded to also do small layout changes to improve Wifi even further.
The Mainboard takes less time to produce than the CPU board, so if we'd order it in two weeks, it'll still arrive shortly before the CPU Boards are here.
4. One month ago you wrote: "Keymat is finished, just the DPad needs a tiny fix." and now: "We need to use a different color for the keymat" "Another way to improve this is by using a different material" How long will that take?
As you read correctly, the DPad needed a tiny fix, so I couldn't test it properly.
Now I worked on the DPad so I could test it. It felt a bit mushy and not as good as it should (even though the keys and buttons are fine). So we tried to find out the reason and could pinpoint it to the type of color used (a different color had been used on an earlier version of the keymat and that seemed to be better).
And the material can improve things as well.
Testing different materials and colors won't take long. Changing moulds would take long, but these are fine.
In general, there is absolutely NO reason to rush things.
After coming this far, it would be totally crazy to risk money and put the full project at stake just because it could mean that we deliver 2 - 4 weeks earlier.
I'm not insane.
