Will Production Ever Step Up A Gear?

[SomeGuy99]

This question is somewhat the elephant in the room, and posed specifically at the Pandora team.

Do you have plans to increase production capacity?

The demand is there, and assuming you can profit on later batches I don't see the incentive not to expand the company. What kind of targets do you actually have for shipped units? Or rather, how many would you hope to get out there?

I appreciate that the team have taken this whole venture slowly and cautiously, if only to protect the viability of the project. I haven't forgotten that you guys undertook a huge risk, and that you put your own finances into the Pandora.

Every success story starts small, but I see no signs that this one will grow any bigger. At the rate machines are being built, the Pandora will never gain enough momentum. Without enough machines out there, the community of developers and users will never expand and stay healthy.

And this direcly affects me, and every other Pandora owner. We have a vested interest in the success of the machine, because it means more high quality software, and more of it - and this directly improves the experience of owning a Pandora.

 

[Bofosho]

I think they are doing fine now but the second and third batches should be sped up.
As long as there is hype produced on multiple sites such as youtube, Benheck forums, Modretro forums, and PSPISO forums then it will be guaranteed to succeed.

 

[WizardStan]

Dude, if it were up to Craig, I'm sure they'd have produced all 4000 by now. It's not like he's holding back production on purpose, they're going as fast as they can (and still not getting their QA process bang on, I might add) with the constraint of NO MORE PARTS!
You may as well be asking "would you like to make more money faster?"

 

[SomeGuy99]

The figures suggest Pandora production capacity is something like 20 a day.

 

[EvilDragon]

Didn't I post that a few times already?

Things at the moment were slow because...

1) First Run means a lot of boards had to be fixed manually as the process isn't optimized. The last boards we got were much better already, so they are working on it.
2) A lot of manual labour had to be done because of various reasons (buttons were painted, etc.). Already resolved for the rest of the 3000 cases.
3) A lot of nubs had problems. Therefore, they are now all being checked and repaired before soldered into the boards. Therefore, things will speed up here soon, too.

Those things slowed everything down at the beginning, but we could handle to assemble 100 Pandoras a day without any problem.
Now it just takes some time until there are enough nubs tested and working before we get more boards... and then things should significantly speed up.
As soon as the company in Texas is running with their fullpower (once everything is fully optimized), 500 a week should be possible.

 

[Iorgy77]

When does OPT expect to have the first 1000 pandoras delivered to customers?

I understand October for the full 4000 but when will the first 1000 be out the door?

[Furious rant deleted]

 

[Bofosho]

If there's anyway I could help the next batch I'd be glad to.
I do a lot of modding and some portabilizing so I can do most anything.

 

[SomeGuy99]

As soon as the company in Texas is running with their fullpower (once everything is fully optimized), 500 a week should be possible.

Is this your plan?

 

[Dunny]

As soon as the company in Texas is running with their fullpower (once everything is fully optimized), 500 a week should be possible.

Is this your plan?

I believe it's always been the plan - since about September last year! There's always something thought that slows things up.

D.

 

[EdCa22]

Didn't I post that a few times already?

Things at the moment were slow because...

1) First Run means a lot of boards had to be fixed manually as the process isn't optimized. The last boards we got were much better already, so they are working on it.
2) A lot of manual labour had to be done because of various reasons (buttons were painted, etc.). Already resolved for the rest of the 3000 cases.
3) A lot of nubs had problems. Therefore, they are now all being checked and repaired before soldered into the boards. Therefore, things will speed up here soon, too.

Those things slowed everything down at the beginning, but we could handle to assemble 100 Pandoras a day without any problem.
Now it just takes some time until there are enough nubs tested and working before we get more boards... and then things should significantly speed up.
As soon as the company in Texas is running with their fullpower (once everything is fully optimized), 500 a week should be possible.

The problem is, everyone is aware of this. It is just really painful to sit and wait, having waited almost 2 years already, and know that not only do you have a significant and completely unknown amount of waiting time left, but also feel as though that day you will get your pandora isn't getting any closer because currently nothing is being produced. If pandoras were rolling off the line, however slowly, people could at least feel that theirs is getting closer to being made little by little. Right now it feels as though every time the end is in sight the goal posts move and everyone stops and goes to lunch, it really feels like an impossible dream.

I know the situation is as you described, and intellectually I know I need to just sit and wait because those problems will be resolved. I also know it's not your fault and appreciate all the hard work you and the team have put in, the pressure you are under, and the frustration you must be feeling. I think that dealing with pissed off forum users is probably the last thing you want to be doing as well, especially as you are probably feeling ten or a hundered times any of us. But emotively, it's extremely difficult not to feel as I have just described - I feel frustrated, and I really just want to play with my new toy. For us as for you, it's like climbing over the a rise on a mountain or hill only to see another one looming ahead. And you've been climbing for two years. You start to think "Will I ever reach the summit? Does this mountain even have a peak up there somewhere? Does it? Really? Really really? When will we get there? Can you show it to me on a map? I thought you knew the way to the top! Why did I ever follow you up here in the first place?" The problem is that no one knows and no one can tell you, because no one ever climbed this mountain before. But by God it will feel good when we do get there.

 

[r10crw]

For the guys that have been waiting 2 years I really feel for you, Ive only been checking in since January and only just ordered from the second batch on Fri, already Im getting stressed! Dont know how Im gonna cope but hearing that productions is expected to increase to aorund a 100 a day does help, however is this only gonna happen during the second batch, surely the first batch wont be completed at 20 a day?
Craig.

 

[mali]

CraigW, you already assume too much. As a veteran I tell you that you shouldn't assume 100 a day is achievable. All numbers so far have been best case estimates while the actual results were worst case.

I consider you to be informed about the consequences of your preorder now and you don't deserve to moan when they don't manage to build 100 a day

 

[elwing]

I understand October for the full 4000 but when will the first 1000 be out the door?

It seems you miss some craigx experience, now I'm starting to hope to get mine, but i'm in the first 2k... forget about october for the first 400 as speed things seems to move..


edit: mali said it better than I could have...

 

[Iorgy77]

/me bites tounge and says Hi

 

[tsh]

20 per day includes sticking on all the labels, hand-modifying the shoulder buttons, filtering out the out-of-spec nubs, and getting used to the whole process. With luck we might see 400 made over the next 2 weeks if Craig's latest tweet comes true.

 

[r10crw]

Okay so Im a naive noob but I like the glass half full attitude , the letter promissed xmas so not gonna complain till then. Its when they say there are some spaces left in the first batch I get annoyed because its obviously a very small number used as a marketing ploy to attract more orders.
Cheers Craig.

 

[EdCa22]

Okay so Im a naive noob but I like the glass half full attitude , the letter promissed xmas so not gonna complain till then. Its when they say there are some spaces left in the first batch I get annoyed because its obviously a very small number used as a marketing ploy to attract more orders.
Cheers Craig.

The glass is twice as big as it should be. <--- The realist/engineer's attitude

 

[vadsamoht]

Didn't I post that a few times already?

Things at the moment were slow because...

1) First Run means a lot of boards had to be fixed manually as the process isn't optimized. The last boards we got were much better already, so they are working on it.
2) A lot of manual labour had to be done because of various reasons (buttons were painted, etc.). Already resolved for the rest of the 3000 cases.
3) A lot of nubs had problems. Therefore, they are now all being checked and repaired before soldered into the boards. Therefore, things will speed up here soon, too.

Those things slowed everything down at the beginning, but we could handle to assemble 100 Pandoras a day without any problem.
Now it just takes some time until there are enough nubs tested and working before we get more boards... and then things should significantly speed up.
As soon as the company in Texas is running with their fullpower (once everything is fully optimized), 500 a week should be possible.

The problem is, everyone is aware of this. It is just really painful to sit and wait, having waited almost 2 years already, and know that not only do you have a significant and completely unknown amount of waiting time left, but also feel as though that day you will get your pandora isn't getting any closer because currently nothing is being produced. If pandoras were rolling off the line, however slowly, people could at least feel that theirs is getting closer to being made little by little. Right now it feels as though every time the end is in sight the goal posts move and everyone stops and goes to lunch, it really feels like an impossible dream.

I know the situation is as you described, and intellectually I know I need to just sit and wait because those problems will be resolved. I also know it's not your fault and appreciate all the hard work you and the team have put in, the pressure you are under, and the frustration you must be feeling. I think that dealing with pissed off forum users is probably the last thing you want to be doing as well, especially as you are probably feeling ten or a hundered times any of us. But emotively, it's extremely difficult not to feel as I have just described - I feel frustrated, and I really just want to play with my new toy. For us as for you, it's like climbing over the a rise on a mountain or hill only to see another one looming ahead. And you've been climbing for two years. You start to think "Will I ever reach the summit? Does this mountain even have a peak up there somewhere? Does it? Really? Really really? When will we get there? Can you show it to me on a map? I thought you knew the way to the top! Why did I ever follow you up here in the first place?" The problem is that no one knows and no one can tell you, because no one ever climbed this mountain before. But by God it will feel good when we do get there.

That is probably the best explanation I have seen on the forums so far.

 

[craigix]

The 3000 will be much faster than the first 1000. I know this seems confusing but there was so much to do during the first 1000 which we won't need to repeat on the 3000.

There is a lot happening now to make things much better in the future in terms of production speed and software.

I know some of you would just have us 'build, build, build' but the whole project has been based on being very cautious and getting things as right as possible (measure twice, cut once), and the reason we are still here is because we are so cautious - we want to look after the Pandora project and make sure it's still here for many years to come.

Oh and the first 1000 will have shipped by the end of next week, or at least be finished and be shipping by the end of next week.

 

[Sugar_Kane]

I'm a very impatient person but I don't mind the wait so much, as I know that things are going on in the background, such as the software getting steadily ironed out and the OS having it's buttocks waxed. I know that when I receive mine it's going to be in a more polished state.

On a side note, ED if you're reading, I'm in Grassau on holiday right now but we're going to be spending the day in Munich on Thursday. Might it be possible to meet you there for a beer or two and a peep at a real Pandora, or is it a bit far for you? Don't worry if you can't!