23 ctn. /410 kg (2010-09-28)


EvilDragon

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That's the weight of 2000 cases that are packaged up and leaving for UK tomorrow via air.


What - why tomorrow? They were packaged up and finished last week, weren't they?


Yeah... but guess what: There was the Moon Festival - and naturally, all exporters wanted to get THEIR stuff on the plane, and that tripled the shipping costs.


We won't get any more boards before the new nubs have been mass-produced anyways, so we decided to NOT pay a fortune to ship them.


Wait - no more boards until the new nubs are there?


Right. The tested nubs worked better than the ones before, but they still break more easily than the final ones. Using those slows everything down, as we need to desolder broken ones from otherwise working boards, and quite a few might fail after a few weeks, too, which would've lead to a lot of RMA costs and bad reputation.


The last testing prototype of the nubs lasted 7 times longer already in the stress test, the new one is already being tested right now. We aim for at least 500K cycles (last one had 300K, the first ones under 100K). Hopefully we get more good results of the nubs until the end of the week (well, testing takes some time and can't be sped up ;) )


Hey - does that mean: If I have I Pandora, I need to ship it back to get the nub replaced?


No. While the amount of breaking nubs is higher than it should be, it doesn't mean your nubs will break for sure. As long as they work fine, there's no need to replace them.


Okay... so what's currently happening and what's the plan?


Once the cases arrive in UK, Craig and team are preparing the cases so that we only need to pop-in the boards when they arrive while I keep soldering the LCD-Cables.


I'm pretty fast with that already and can solder 100 in two hours. If I solder 10 hours a day, it's 2 1/2 days for the rest of the cables (got about 1500 finished so far).


The company in Texas keeps producing and testing boards without nubs. Hopefully they stick to their promise that they finish them all until October 18th - but until now, they still claim it.


When the nubs arrive, they will be soldered onto the boards and the boards will go to UK ASAP to be put together into final units.


Some other news, regarding software


I started to work on Hotfix 5. I already fixed a few bugs and added some features and are now extensively working on the Tweak settings where you can set the OPP level, default clock, maximum overclock, etc.


I also plan on including a theme selector for XFCE4 (or better: GTK+) which allows people to install themes with bigger scrollbars, etc. more easily.


I also started to rebase our current OS on the latest OE Testing tree... which means: The whole system will be updated to a newer version.


I have no idea yet how this will workout, but it's something I want to try. DJWillis and notaz are helping me there, so some bugs like Midori rendering problems or the non-working detailed view in Thunar will most likely be fixed then.


TI has also updated the 3D drivers, though I don't know how fast we can include them, but we'll work on that, too.


But much more interesting: If you check this thread on gp32x.de, you can see that TI actually released a demo version of the Adobe FlashPlayer for the Cortex A8. And yes, it runs on the Pandora!


It's still slow, but it's just a first demo release, TI will most likely improve it. As Flash is running way faster on the N900 (which uses the same CPU), we know there's still a lot of potential.


Well, that's it so far.


Any question / feedback / etc. welcome as usual :)
 
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I'm a little concerned about the nubs that made it on to pandoras before the nub company redesigned/fixed the problems with them. Is the nub company going to warranty their old nubs past the 1 year warranty that you offer?
 
Is there a list of stuff that people can help out with for HF5 and beyond? I know it has been mostly ad-hoc to date, but lots of that has been fairly small tasks. If it gets to the stage where there is a bug list to close out before moving to OE-Testing, maybe we can help with some of that (or maybe the build environment is too tricky, I'm not sure)
 
I'm a little concerned about the nubs that made it on to pandoras before the nub company redesigned/fixed the problems with them. Is the nub company going to warranty their old nubs past the 1 year warranty that you offer?
Not all of them were defective. I've had mine for about 2 months, and the nubs still work.
 
Makes sense not to use the old Nubs. I just didn't want to be the one that suggested it. :p


Quite agree with delaying the Case shipment. You guys do not need to lose any more on Batch1.


Good to hear that the next prototypes are busy being tested. Hoping these make the grade.


And thanks again for the update. Hope you has a relaxing few days off.
 
That's the weight of 2000 cases that are packaged up and leaving for UK tomorrow via air.

Thanks for the update.


Do you have any idea when the final 1000 cases for Batch 1 will be produced? I was hoping we would get all the cases this time. :)


Cheers


C_S
 
Thanks for the update.


Do you have any idea when the final 1000 cases for Batch 1 will be produced? I was hoping we would get all the cases this time. :)

They are produced (along with 1000 more), but they will go by ship (it's cheaper, and we'll be busy with those 2000 cases until they arrive)
 
They are produced (along with 1000 more), but they will go by ship (it's cheaper, and we'll be busy with those 2000 cases until they arrive)

What's the shipping estimate for the remaining 2000? Do you have a spot in a boat yet?


Really, I'm wondering if it's certain that these will arrive in time (read: before) the remainder of the last set of the 3000 boards. In other words, if the Board company meets their deadline of shipping out the rest of the boards by the 18th, will there be additional delays for those at the end of batch one, waiting for cases to put the boards in?
 
So... What is the best case scenario for getting new nub units out the door?


Nubs are still in testing/development - so they are not in production. How long would it take from someone stating, "We have the perfect nub - now go forth and multiply them!," to actually having nubs produced in quantities large enough to ship to Texas?


I am around 1500 +/- in the overall picture. Ordered 2008/10/1. I have a trip planned for October 22-31. Should I count on having a Pandora to keep me occupied or should I buy a couple of books?
 
So... What is the best case scenario for getting new nub units out the door?


Nubs are still in testing/development - so they are not in production. How long would it take from someone stating, "We have the perfect nub - now go forth and multiply them!," to actually having nubs produced in quantities large enough to ship to Texas?


I am around 1500 +/- in the overall picture. Ordered 2008/10/1. I have a trip planned for October 22-31. Should I count on having a Pandora to keep me occupied or should I buy a couple of books?

While I'd like to give you an answer, I simply can't - but I fear it would work out.


Well, the next prototype nub does take about 3 - 4 days, so I guess if they hurry they could produce 1000 finished nubs in 1 week if we will be top priority (which I hope we are because of they messed up so badly).


So, if the current ones are fine (we know when testing is over), we probably have 1000 ready on October 8th... if REALLY everything is fine.


Then they'll be in Texas probably October 12th, need to be put on the boards (which takes a few days) and then need to be shipped to Craig to be assembled...
 
Then they'll be in Texas probably October 12th, need to be put on the boards (which takes a few days) and then need to be shipped to Craig to be assembled...
Wondering if it makes sense to ship some nub-less PCBs to the UK, and have 400 nubs shipped direct. It might save a few days before things start again, but maybe the extra complication isn't worth while. Might be a way of hedging against customs delays.
 
While I'd like to give you an answer, I simply can't - but I fear it would work out.


Well, the next prototype nub does take about 3 - 4 days, so I guess if they hurry they could produce 1000 finished nubs in 1 week if we will be top priority (which I hope we are because of they messed up so badly).


So, if the current ones are fine (we know when testing is over), we probably have 1000 ready on October 8th... if REALLY everything is fine.


Then they'll be in Texas probably October 12th, need to be put on the boards (which takes a few days) and then need to be shipped to Craig to be assembled...

OK - thank you for the honesty. I'll buy a book or two for the trip.
 
OK - thank you for the honesty. I'll buy a book or two for the trip.

Well, I don't want to make any promises I know we can't keep for sure. Or lie to you about anything.


I just want to tell you open and honestly what's going on behind the scenes.


The whole thing is based on trust, openness and the goodwill of you all. Just trying to give that back to you :)
 
More good news! Maybe those Two Months™ will actually be two months after all. Also, cool to see Flash Player working on the Pandora. Not so necessary now, with HTML5 Youtube and all, but still nice to see it working.


Somehow I had the image of cases being delivered in a covered wagon.
 
Initially, production of 4000 pandora's should have taken 2 months. 2 years later, we only wait for ~3000 nubs and have no idea when those will be delivered. Those then have to be soldered on ~3000 boards of which you/we have no idea how many are populated yet. Those boards then need to be shipped to england and be placed in 3000 cases that are told to have started their journey for the 3rd time by now.


Color me impressed, you have the best customers in the world.
 
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