My Keys Are Starting To Wear Off .. Already?!


neogramps said:
Well my keys are fine, but the paint is coming off my d-pad already - only played about 5 hours of mario and some GBA so far.

Only cosmetic, and doesn't bother me too much, but does show that the paint isn't as hard wearing as promised.

Well, both the DPad and the buttons shouldn't have painted - they Chinese just did it.

There is no paint that will survive heavy DPad usage on a long term.

However, 5 hours is pretty fast - are you sure it's wearing off?
If it starts to become glossy, it could also be that all you need to do is clean it (happens to the case sometimes, too).
 
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I'm sure it's coming off..

DSC00241.JPG
 
cant see the picture that well (bit too reflective)

but is it flakey when the paint comes of, or is it a smooth transition
wonder how difficult it would be to remove the paint from day 1
 
jumpman said:
I have not used my keys much, but the coating and quality seem way high. I don't think I'll ever use them enough to rub off the clear coat, and remove the letters. That would take a hell of a lot of use.

Chris
LOL, your Ps are on eBay. Sure you won't use them lon genuff to wear off :)
 
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EvilDragon said:
Well, both the DPad and the buttons shouldn't have painted - they Chinese just did it.
They did? I thought they didn't painted it, at least not all units. Pix also looked different (for me) in colour between painted case and gamin controls.

I really hope you can make clear, that you don't want painted Triggers for the next batch. ^^"
 
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fusion_power said:
EvilDragon said:
Well, both the DPad and the buttons shouldn't have painted - they Chinese just did it.
They did? I thought they didn't painted it, at least not all units. Pix also looked different (for me) in colour between painted case and gamin controls.

I really hope you can make clear, that you don't want painted Triggers for the next batch. ^^"

Huh? They did this for the first 1000 cases and we don't have more yet...?
 
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EvilDragon said:
Huh? They did this for the first 1000 cases and we don't have more yet...?
Yes, I meant they really shouldn't do it for the next 3K Cases. ;) I guess they have not even started with production so it should be enough time to tell them (again) exactly what you want from them. ;) ( I guess this will be the most complicated part of the whole story)
 
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EvilDragon said:
Well, both the DPad and the buttons shouldn't have painted - they Chinese just did it.

The question to me is why they just decided to do it, when a number of people warned that they might, and that you should specifically request that they not do paint them.

If you told them, and they did it anyway, it's their fault, and they didn't "just do it", they did something contrary to your instructions. If you didn't tell them, then they went under the (not unreasonable) assumption to paint everything, which is probably simpler. Since they've been clear about not doing anything above or beyond, that's to be expected, and I'd say it's your (OPT) fault.

Either way, what's done is done. What's the latest on the cases? Have you heard anything more from the factory? Craig said you would order the remaining 3000 "next week" two weeks ago (http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/53678-are-there-any-pandoras-left-for-sale/page__p__859655&#entry859655)
yet there hasn't been any update that I've seen about what you're *actually* going to change, aside from the paint. (There was talk of other things, but nothing official.) Do we have a time estimate yet?
 
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They probably need to finish collecting Batch 2 preorders before they can afford to finish Batch 1. :rolleyes:
 
benji_stein said:
EvilDragon said:
Well, both the DPad and the buttons shouldn't have painted - they Chinese just did it.

The question to me is why they just decided to do it, when a number of people warned that they might, and that you should specifically request that they not do paint them.

If you told them, and they did it anyway, it's their fault, and they didn't "just do it", they did something contrary to your instructions. If you didn't tell them, then they went under the (not unreasonable) assumption to paint everything, which is probably simpler. Since they've been clear about not doing anything above or beyond, that's to be expected, and I'd say it's your (OPT) fault.

Either way, what's done is done. What's the latest on the cases? Have you heard anything more from the factory? Craig said you would order the remaining 3000 "next week" two weeks ago (http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/53678-are-there-any-pandoras-left-for-sale/page__p__859655&#entry859655)
yet there hasn't been any update that I've seen about what you're *actually* going to change, aside from the paint. (There was talk of other things, but nothing official.) Do we have a time estimate yet?

Erm? The latest official update about us ordering the next cases was last week in the blog?

And we told them to NOT paint them... but what should we do? Ship back the painted buttons and wait until they redo them?
You guys would've killed us :)
And it's not that the Pandora is useless like that..
 
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EvilDragon said:
Erm? The latest official update about us ordering the next cases was last week in the blog?

Yes, that was mentioned in the blog, but that was nearly a week ago, now - were the cases only ordered then, or had they been ordered a few days before? Were the cases ordered just the 3000, or the entire remaining 9000? I could interpret either way.

The only thing you mentioned that has changed was the button/dpad painting. However, craig suggested the possibility of some other things: http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/53850-how-many-in-total/page__st__30__p__863453__hl__keypad%20paint%20stickers__fromsearch__1&#entry863453 and it was unclear if those would happen, or how much additional time any of this would add to the creation of the cases. Heck, I guess I should ask how many keymats are at Craig's, if you were thinking of changing that - was it just 1000 as well, or the whole 4000 (10000?)

Previously, you've told us that the case factory can pump out 1000 cases a day (unpainted, clearly). You've also said that some of the past delays were because of setup/first time stuff, and figuring out how everything should be, so the next ones would (ideally) be faster. Of course, all times at the case factory should be taken with a grain of salt, but did they at least give an estimate to you (I'll double or triple the length for when I hope to actually see results) of how long this would take? At 1k a day, or even half that, I'd hope that they'd have at least done the injection moulding for all the cases by now, if not the painting (where appropriate) or stickers (you doing that?), let alone the packaging/shipping.

Don't get me wrong - I know it's hard dealing with them, and they don't give a lot of information, change it, and are completely unreliable. But the cases (and the boards - how many of those do you have, now?) are the final thing holding up the rest of the first batch. People are hungering for more information, any estimate, however rough - give it to us, and tell us to multiply by three for a real expectation (no "best-case scenario" junk). For me, knowing that production is happening, and that the count is slowly but steadily getting closer to my Pandora shipping is infinitely better than sitting in limbo not knowing anything other than "it'll happen when it happens."

EvilDragon said:
And we told them to NOT paint them... but what should we do? Ship back the painted buttons and wait until they redo them?
You guys would've killed us :)
And it's not that the Pandora is useless like that..

No, absolutely not. You did the right thing, as far as I'm concerned with regards to assembly.
But knowing that makes it better in my mind. It's the first I've heard anyone say that you'd specifically told them not to paint the buttons/dpad, and they didn't listen. What to do? Perhaps if you complain loudly enough, you can get them to give you a discount on the parts the messed up. Or bump you up the queue because of it. You should get something in compensation for how much they've screwed you over.
 
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benji_stein said:
EvilDragon said:
Erm? The latest official update about us ordering the next cases was last week in the blog?

Yes, that was mentioned in the blog, but that was nearly a week ago, now - were the cases only ordered then, or had they been ordered a few days before? Were the cases ordered just the 3000, or the entire remaining 9000? I could interpret either way.

The only thing you mentioned that has changed was the button/dpad painting. However, craig suggested the possibility of some other things: http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/53850-how-many-in-total/page__st__30__p__863453__hl__keypad%20paint%20stickers__fromsearch__1&#entry863453 and it was unclear if those would happen, or how much additional time any of this would add to the creation of the cases. Heck, I guess I should ask how many keymats are at Craig's, if you were thinking of changing that - was it just 1000 as well, or the whole 4000 (10000?)

It's definately more than 3000 we ordered (to have spare :D) but I don't know if we went for the full 9000 :)
The other things would all happen AFTER the cases have been painted, so we first gave them the order to do the cases and we can discuss about the rest while they setup everything.

Previously, you've told us that the case factory can pump out 1000 cases a day (unpainted, clearly). You've also said that some of the past delays were because of setup/first time stuff, and figuring out how everything should be, so the next ones would (ideally) be faster. Of course, all times at the case factory should be taken with a grain of salt, but did they at least give an estimate to you (I'll double or triple the length for when I hope to actually see results) of how long this would take? At 1k a day, or even half that, I'd hope that they'd have at least done the injection moulding for all the cases by now, if not the painting (where appropriate) or stickers (you doing that?), let alone the packaging/shipping.

Well, they can pump out 1000 cases a day - when they start doing it. I haven't heard much from Fatih lately (been too busy with catching up real life work, Pandora support, HotFix things, etc. I still have about 100 eMails to reply, too... and as I know that the other guys take care about that, I don't ask for such things. Waaaay to omuch for me to do :))

Don't get me wrong - I know it's hard dealing with them, and they don't give a lot of information, change it, and are completely unreliable. But the cases (and the boards - how many of those do you have, now?) are the final thing holding up the rest of the first batch. People are hungering for more information, any estimate, however rough - give it to us, and tell us to multiply by three for a real expectation (no "best-case scenario" junk). For me, knowing that production is happening, and that the count is slowly but steadily getting closer to my Pandora shipping is infinitely better than sitting in limbo not knowing anything other than "it'll happen when it happens."

Boards should be now around 800 in UK, have no idea how many were broken and needed to be repaired though
 
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EvilDragon said:
It's definately more than 3000 we ordered (to have spare :D ) but I don't know if we went for the full 9000 :)
The other things would all happen AFTER the cases have been painted, so we first gave them the order to do the cases and we can discuss about the rest while they setup everything.

Ok, that makes sense. I hope you'll tell us as soon as that decision is made.

EvilDragon said:
Well, they can pump out 1000 cases a day - when they start doing it. I haven't heard much from Fatih lately (been too busy with catching up real life work, Pandora support, HotFix things, etc. I still have about 100 eMails to reply, too... and as I know that the other guys take care about that, I don't ask for such things. Waaaay to omuch for me to do :) )

Fair enough. Hopefully Craig or someone else will let us know soon.

EvilDragon said:
Boards should be now around 800 in UK, have no idea how many were broken and needed to be repaired though

Ok, so that's 800 more, past the initial ~700 already shipped. Cool.

Also, since I don't think I've mentioned, thanks for taking the time to respond to me!
 
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