Pandora Batch 2: A new hope (2011-07-28)


EvilDragon

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If you followed the recent threads you knew that I was visiting a company today which would be a good candidate to produce Batch 2 (and hopefully many more later batches) of the Pandora.


Doing something like this is always exciting.


Can the company produce the boards?


Do they want to do the job?


Can they do it for a good price?


Will they help you with your project? Or simply do what you tell them to do?


Are they friendly, open and honest?


There's so many stuff swirling around in your head before visiting a company... the future of the Pandora depends on finding the right partner.


Well, I'm pretty sure you all want to know how it went today, right?


Right.


The company I paid a visit today is called Global Components and is located in Oberhaching, near Munich. It's about 90km away from me, so it's not too far and I can easily visit them whenever I need.


I arrived at about 11:10am.


Do you know the rare feeling when you enter a building and just know you've come to the right place?


Well, I had that feeling today. I had a real nice meeting and was greeted heartily.


Everyone I've seen there was motivated, they have a great working atmosphere in there.


For me, this is a very good and important sign. It's always a sign of high quality.


The meeting was very assuring.


First I was given a nice company tour. They got high-quality machines in every room, it looks very organized and tidy. I also saw some boards from current production runs and they use even smaller SMD parts than the Pandora.


From what I've seen, I'm pretty sure they can easily produce our boards, and that's one of the most important things!


I brought some pictures with me. Just a little insight into the whole company. I'm happy that i'm allowed to make a movie of the birth of a Pandora board as soon as production starts.


As I had a Pandora PCB with me, their main technician took a look at it. He explained me some things I always wanted to know (like how PoP is being done and how the full population process works, etc.).


He also suggested a solution to place the shoulder buttons way better so we won't have manually fix the plastic with some buttons.


All in all, things looked pretty good for me. They agreed that they want to produce the PCBs :)


I'm now awaiting a quotation from them (this will take a few weeks), then we'll need to check on the leadtime of the parts and while waiting for those, the production will be set up.


This surely will all take a while. There's no company that can just get the gerber files and start with the production the next day.


The PCBs will take a few weeks to produce, the parts have a certain leadtime and the machine also needs to be setup and programmed.


However, once this is done, PCBs will be finished very fast. I'll get the amount of Pandora PCBs they can produce per week within the next weeks.


Oh, on a side note they mentioned that they would try to help us fix boards with issues as well, in case CC doesn't really move forward here.


I'll send them a few ones of them over, so that they can check if a repair is possible and much it would cost. So if CC doesn't do much, we might move the repairs of the remaining boards of Batch 1 to Germany as well.


Parts, setup, etc. need to be paid upfront, so this is another issue we need to take care of. CC did cost us a lot of money, and we still don't know how fast they'll send us more boards - there still are 1000 missing!


The iControlPad helps us earning money as well, which is great, but the faster we have the total amount of needed money available, the faster the production can start.


That's why I'm also checking for additional solutions to raise money faster. I'll keep you informed on that!


If anyone knows someone who'd like to support us, get in contact with me! I'm sure we can make some good deal here.


Well, anyways, it seems we found a new company that can do the production!


I'm very happy about that, as you never can be sure before visiting them.


The next steps for now are:


* Get a quotation from them, check what parts are needed and how fast


* Make a proper new business plan (including total costs, estimated times, etc.)


* Make sure to have money ready when payments are due


* Try to squeeze as many working boards out of CC as possible


Oh, and of course (as soon as got the top priority things done):


* Continue to work on HotFix 6


* Update the website (REAAAALLY needed!)


* Fix the remaining RMAs


* Check the remaining PCBs I got here


I'll let you know any further steps that happen, as usual :)


If you want to see the pictures I took at the company, click here.
 
Sounds good but then again most companies will portray themselves better than they truly are. Having a German company within driving range will certainly help with communication, inspection and handling of complications.


Be sure to let us know more details about the fund raising. Without making any promises, I'm interested in hearing what kind of deals you have in mind.
 
This news has brought a smile to my face, ED - I can't think of a more deserving project to receive a share of good luck like this. :)


For whatever it's worth, I have a good gut-feeling about this, too, for some reason - here's hoping that all goes well.
 
This is indeed great news! I really hope the best will come out of this. But out of curiosity, didn't you mention other potential companies that could do the job too? Are you still in contact with them?


I'm only saying this because it's always good to have other options on the table, in case something goes bad (like it ends up being too expensive, or a new super-important project makes them delay the deliveries). And I wouldn't wait for their answer before looking elsewhere. But I'm sure that's what you are doing anyway, just forgot to write it here ;)
 
Did they mention how many boards they can do per month like a guestimation? Or is that part of the quotation. Looking forward to the next batch :)
 
Hello


That must be a very reassuring to find a company like that so close to home :)


Is the case production going to be looked at along with the material used ?
 
Is there any update on the boards that CC apparently sent out last week? News seems to have gone quiet on those.
 
This company looks really promising, and quite accommodating in letting you take pictures, not many companies would let an existing customer take photo's of their setup never mind a potential customer, so good new indeed many thanks ED.
 
This is indeed great news! I really hope the best will come out of this. But out of curiosity, didn't you mention other potential companies that could do the job too? Are you still in contact with them?

Yes, still waiting for quotations from others as well.


But so far this one seems best :)

Did they mention how many boards they can do per month like a guestimation? Or is that part of the quotation. Looking forward to the next batch :)

They told me how many parts the machine can populate per hour (yeah, that's the speed you calculate with ;) )


I haven't checked how many parts the Pandora has per board - and it doesn't make sense if I count them, as they have to do it to create the quotation anyways.


As soon as they have the quotation, we know the amount of boards the machine can spit out per hour :)

Thanks for the update. This must be a busy time for you ... again.

Never changed, but yeah, right now I don't know where to even start with work.

Is there any update on the boards that CC apparently sent out last week? News seems to have gone quiet on those.

I haven't had the time to check with Craig if he has received those yet.
 
I think the question that has been brewing on everyones minds, the ultimate question, the question of the life, the universe and everything... is... when will I get my Pandora?


In all seriousness, I would hope the companies you are approaching are enthusiastic about producing a product so unique and popular amongst the very geeks and techies who probably make up their customer base. If all goes well, it potentially represents very good publicity for them... how many Pandora owners have come forth as being in a similar industry? How many people might be inspired to start a similar project of their own?


I think it's reasonably safe to say that a certain other company now has a rather large bulk of whining and complaining about their piss-poor service and response plastered all over the internet. Probably not the best pitch to potential customers.


Good luck ED, you sound really enthusiastic and happy about the responses you're getting from these companies- it's good to see you with your chin up and still pushing to make the Pandora a raging success.
 
Giving them a few non-working boards (plus a good reference!) sounds like a great idea to get their test/rework people up to speed quickly.
 
Hypothetically speaking, if it turns out CC had become more full of crap than ever recently and that by the time they can ship any boards again everything in germany will be already prepared and ready for production, will OPT drop CC for good and let the new company finish the last 1K boards and thereafter procceed to batch 2?
 
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