What About The Boards?


aaronson911 said:
I am pretty sure Craig means there 105 boards sitting and waiting in Dallas. If there was 1000 or 4000 finished boards I am sure we would hear about it in the status page, in the blog, a more detailed forum post. I sure the team would let us know if there were any real progress.

Don't forget, I'm the one changing the status page :)
I only can change what I do know already and as I'm not in permanent contact with everyone, it could take a few days until I do know that.

My guess is that those 4000 EMPTY boards are ready and lying around in Dallas, waiting for the cases as then assembly of the boards AND the final Pandoras will take place at once :)

Basically, what an assembly company does for assembling a device is one long chain.
At the start of the chain, there are all basic parts (boards, cases, etc.).
The machine assembles the boards, then they come out and will be assembled into the cases by human beings.

An assembly company doesn't usually do half of the work one week and the rest later, they set everything up and the product will be completed at once.
 
Last edited:
aaronson911 said:
I am pretty sure Craig means there 105 boards sitting and waiting in Dallas. If there was 1000 or 4000 finished boards I am sure we would hear about it in the status page, in the blog, a more detailed forum post. I sure the team would let us know if there were any real progress.
No, MWeston has 100 boards. Developers have 5. The other 3895 are obviously in Dallas.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
calc84maniac said:
No, MWeston has 100 boards. Developers have 5. The other 3895 are obviously in Dallas in another castle.
;)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
All 4000 boards have not been populated yet. It actually becomes an issue with storage to have so many boards sitting built all at once. They have to be kept somewhere which tends to be awkward because boards must sit in ESD safe trays on grounded carts (remember that picture of the 80/105?). Issues with humidity control are important because parts are no longer sitting in sealed bags, although they are already soldered so it is more of a general storage thing. Craig meant that absolutely everything is ready to go, absolutely every part is sitting at the facility, things are being tested carefully and slowly still, the build process is understood...umm I don't know what else to add so I don't read the next 10 pages about how the sky is falling. :) There is merit in being vague, but I'll take the chance anyway.

Some continuing issues with alignment or fit in the test jig back in December held things up slightly. The Christmas holiday/New Year didn't help past the 24th either. The New Year has things running again and it's obvious now the PCBs are not the bottleneck. Damn plastics company. <grumble grumble>

Before any arm chair engineers pop in, please be aware that building the boards is a well understood process at this point and done very quickly. The pick and place machine can jam them out as quickly as you can keep the reels loaded. The boards are being built in batches according to how fast they can be tested. Currently that is going to stay at about 450-500 at a time. The process is to build 500, get them into testing and build the next 500 while the first ones are being tested. Once cases are available, the third parallel step will be to have a batch of 500 being assembled while a previous set is in testing and another new set is being populated.

All 4000+ antenna boards and LCD cables have been assembled and inspected. Building and testing will continue throughout January and be ready for the cases. As usual, I have to fear the backlash from misunderstanding my words and I have to read over what I type 10 times before posting it but keep in mind that most of you don't and aren't expected to truly understand this process. Things are progressing in the natural fashion a small run (by any big company's standards) like this should be done. When the cases show up, this parallel process will fall right into place and pump out shipments at a steady and predictable rate that has been expected from day one. We can't build and ship all 4000 in a day or even a week but it will be done as quickly as possible.

Some people talk about how we should spare no expense to get these done sooner and we agree. I might bring my wife to Texas to help with the labour in order to get more done sooner and I'll probably spend 12-15 hours a day on the floor building these bad boys (if they will let me) to get them to you all as fast as humanly possible. It's going to be an exhaustive and miserable process, but that's not for any paying customer to care about. :)

I have created a well documented assembly manual for the Pandora which contains several parallel processes that can be set up as stations. There are six sub stations and two main stations. The main stations (assembly of lid and assembly of base) require the most staff in order to crank them out faster. The sub stations require one person each (could be more if there are people) and are monotonous (ie. trim and solder speaker wires, apply copper tape, etc.). They could also be combined into more tasks and fewer stations. Hopefully this helps people understand that no news on the forum does not mean nothing is happening. It has never stopped being a lot of work behind the scenes.
 
aaronson911 said:
Hey I have a question if you are still around. Read somewhere that 1000 boards where ordered. When was this order changed from 1000 to 4000? And when was it completed if you don’t mind me asking. Was this in the forums somewhere and I just missed it?
It was always 4000. The 1000 was the cases. That factory has a minimum 10000 order, but they were hoping the factory would be able to do 1000 and send them, rather than wait for the full 10000 to be completed.

edit: speaking as someone who vaguely remembers stuff sometimes, not as someone of any official capacity, of course.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
MWeston said:
Some people talk about how we should spare no expense to get these done sooner and we agree. I might bring my wife to Texas to help with the labour in order to get more done sooner and I'll probably spend 12-15 hours a day on the floor building these bad boys (if they will let me) to get them to you all as fast as humanly possible. It's going to be an exhaustive and miserable process, but that's not for any paying customer to care about. :)

Yes it is - assembled Pandoras by the creator himself :D
That's one of the coolest gadgets I'd want to get :)
 
Last edited:
I appreciate such a detailed post MWeston, trying to understand the process and what's going on is all I want.

As you say, it's a shame that the cases are what we're waiting for but lets just hope this time the 15th Jan is perfect.

I'm thankful that you're so dedicated to this and thank you for all the time you have and will put into this.
 
So in other words you'll have the assembly process in a pipeline. :D Make sure you have branch prediction on though
 
MWeston said:
All 4000 boards have not been populated yet. It actually becomes an issue with storage to have so many boards sitting built all at once. They have to be kept somewhere which tends to be awkward because boards must sit in ESD safe trays on grounded carts (remember that picture of the 80/105?). Issues with humidity control are important because parts are no longer sitting in sealed bags, although they are already soldered so it is more of a general storage thing. Craig meant that absolutely everything is ready to go, absolutely every part is sitting at the facility, things are being tested carefully and slowly still, the build process is understood...umm I don't know what else to add so I don't read the next 10 pages about how the sky is falling. :) There is merit in being vague, but I'll take the chance anyway.

Some continuing issues with alignment or fit in the test jig back in December held things up slightly. The Christmas holiday/New Year didn't help past the 24th either. The New Year has things running again and it's obvious now the PCBs are not the bottleneck. Damn plastics company. <grumble grumble>

Before any arm chair engineers pop in, please be aware that building the boards is a well understood process at this point and done very quickly. The pick and place machine can jam them out as quickly as you can keep the reels loaded. The boards are being built in batches according to how fast they can be tested. Currently that is going to stay at about 450-500 at a time. The process is to build 500, get them into testing and build the next 500 while the first ones are being tested. Once cases are available, the third parallel step will be to have a batch of 500 being assembled while a previous set is in testing and another new set is being populated.

All 4000+ antenna boards and LCD cables have been assembled and inspected. Building and testing will continue throughout January and be ready for the cases. As usual, I have to fear the backlash from misunderstanding my words and I have to read over what I type 10 times before posting it but keep in mind that most of you don't and aren't expected to truly understand this process. Things are progressing in the natural fashion a small run (by any big company's standards) like this should be done. When the cases show up, this parallel process will fall right into place and pump out shipments at a steady and predictable rate that has been expected from day one. We can't build and ship all 4000 in a day or even a week but it will be done as quickly as possible.

Some people talk about how we should spare no expense to get these done sooner and we agree. I might bring my wife to Texas to help with the labour in order to get more done sooner and I'll probably spend 12-15 hours a day on the floor building these bad boys (if they will let me) to get them to you all as fast as humanly possible. It's going to be an exhaustive and miserable process, but that's not for any paying customer to care about. :)

I have created a well documented assembly manual for the Pandora which contains several parallel processes that can be set up as stations. There are six sub stations and two main stations. The main stations (assembly of lid and assembly of base) require the most staff in order to crank them out faster. The sub stations require one person each (could be more if there are people) and are monotonous (ie. trim and solder speaker wires, apply copper tape, etc.). They could also be combined into more tasks and fewer stations. Hopefully this helps people understand that no news on the forum does not mean nothing is happening. It has never stopped being a lot of work behind the scenes.

Thanks, Michael. Awesome, post with great detail.

Much appreciated. :)

Now I don't know what I'm going to do between now and the 15th January '10.

* sits in corner of room shivering, whilst repeating the line, "the 15th couldn't come any sooner" *
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Thanks for the very detailed post MW, now we should all understand the process better :)

I also like the fact that you are doing proper testing of all the boards, I was a bit concerned about that.
 
"Another two months (TM)" has become "another two weeks". Two weeks until the cases are ready, two weeks of shipping, two weeks of assembly... We are ceartainly getting closer and closer...
 
XD as long as it doesnt work as a limit.

limit t->0 {2*t} : 0<t<week<month<year;
 
Many thanks for your post ED, which was somewhat illuminating, but the one that followed by MW was pure gold IMHO, glarifying and adding extra detail...

MWeston said:
umm I don't know what else to add so I don't read the next 10 pages about how the sky is falling. :) There is merit in being vague, but I'll take the chance anyway.

I think your post was, as is often the case, very informative. Full of data and apparently BS free, just like I like 'em! We'll generally have to agree to disagree on the benefits of being vague, although I understand that I am not everybody.

MWeston said:
The boards are being built in batches according to how fast they can be tested. Currently that is going to stay at about 450-500 at a time.

etc. Excellent :)

MWeston said:
As usual, I have to fear the backlash from misunderstanding my words and I have to read over what I type 10 times before posting it but keep in mind that most of you don't and aren't expected to truly understand this process.

I'd like to disagree about the backlash. I really would. I most strenuously wish I didn't know what you were talking about... but I also have to say that clarity like that post has to - HAS TO - have a far reduced prospect for confusion and backlash than vague comments that are open to interpretation (please - let it be so! LOL). As for understanding - I suspect a lot of people will be able to easily follow the layman's phrasing that you're using, no worries :)

MWeston said:
I have created a well documented assembly manual for the Pandora which contains several parallel processes that can be set up as stations. There are six sub stations and two main stations. The main stations (assembly of lid and assembly of base) require the most staff in order to crank them out faster. The sub stations require one person each (could be more if there are people) and are monotonous (ie. trim and solder speaker wires, apply copper tape, etc.). They could also be combined into more tasks and fewer stations. Hopefully this helps people understand that no news on the forum does not mean nothing is happening. It has never stopped being a lot of work behind the scenes.

That's inteesting - that in itself might be a fun thing. Keep the original handy so yo can produce an after-market copy for modders and repairers, eh?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Back
Top