Pi PoE Switch is in the air!
almost 9 years ago – Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 11:39:22 PM

Hi all,

Just a quick one to let you know that we received notification from our manufacturer that the first 1000 boards have been shipped out this Monday 18th Jan!

Current delivery estimate is showing Friday/Monday. As soon as the boards have arrived we will commence shipping immediately and we hope to be finished shipping all backer rewards by the end of next week. If they do arrive Friday/Monday as showing on the tracking currently, we expect to be able to ship all backer pledges by Wednesday 27th or Thursday 28th Jan.

The shipping and customs labels are all already printed and waiting so we can hit the ground running once the shipment arrives.

Thanks,
Aaron and the Pi Supply team

Manufacture well underway. Expected shipping date
almost 9 years ago – Tue, Jan 05, 2016 at 05:39:51 PM

Dear Backers,

Just a quick update to let you know that the manufacture is well underway. 1000 EEPROM and Atmel chips have been fully programmed and assembly on these first 1000 PCBs will commence tomorrow morning in China (only a few hours away actually).

After that, the boards will need to be packaged into their protective boxes and then shipped over to us in the UK.

We have asked them to finish the first 1000 as quickly as possible as this is enough to cover all of the Kickstarter rewards and then will send the remaining 1000 units later on.

The factory are expecting to have finished these first 1000 Monday or Tuesday of next week so we are hoping to have received them here by the end of the following week (22nd Jan) at the very latest (hopefully it should be sooner than this if everything goes to plan!).

As soon as the boards arrive in our warehouse we will ship as many of the boards as we can the same day. We already have all the shipping labels prepared and ready to ship and there is no further processing to do once the stock arrives with us other than just sticking them in jiffy bags and getting them on their way to you!

We are very much looking forward to beginning shipping and finishing this Kickstarter campaign and seeing what you create :-)

Thanks for your patience,
Aaron and the Pi Supply team

Progress, and Merry Christmas!
almost 9 years ago – Thu, Dec 24, 2015 at 03:47:32 AM

Hi all,

The PCB manufacture is now well underway and the programming of the EEPROM and Atmega chips are being done simultaneously so they are ready for assembly once the PCBs are finished.

The packaging, mounting hardware, labels, stickers and all the components are all already in house and ready to go for assembly as soon as they are needed.

The last piece of the puzzle in terms of components were the ethernet cables, and they arrived into the manufacturers warehouse yesterday (sorry for the terrible photo!):

We have discussed potential completion dates with the factory and they think they can be finished with all 2000 units around the first Monday in January (4th Jan). They are really busy around this time of year, in the lead up to Chinese new year at the end of January but they are aware of the urgency and the delays already experienced so are doing their best to help us out to get these out of the door as quickly as possible.

Pi Zero?

The Pi Zero is an amazing development in cheap computing, and we were absolutely delighted with it! We are looking into the possibility of adding an ethernet port and PoE to the Pi Zero and whether we can actually fit all of the parts onto such a small board (some of the parts are pretty big)...if we can, it might prove to be a pretty cool little product.

We will let you know if we make any progress on that!

Additionally, as the Pi Zero is pin compatible the full size Pi PoE Switch v2.5 will definitely work out of the box with the Pi Zero.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

We just wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you for all your support in 2015. We have experienced some unfortunate delays on this project and it has been great to have such an enthusiastic group of backers behind us. We are glad to be coming to the end of this project and we are really looking forward to getting these shipped to you in the next couple of weeks and seeing what you create with our boards (as I am sure are you). 

If you celebrate Christmas - have a great one. If you don't - have a great one anyway :-)

Here's to 2016! 

Thanks for your support,
Aaron and the Pi Supply team

Problems fixed, production starting tomorrow!
almost 9 years ago – Wed, Dec 16, 2015 at 11:00:37 PM

Hi all,

Just another quick one to let you know that we have found no further problems with the 20 sample boards.

For those of you interested, the culprit of the problem we mentioned the other day are two bridge rectifiers on the bottom of the board (D2 and D4 in the pictures below) as they were positioned incorrectly on the boards.

The good news is that this is only a minor problem - a flaw in the manufacturing process rather than in the design itself.

So we are delighted to announce that we have instructed the factory to begin the full manufacture first thing tomorrow (which is actually in only a few hours in China). We have also obviously made it very clear that they can't repeat the mistake they made on the samples on the full run.

Due to the problems, we are now obviously not going to receive the boards before Christmas however should be receiving them in the first week of January and will begin shipping as soon as they arrive.

More updates as we have them - we are on the home stretch now!

All the best,
Aaron and the Pi Supply team

Samples arrived, testing underway, small problem
almost 9 years ago – Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 09:45:04 PM

Hi all,

Just a quick update to let you know that we received the samples yesterday and have been testing them since.

We have identified a small problem today where the factory have assembled some diodes the incorrect way around. We will be fixing this issue tomorrow and then performing further tests to ensure everthing else is correct.

This is only a minor issue which the factory have already been informed about. So as long as no other problems are identified we should be ready to start full manufacture this week.

Thanks,

Aaron and the Pi Supply team