Production Update

February is almost over! Production of the DATA is progressing, though unfortunately, as is often the case the first time around, it is taking longer than we’d planned…  

Our new target for shipping is by the end of March. When we ship we'll be sending out individual email notifications to those who pre-ordered; shipping will occur sequentially in the order the pre-order reservation was received. Order numbering started at #0100, so if you are order number #0166, your DATA will be the 66th unit produced and sent out.

If your shipping address has changed since you placed your pre-order, please send us a message and let us know. Some folks have already contacted us about this; there’s no need to message again if you already have notified us of your new address or other shipping needs and have made note in our log.

DATA Production - Current Status:

• We spoke with our faceplate manufacturer yesterday and got an update; all of the faceplates have been laser cut now and the powder coat and silkscreen graphics are pending. The estimated time for completion of these is the first or second week of March.
• Originally we had planned to mount the display brackets (and boards/standoffs) to the faceplates with rivets, but after doing some more manufacturing research we discovered structural adhesives, which are often used in auto manufacturing in the place of welding for metal/metal and plastic/metal bonds. After acquiring all the application equipment, we CNC'd new brackets and conducted the mount tests last month; it has an amazingly strong bond to the powder coated finish, which passed all of our initial testing, including our thermal extreme stress tests (freeze/oven). 3M claims it’s stronger than steel rivets; we’ll have to do some destructive tests soon to see just how far you can push this stuff.
• Production PCBs are almost ready! One thing that set us back in our timeline was Chinese New Year, for which our board house (based in Shenzhen) was closed for the majority of February; a good lesson for us, now we know to keep informed on the holidays overseas! Luckily, our manufacturing partner in Portland that is handling the SMD population quoted us 2 days for populating the entire run of boards (their machine can place upwards of 30,000 parts per hour, such a crazy device!). Through-hole population and test/inspection is estimated to take a week or two after that.
• Most of our specialized parts (display screens, MCUs, etc.) have come in, still waiting on a couple more.

Thank you for your support with the pre-order and for your patience as we work our way through the first round of production; we promise it will be worth the wait  ; )

DATA Brains! (ARM MCUs)

Display mounting bracket test